Terminator X Install

Parts list:

Holley Part Numbers

#550-909

Terminator x 24x/1 ev6 Ls1/LS6 MPFI Kit with Handheld


#558-416

LS Main Harness to LS3 Style Map Sensor Adapter


#558-446

100 PSI Pressure Sensor

#558-465

EFI CAN Splitter


#558-443

Can To USB Dongle



Current Performance Crank Position Sensor Splitter

Part# CKP-Split

ICT Billet Oil Sending unit adapter

Part# 551534

Rockford Fosgate Battery post extender

Part# RFDGM


In today’s climate of modified hotrods there is a host of options on how to control your engine, from tuning your factory ECM to full standalone operating systems. Today we are looking at what it takes to run a LS1 engine in a fourth gen F-body 1998-02 while maintaining your factory gauges.

To start let’s look at some of the features of the Terminator-X

· Features:On-Board Diagnostic LEDS for: ECU Power – Engine Run – Wideband Status – TPS Calibration – Crank Signal – Cam Signal. Allow you to identify any Critical engine issues at a glance

· Built in 1bar MAP Sensor, vacuum hose adapters included (1/8th – Ό and 3/16ths) - or for Boosted applications, you can disable the internal MAP sensor, and utilize an external MAP Sensor, the harness comes with the connector terminated, making the installation a snap.

· 4 Inputs – 12v, Ground, 5v, and Frequency, for things such as additional pressure sensors, or activation triggers for nitrous activation, or a trans brake (Fuel and Oil Pressure Inputs are pre-terminated)

· 4 Outputs – Ground, PWM - , for accessories such as; fans, boost control, nitrous control, IAC Kit, and More

· Boost Control – Boost vs Time, Boost vs Gear, Boost vs RPM, Boost vs Speed, Boost Safeties

· Nitrous Control – Single Channel of Wet or Dry, Progressive or Non-Progressive, Rich/Lean Safeties, and target Closed Loop AFR

· Advanced Tables – 4x 1D Tables, 1x 1D per Gear Table, 4x 2D Tables, 1x 2D per Gear Table

· Integrated Data logging to the 3.5” Handheld SD Card

· Free EFI Tuning Software for complete control of your Terminator X power plant


We ordered the Holley #550-909

Terminator x 24x/1 ev6 Ls1/LS6 MPFI Kit with Handheld

This kit includes The Terminator X Control module & Touch Screen Controller shown below

Along with Standalone plug and play wiring Harness


To start the install you want to layout where the Terminator X is going to be mounted. The directions suggest that the unit should be installed in the cab but if you choose it can also be mounted in the engine bay. We chose to go for mounting the unit in the glove box for a clean easy to access mounting point while maintaining the factory look when the glovebox is closed.

Once the mounting location is determined, it is necessary to find an existing hole through the firewall or drill a new one for the wiring harness to pass into the engine bay. We chose to pull the factory ecm out and route our new harness as close to the factory routing as we could without disturbing other wiring. With the use of a 2-1/4” hole saw and a long extension on our drill we were able to get through the fire wall and start pulling the harness through, the 2-1/4” hole made it necessary to push the large connectors on the harness through one at a time.

A 1-1/2” and 1-3/4” hole saw was used in the back plastic of the glovebox to allow the harness to pass through the glovebox to the firewall.

Once the harness is out into the engine bay it was time to start routing the harness to its perspective locations.
The harness itself is labeled so you know where that connection needs to go.

We chose to extend the Head grounds to run to the front of the cylinder heads since we were leaving some of the factory wiring installed.

