Install InVIRONMENT Circuit 1/3

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Major System Category: ISIS Wiring
Task: Interface ISIS inVIRONMENT module
Parts:

1. ISIS inVIRONMENT kit (controller, wiring harness, wire splices).
2. Vintage Air Power and ECU Harness
3. Vintage Air ECU

Power Cell: 1
Circuit: 3 - LIGHT GREEN
Master cell: WHITE/GREEN
Prerequisite Tasks: Vintage Air Gen IV installed
Additional Costs: $435
Time Requirement: 6 hours (It should only take 2 - 3 hours)
Date Started: April 14, 2013
Date Completed: April 20, 2013

The inVIRONMENT Controller kit is designed to provide absolute control of the Vintage Air Gen IV HVAC system via the inTOUCH MAX touch screen control system. If you have gotten to this page, then you have committed to the following:

1. Microprocessor controlled power system.
2. Jettisoned the Factory Five kit's Painless Wiring Kit.
3. Purchased the optional Air Conditioning Unit.
4. Probably have figured (albeit too late) that the evaporator should be installed first. 
5. Committed to the entire ISIS concept.

inVIRONMENT kit: The green cables are the ISIS data bus cables, other cable pack interface to the Vintage Air ECU, a packet of butt splice and heat shrink wrap, controller module.

I used bolts to secure the top cover above the evaporator unit. When it became obvious I needed to get back into the area, I unbolted the cover and slid the vent hoses through the access slots.I also had to disconnect the front parking sensors.

14 pin Vintage Air connector from the harness to the Vintage Air ECU.

The Vintage Air Gen IV ECU has two ports: a 14 pin port for the Vintage Air harness and a 12 pin port that the ISIS harness can plug into. The first problem is the ECU is secured by a metal bracket and the ports are jammed up against the passenger foot well inner wall. I didn't like this because it forces the wires on both harnesses to be bent in order to fit. I pried off the metal bracket holding the ECU in place and repositioned it at a 45 degree angle. I used automotive goop to secure it to the top of the evaporator unit. This allows the harnesses to easily be plugged in and out.

ISIS Photo. This shows the Vinyage Air ECU with both cables attached. The left cable is the 14 pin  Vintage Air harness. The right cable is the 12 pin ISIS cable. You can see the metal bracket that holds the ECU in place.

The Vintage Air harness is pretty stiff. This harness has two relays: one for the heater control valve and one for the AC compressor.I fabricated a acrylic mounting plate and riveted the relays to the plate. I fed the stiff wires for the ECU harness into the space above the evaporator unit. These are the portion of the harness that plugs into the power and ECU ports. I dug up the Vraptor stereo close out panel and put in place. I needed to ensure there was room to mount the relay blocks below the panel. I mounted using epoxy about an inch below the close out panel on a vertical chassis member.

Modified location of the Vintage Air ECU above the evaporator unit. It is at a 45 degree angle and the bracket is discarded. Orientation: left side is towards front. Top is the passenger side foot well wall. I secured the Vintage Air ECU with Automotive Goop.

The ISIS instructions direct you to do following:

1. Plug the 12 pin connector into the Vintage Air ECU.
2. Plug the 4 pin connector into the power/ground port on the inVIRONMENT controller.
3. Plug the 5 pin connector into the output port on the inVIRONMENT controller.
4. Splice the purple wire from the Vintage Air ECU into the ignition circuit. In my case, this circuit 1/3 from power cell #1.

This is the main data cable for the ISIS system. I have exposed the 7 wires in the cable. The red and white positive and negative terminal cables are running in the blue wire loom. This is hanging loose until a install the battery (sometime in late summer 2014).

This is all straight forward, although, it took me a while to get to this point. The final step is to splice the data bus cable from the inVIRONMENT controller into the main data bus cable that enables the master cell to communicate to the power cells. This is where things got interesting.

These are the relays on the Vintage Air Harness. I riveted them to a clear  acrylic square. This  does two things. It makes it easy to handle the relays, and it ensures I don't have directly attach them, to the chassis. This is a really cheap and easy way to handle things like this.

