Wiring an Dynatek ARC-2 box to a 1990 DSM
I have had a few members ask about how to wire in the ARC-2 box to our bastard 1990 year DSM's so I tried to take a lot of pictures and put together an article that can help and DOES work, including your tach.
Wiring colors to use an ARC-2 box in a 1990, using 4 pin plugs to match the 1990 harness for plug and play operation. The 4 pin connectors can be bought at Sheridan Engineering’s connector section. You may be able to source the plugs elsewhere but that is where I got all of mine. If you do this and the box ever gives you trouble, you can just unplug the box and plug back into the coils to get you to your destination.
When doing this conversion, you will be changing the stock ARC-2 3 pin triangle plugs (for 91-99) to square plugs that match the 1990 connectors. You will unpin the factory plug from Dynatek and put those pins into the 4 pin square connectors along with a few other wires to make this work so study the pictures very closely.
4 pin Body Plug from ARC-2 box wire colors:
Dark Blue from ARC-2 box (and Red from tach adaptor on coil)
White/Black stripe (and White or Tan wire from tach adaptor on coil)
Orange
Yellow (from tach adaptor on coil)
4 pin Coil Plug from ARC-2 box wire colors:
White
Black
Light Blue
Last pin left open (where Yellow wire would go from coil but do not use)
4 pin Power Transistor harness plug (male side):
Yellow/Black stripe to White/Black stripe back to ARC-2 box
Yellow/Green stripe to Blue back to ARC-2 box
White to Yellow from tach adaptor on coil (1 of the pins on the 4 pin connector, male)
Black/White stripe to Orange back to ARC-2 box
4 pin Coil connector to ARC-2 (4 pin connector replacing 3 pin triangle connector):
White to White going to ARC-2 box
Yellow dead ends at the 4 pin plug going to ARC-2 box
Red to LIGHT BLUE going to ARC-2 box
Black to Black going to ARC-2 box
The Big Red and Big Black wires are 12v+ and 12v- to the battery (of course, but thought I had better post that too) The big Red wire is fused with a 30 amp fuse.
Picture HEAVY, so this article will have to be split into 2 threads to include all of the pictures showing the wiring I had to do.
The “trick” to this is to take the OEM tach adaptor off of the coil pack and wire it into the harness side of the new wiring so it doesn’t catch fire and so you can still use your stock tach. If you use an aftermarket tach, you can use the ARC-2 boxes tach output.
I derived a lot of this information from this article over on DSMTalk.com, so let’s give them some credit too! I put this together on my living room floor with just the single article and the PICTURES that were on that thread and it worked as soon as I plugged it in!
I can’t get that articles pictures to display anymore but here it is from their site administrator K_Mans_TSI on 9/02/2008
https://www.dsmtalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203681
For Part 2 (the rest of the pictures) of this thread, go here. https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/arc2-box-plug-and-play-in-a-1990-dsm-part2.524948/
Marty Wilson
09/11/2019
I have had a few members ask about how to wire in the ARC-2 box to our bastard 1990 year DSM's so I tried to take a lot of pictures and put together an article that can help and DOES work, including your tach.
Wiring colors to use an ARC-2 box in a 1990, using 4 pin plugs to match the 1990 harness for plug and play operation. The 4 pin connectors can be bought at Sheridan Engineering’s connector section. You may be able to source the plugs elsewhere but that is where I got all of mine. If you do this and the box ever gives you trouble, you can just unplug the box and plug back into the coils to get you to your destination.
When doing this conversion, you will be changing the stock ARC-2 3 pin triangle plugs (for 91-99) to square plugs that match the 1990 connectors. You will unpin the factory plug from Dynatek and put those pins into the 4 pin square connectors along with a few other wires to make this work so study the pictures very closely.
4 pin Body Plug from ARC-2 box wire colors:
Dark Blue from ARC-2 box (and Red from tach adaptor on coil)
White/Black stripe (and White or Tan wire from tach adaptor on coil)
Orange
Yellow (from tach adaptor on coil)
4 pin Coil Plug from ARC-2 box wire colors:
White
Black
Light Blue
Last pin left open (where Yellow wire would go from coil but do not use)
4 pin Power Transistor harness plug (male side):
Yellow/Black stripe to White/Black stripe back to ARC-2 box
Yellow/Green stripe to Blue back to ARC-2 box
White to Yellow from tach adaptor on coil (1 of the pins on the 4 pin connector, male)
Black/White stripe to Orange back to ARC-2 box
4 pin Coil connector to ARC-2 (4 pin connector replacing 3 pin triangle connector):
White to White going to ARC-2 box
Yellow dead ends at the 4 pin plug going to ARC-2 box
Red to LIGHT BLUE going to ARC-2 box
Black to Black going to ARC-2 box
The Big Red and Big Black wires are 12v+ and 12v- to the battery (of course, but thought I had better post that too) The big Red wire is fused with a 30 amp fuse.
Picture HEAVY, so this article will have to be split into 2 threads to include all of the pictures showing the wiring I had to do.
The “trick” to this is to take the OEM tach adaptor off of the coil pack and wire it into the harness side of the new wiring so it doesn’t catch fire and so you can still use your stock tach. If you use an aftermarket tach, you can use the ARC-2 boxes tach output.
I derived a lot of this information from this article over on DSMTalk.com, so let’s give them some credit too! I put this together on my living room floor with just the single article and the PICTURES that were on that thread and it worked as soon as I plugged it in!
I can’t get that articles pictures to display anymore but here it is from their site administrator K_Mans_TSI on 9/02/2008
https://www.dsmtalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203681
For Part 2 (the rest of the pictures) of this thread, go here. https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/arc2-box-plug-and-play-in-a-1990-dsm-part2.524948/
Marty Wilson
09/11/2019
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