Once we routed the wiring harness close to its final resting place we chose to start the process of removing the unneeded factory wiring that is replaced by the Terminator Harness. This was not required but we felt it would provide a cleaner install without having to tuck the factory harness out of the way somewhere in an already crowded engine bay. All of the factory Fuel injector, coil pack wiring, IAC, TPS and IAT wiring was removed by tracing each wire in the harness back to the ecm connector and un-pinning those wires from the Red and Blue ecm connectors. With wanting to keep the factory Gauges functional in the F-Body we used a current performance crank splitter to run signal back to pin number 12 on the factory Blue ecm connector while also maintaining crank signal to the Terminator. Once all of the factory wiring was trimmed out, it was time to finish the install of the Holley and plug and play to all the sensory outputs. If you are not going to use the knock sensors you will not need to remove the intake, we chose to use them so we removed the intake to gain easy access to the knock sensor, map sensor and cam sensor. A decision was made to leave the factory wiring going to the oil-sending unit that sits at on the driver rear of the engine. We chose to use a ICT Billet oil sending unit #551534 and removed the factory sending unit cap above the oil filter, this was done to allow both the factory gauge to remain functional as well as the Terminator X get the input it needs. Keeping with the theme of having the factory gauges remaining functional we added a coolant temp sensor to the back of the passenger cylinder head to pull a reading for the factory gauge while plugging the Terminator X wiring into the normal sensor location at the front of the driver’s side cylinder head. Once all the sensory connections were routed and completed it was time to source connections for the loose wires on the harness.

The following loose wires in the main wiring harness should be connected as follows on all systems. All of these wires come out of the harness about 40” from the ECU connectors except for the “12V Switched” wire.

[Required] 12V Switched – Color = Red/White – Should be connected to a clean +12 volt power source. Power source should only be active when the ignition is on. Make sure source has power when engine is cranking as well (check with voltmeter). Not all sources apply power when the ignition switch is in “cranking” position. This wire is located approximately 7” from the ECU connectors. DO NOT connect to a “DIRTY” source like an ignition coil!

[Required] 12V Battery – Color = Red – Should be connected directly to the battery. This powers the fuel pump and fuel injectors. A fuse in a sealed fuse holder protects this wire. The fuse holder is located about 18” from the ECU connector. A fuse is pre-installed (20A).

[Optional] 12V Fuel Pump – Color = Green - Used to directly power a fuel pump (+12 volt). Do not use this wire to power fuel pumps that require over 15 Amps. Refer to your fuel pump manufacturer for amperage ratings. For high current pumps, use this wire to trigger a separate relay and use larger gauge wire to feed the pump - 10 gauge is recommended. The pump that include with TERMINATOR™ systems draws less than 10 Amps and can be powered directly by this wire. The fuel pump also requires a ground wire. Run a wire from the negative side of the fuel pump. Connect it to a solid chassis/frame ground.

[Required] Chassis Ground – Color = Black – Connect to a chassis ground point that has excellent connectivity with both the engine and battery. There must be good continuity between the connection point and the battery when checked with a digital volt ohm meter (DVOM). This ground should not be connected at the same location as other grounds.

[Optional] Tach Output – Color = Blue with white stripe – This wire provides a 12v square wave output and can be used to trigger a conventional tachometer. 12.0 ADDITIONAL OUTP


For the 12v switched source the C101 plug that would normally be on the passenger fender, (our car was wire tucked so this was re-located to the passenger wheel well). Using a test light you want to find a 12v source that is both powered when the key is on and while cranking.

The 12V Battery source needs to go straight to the battery and no exceptions!

For our ground, we chose to use a factory ground location on the passenger fender that was no longer in use by any other grounds.

We did not use the optional Fuel Pump or Tach wires, we heat shrunk the ends closed on each wire and tucked those back towards the firewall out of site.

Completed the engine bay looks relatively unaltered. The braided wire shielding that comes on the Holley harness and looks very natural in its new home. The Holley Terminator X now will control this LS Procharged Trans Am. The Terminator gives us the ability to configure the current setup from the 3.5” handheld screen or from a laptop. Allowing for easily changing the tune down the road for any future upgrades without having to buy new credits or pay for retunes for us this made going Terminator a no brainer.

 

 

Nice write up, a few people have been asking about this recently.

 

Yes well done!

 

Manual trans ? Asume you left the stock vss wiring from the trans to stock PCM ?

 

yes manual car and left the factory vss in place. The goal was to leave as much of the factory sensors in place as I could in place and let the Terminator Control fuel and spark.