The data bus cable runs from power cell #1 to power cell #2 inside the tunnel. Therefore, it goes right past the evaporator unit. I cranked the car up on the lift, find the data bus cable and expose the 7 wires inside. I have 2 white, 2 light blue, 2 light green and a violet wire. The instructions direct you to splice blue to blue, green to green and black to black. Uh-oh - no black. On top of that that, ISIS is a rigidly color coded system. Time for a email to tech support (it was around 10 PM, dark, cold and snowing again!!!). Actually this turned into 3 or 4 emails to tech support. They're probably rolling their eyes, but the inVIRONMENT kit costs $400+ and the entire ISIS set up is going to run north of $5000. I figure I'm entitled to a couple dumb user emails.

Spliced violet wire to the ignition wire  circuit. This how the ECU and controller receive power. 

Jay Harris answered questions, provided a PDF technical document on how the main data bus is wired. I don't think I waited more than four hours for any response. The guy never sleeps! ISIS is worth  every penny when you have that kind of support! The answer is to go back to a power cell, unclip the yellow data bus connector and open her up. The yellow connect is secured by two little ears. Be careful not to snap one of these off. Inside the connector are the 7 wires that are wired into the 8 pin (RJ45 looking connector). Inscribed inside the connector is B1 and B8. The wires are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 on top (the B1 row) and 5, 6, 7, 8 on bottom (the B8 row).

ISIS documentation. This shows the lay out of the wires in the ISIS data cable. 

Decode this as follows:

1. Pin 5 is black (violet on my cable).
2. Pin 6 is green (white on my cable)
3. pin 7 is blue (light green on my cable)
4. pin 8 (light blue on my cable)

These wires are part of the Vintage Air Harness. Blue goes to the AC Compressor and Green runs to the heater control valve/

I am really glad I stopped, because had I blundered ahead, I would have wired this up wrong.

I spliced the data bus cables together. I used wire loom to protect the inVIRONMENT data bus and snaked this down the passenger side between the foot well wall and the evaporator unit, then ran it along side the drain tube until I reached the main data bus cable.

ISIS inVIRONMENT controller mounted with double sided tape above the evaporator unit. There is room in this area to hide things. I also have a 2 inch PVC conduit running between the passenger and driver side for wires. As you can see I use wire loom to protect everything. There is plenty supplied with the kit, but if you are running lots of circuits, you will run out. I found the best deal is at Harbor Freight.

The final touches:

1. The Vintage Air blue and green wires (heater control valve and AC Compressor) are loomed to together and run out the back of the tunnel.
2. The Vintage Air red and white wires (there are 2 white wires) are loomed together and run to the battery (not installed yet). There is a 30 amp fuse block that needs to be mounted, but I want to connect things up to the battery first. 

Steering Column Wiring - signals, lights and horn

<< Mount Master and Power Cells                                  Intellitronix Create-A-Dash >>

Major System Category: ISIS Wiring
Task: Wire up head lights
Parts: Kit wiring
Circuits: 1/1, 2/1, 1/2, 2/2, 4/9, 1/9, 1/5, 1/7
Prerequisite Tasks: Master cell must be mounted, steering column must be installed
Additional Costs: N/A
Time Requirement: 4 - 5 hours
Date Started: April 7, 2013
Date Completed: April 8 2013

I have been operating from my final wiring diagram. This is the wiring bible. If I divert from this, I had better have a good reason. Once I had this finalized, I began working on wiring components (e.g. head lights, signals) to Power Cell #1. Power Cell #1 primarily deals with items under the front hood. Power cell #2 supports components inside the hatch. Everything connects to the master cell via a data bus. The Master Cell is mounted under the passenger dash board and wires are snaked through a conduit above the AC unit.

I had to get serious about organizing the A and B cable bundles on the Master Cell. This is on a hinge that drops down (as pictured) below the passenger side dash board. The AC blower motor is cover in yellow plastic behind the master cell. There is a 2 inch conduit I installed to allow cables to easily move from the master cell to the area uder the driver's side dash board.

