Haltech 1500 Elite Trigger Setup

Hi,

We have recently built a 2 litre Turbo Alfa Romeo Nord engine.

We have changed the computer to a 1500 Elite and rewired it with the Haltech Supplied Harness.

Originally the car used a Distributor with 2 Crank angle Triggers 180° from each other. We have changed to direct fire with LS1 Coils.

Do we need a cam angle sensor to work with this configuration?

Steven,

First, your project looks awesome.

Direct fire requires knowing crank position, and where TDC compression stroke of cylinder 1 is, and what you have now sounds like it probably can't tell you both.

I'm not familiar with that particular engine. Does the distributor rotate once or 1/2 rotation per crank revolution on that engine?

When it's 1/2, I've used a single tooth pickup for cam sync, then added a crank trigger disc and sensor for crank position.

Hi Mike,

Thanks,

At the moment it only has the crank sensor. The Distributor drive has been taken out (it was also the old oil drive we changed to a dry sump). We thought it would be better going to direct fire and overlooked using the distributor drive.

The new oil pump pulley spins at exactly half the speed of the engine so we have thought about using that with a cam sensor.

The old distributor drive did spin at 1/2 rotation per crank revolution.

If you're talking about a pulley that's belt driven then I wouldn't count on it for this, but if it's direct driven like the distributor drive was then that could work.

It is belt driven. we have been looking at other alternatives as our distributor drive has been removed. if it can be a single tooth pick up can we put 2 pickups on the flywheel and tell the computer there is 1?

Why 2 on the flywheel?

Simple cam sync would be 1 tooth on a cam or cam gear, or something driven at 1/2 crank speed, so 1 tooth would be found per 2 crank revs. This allows you to provide an offset and let the ECU know when TDC occurs on the compression stroke specifically, on cylinder 1, which occurs once every 2 crank revolutions.

If you put 2 pickups on the flywheel, you'd be giving the ECU 4 pulses per cylinder 1 compression stroke rather than 1, and the ECU couldn't know when the compression stroke is actually occurring.

one correct pulse followed by an incorrect one, which would be quite bad when direct firing, and would defeat the purpose of having cam sync. The purpose is to let the ECU know when cylinder 1 is on the compression stroke, and with 2 opposing teeth you'd be telling it when compression is, then when exhaust is, but the ECU would see both as compression.

Yeah I see the problem I was thinking about it backwards. We may just have to modify the tappet cover to get a cam sensor running off the front of the cam. Thanks

You're welcome!