 

wow, this is great, i miss this style of write up. to me its so much more useful than a stupid youtube video

 

I agree, if I don't end up sending my car to be reassembled by a shop I'll use this write up. Hopefully more people at least post tech stuff like this more often vs YouTube and Fb as I find both either lacking in info or the info gets drowned out by side banter

 

Excellant write up. I can see this landing in sticky land before long.

 

The one piece of the puzzle I had not figured out when I posted this was the tach. The 4th gen F-body tach needs to see cam signal to work. I tried splitting the signal with the Holley and that didn’t work. So what I did was use a LS2 style front cover with the cam sensor in the front, changed the cam gear and ran a separate cam signal back to the factory plug behind the intake.

Parts required to change the front cover. I used a jegs 2 pc front cover to make future cam changes easier.

Cam sensor extension

 

I am curious if you are going to leave the narrow bands in, and keep the car in OBD-II ready state? If you don't want to get into that, I understand. It's just one aspect I am interested in doing on mine. We do not have emissions on my 94 where I live, but would like to keep it available in the event I sell it. I appreciate the write up!

 

The goal is to leave the narrow bands as you described

 

Did you have to split the crank too? Or only the cam

 

yes the crank was split also.

To get the car running all that was needed was to split the crank.

To get the factory tach to work required the second cam sensor.

 

Excellent, and more importantly, COMPLETE & very EASY to understand. Awesome job, and thanks for sharing part numbers.

I keep going back & forth about doing this myself...just can't seem to commit, lol
I do have a couple Holley/Factory Hybrid questions/inquiries if you don't mind.

1.) It looks like you only deleted wiring of items that were no longer to be controlled by factory wiring (coils, injectors, tps, etc.), and kept everything else? So, I assume stock alternator exciter wire also stays? I know my son's LS swao needed an alternator/E-85 sensor harness. I also run E-85, so I "guess" I'd only need to do the wiring for the flex sensor.

2.) I know you had to spend some extra cash on converting to dual oil pressure/coolant temp sensors , and dual cam sensors, (for tach to work)...
Does EVERYTHING else still work? ie; namely, the factory cooling fan control, speedometer and gas gauge?

3.) I know you have a stick shift car, but said (or, I think you said) all VSS wiring stays intact, do you have any idea if the only other "add-on" for me to keep my current factory ECU controlling the AUTOMATIC transmission, would be a TPS "signal splitter".

I have these concerns because items I already do have, for instance, transbrake, 2 step, boost controller, are all dialed in and I would rather NOT start over, as far as re-tuning, re-learning how to set my car up, when I know it works as I want it to, right now...if that makes sense?

Like you mentioned, I'd much rather use the Holley strictly for controlling FUEL and SPARK...nothing else.
Get that dialed in to match my car's current performance, then, at some point, start dabbling with Holley's ability to control my boost, 2 step, transbrake, etc...

Thanks in advance.

 

I tried to answer your questions above.

 

Your going to have holley do transbrake and 2 step if you want it to work 100% correctly or have to do some creative tuning. When your on the transbrake and 2 step holley cuts off any CL and Learn. You can make it work but its just easier to have holley do IMO. Boost control wont matter.

 

Thank you! Appreciate it, and surely that info can help others too.

Damn. I thought there was a way to "turn off" both the CL and Learn, above a certain TPS %?

 

Really no reason not to have Holley control 2 step and boost if you are going Holley, and running a transbrake input is super simple. You can sell whatever widgets you have doing those tasks now to offset costs. Holley 2 step is free and boost control only needs a $25 solenoid.

Most people lesson the percentage of learn after the initial tuning, and you can turn it off completely. As far as turning off CL completely I'm not sure why you would want to (you can lesson its ability to correct like learn) but you certainly can, and yes its adjustable via coolant temp, TPS, RPM, etc.. as well as the aforementioned 2 step activation.

 

You can for sure but without hollet seeing the TB then you can run any kind of launch timers or timing retards easily since most people have these activate when you release the TB. The more inputs you have in holley the more things holley can do. It doesnt make sense to put holley on and then not use all the features it has when they are free IMO.