The biggest change in mind set for wiring is to realize that the control stalk on the side of steering is nothing more than a switch. The heavy power consumption for conventional wiring (i.e the head light signal relays) are managed by ISIS. These concerns go away. All that needs to be done is to wire the harness for lights, signals and horn to the signal wires that correspond to the circuits. This is still a fair amount of work, but this eliminates the need for in line fuses. 

I separated the cable bundles into their color groupings. Each grouping corresponds to the circuits for  either the A or B connector on a power cell. Everything is color coded, so if you get lost or a tag comes off you can refer to the master list and figure out what's happening. ISIS is expensive, but Jay Harris and the boys have done a great job of thinking things through.

This is the blue plug on the steering column. The first thing I did was extend the wires on the plug. This provides some room for error and slack on the electrical line. I added approximately 1 foot to each of the leads coming off the plug. It is a little hard to read, but each pin on the plug is identified by a letter. For the most part, just follow the chart provided in the build manual, and recognize that in my case I am wiring to ISIS not the Painless Wiring Harness. There are some changes to how this works.

This is splice between the extending wires from the steering column and one of the ISIS master cell wires. I have been pretty good about applying heat shrink to the splice, then wrapping in black electrical tape.

On my plug there were two wires for high beams coming out of pin K. I wired both of them to my extension wire. Next I sorted the Master Cell wiring harness by color groups. Next I selected the 8 signal wires corresponding to the circuits and separated them. These I pushed (from the Master Cell) through the conduit (to the steering column). The manual indicates that pins X, Y and Z need to wired to the battery positive. For ISIS, these are wired to ground.

Component	Power Cell / Circuit	Master Cell Wire	Blue Plug Pin
Right Signal	1/1	White – Black	B
	2/1	Yellow – Black	B
Left Signal;	1/2	White – Red	C
	2/2	Yellow – Red	C
Dash / Parking	4/9	Light Blue – Yellow	R
Horn	1/9	Blue – Yellow	V
Low Beam	1/5	White – Green	L
Hi Beam	1/7	Blue – Red	K
Ground			N, W, X, Z

This photo isn't the best, but it shows the blue plug on the steering column with extended cables .

Emergency Brake and Cables

<< Rear suspension Mount to Chassis        Initial Measurements and Mounting >>
<< Tunnel Floor and Venting

Major System Category: Brakes & Suspension
Task: Connecting the parking brake
Parts: Linear actuator, 2 relays, 3 position switch
Prerequisite Tasks:
Additional Costs: $100
Time Requirement: 4 - 5 hours
Date Started: April 5, 2013
Date Completed:
I have a search bot on Ebay that looks for GTMs that go up for sale/auction. One such car recently hit the market, and it listed electronic brakes. (Really?) So I did some research, and there are a number of variants on this idea. One of the great things about the GTM community, you can write a total stranger and they'll send you a quick answer. I wrote the seller and asked him how he set it up.

This is a 2 inch linear actuator. The arm extends to the left in this photo. The arm is currently contracted. These are readily available on Ebay. 

I do not like the mechanical parking brake for the following reasons:

1. It looks out of place.
2. It clutters the center console.
3. It will eventually wear the leather interior.

This is the connector mounted to the brake cable. This is from Corvette brake system. I decided to use these rather than let the cables dangle.

The parking brake is basically two cables running from each of the hubs in the rear, to the Corvette bracket (situated roughly at the mouth of the tunnel). The lever in the cockpit area is a single cable that runs to the connector box. When the parking lever is pulled tight it retracts the cables and forces the brakes to lock on the hub. When it is released, these cables relax.

This is the brake cable bolted in place on the underside of the car. This is on the drivers side  between the suspension/splash guards and the engine bay.

The cables for the E Brake have been tied off on the back end of the car for months. However, now that I have a transaxle on order it is time to get this task finished. During my three month hiatus in Myrtle Beach, I ordered a 2 inch linear actuator. This piece replaces the lever hand brake.

This is the mounting bracket and a wire clamp. The mounting bracket is a universal mount for actuators. it costs about $5. The wire clamp is there to further support the arm. Behind this is camper tape to dampen vibration and ,metal to metal contact. At the top of the photo is one of the radiator hard lines. It is wrapped in same stuff used to wrapped exhaust headers. This location is at the very bottom of the tunnel just behind the section of the tunnel where the Vintage HVAC is located.

I checked out other build sites and found that most people let the parking brake cables dangle a bit under the car. I really don't like that idea. I routed the cables so they did not interfere with the rear suspension, then used the brackets to bolt the cables in place under the car. I ran the rest to the mouth of the tunnel and positioned the Corvette bracket. This looks like it was secured by 2 rivets and some epoxy. I grounded off the old epoxy resin and prepped everything with two holes for the rivets.

The linear actuator mounted on the bracket and the wire clamp zipped tied for support.

I ran the cable that used to attach to the lever brake straight and found that it runs a little bit past the location of the shifter mount inside the tunnel. I removed the tunnel floor. It only took about 10 minutes with a right hand drill. So I verified that my modification for access into the tunnel from under the car works! I mounted the brackets and the linear actuator sideways just above the tunnel floor and below the radiator hard lines. I used camper tape (same as I did for thee fuel tanks) to eliminate metal to metal contact.

This is the center undercarriage panel. I have added camper tape here as well to eliminate metal to metal contact. It isn't elegant, but it will work.

The final touch is connecting the cable to the actuator arm. This proved to be an easy task. The Corvette has a metal hub at the end of the cable. It was simple batter of using a cotter pin to capture the cable and thread the pin through the actuator arm.

The brake cable is connected to the extended actuator arm with a cotter pin. This is a simple and elegant solution that does not permanently modify the Corvette part.

This is the Corvette E brake bracket It is mounted on the cross member  the splits the tunnel from the engine bay. It secured by 2 rivets and epoxy.

Horn - Circuit 1/9

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Major System Category: ISIS Wiring
Task: Mount Horn.
Parts: Horn and ISI wiring
Power Cell: 1
Circuit: 9 - ORANGE
Master cell: BLUE/YELLOW
Prerequisite Tasks: Mount Power Cells
Additional Costs: N/A
Time Requirement: 2 hours
Date Started: March 30, 2013
Date Completed: March 30, 2013

Anybody who has stuck their head under the front hood of the GTM realizes that space is a premium commodity. Since I moved the header tank to the engine compartment, moved the window washer fluid bottle to the passenger side, mounted the ISIS power cells on the center panel above the cooling fans and plan to mount the Escort 9500 radar/laser detectors behind the grill on the reinforced area below the radiator, I needed to find a home for the horns.

This is the bracket I fabricated to hold the horns. It is bolted to one of the eyelets for the Corvette overflow tank. This was replaced by the header tank.

I ended up mounting the horn on the passenger side ahead of the wiper motor and window washer fluid bottle. This is where the Corvette overflow tank is normally installed. However, I have replaced the overflow tank with a header tank mounted above the fuel pump behind the fuel tanks in the engine bay to eliminate the issue of "burping" the coolant system.

These are the mounted horns on the passenger side just forward on the middle panel. The horn is bolted to the bracket that is bolted tot he frame. The pig tail connector has the extended wires attached. The green one is connected tot he power lead coming off the power cell and the black will be attached to the forward passenger side ground point.

I fashioned a bracket out of angle aluminum so I could use the the eyelet on the frame for the overflow tank to secure the horns.This uses the Corvette bracket that comes with the horns. I ensured the hood and the Vraptor hood louvers had sufficient clearance. These louvers drop into the hood area approximately 1 to 1.5 inches.

I extended the pig tail connectors so I could reach the front grounding point, and connect to the horn circuit. I did the normal butt splice, cover in heat shrink insulator and wrap in black electrical tape.