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S197 BackInBlack Build Thread Profile - S197 Mustangs

Chassis Swapped Boss 302
Specs & Mods Build Thread

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Firefighter46 said:
I'm now wondering if the clock spring/cluster is somehow tied to the BCM?
I'm to the point where I put power to everything today and tried to crank the motor. No luck. I got what looked like a security lock out.
I have swapped in the motor/transmission combo, pedal assy, anti-lock module, BCM, and PCM.
The vehicle still has its original clock spring/cluster/keys.
No crank, just lights on the cluster, one of which was the "lock"symbol.
I did hook up the neutral safety/pedal assy harness to the connector above the pedal area.
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
@Stangra is right. You gotta use FORScan to sync everything together. Whichever parts did not come with the pallet need to be setup on the pallet's PCM. Before you start, make sure you have your two keys that fit the ignition and that they have unique transponders.

Here's a video that shows how to do it. In this video, the guy is doing a '13-14 cluster swap onto a '11-12 car, but the procedure will be the same. There may be more depending on what other modules you need to add.
When you're done, you should check the other modules on the car against the AsBuilt configuration for the VIN of a car that matches the setup you're using. If you have the VIN of your donor, that should do it (assuming it has the same trim level). If not, I'd just go onto Copart and look for a car that matches your build, and use it's VIN to get the codes. If I understand right, your donor was a manual, so hopefully you won't need to flash the PCM right away. But if/when you need to flash it, if you don't have the VIN, you can use the VIN you grab from Copart (or somewhere like that) to program your PCM as well.
 
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Here's the picture of the previous set of plugs. As you can see, the 3rd one from the left has crap all over internal insulator. (I don't know what order the plugs are in.)
plugs.jpg
This has me thinking rocker arms, valve seals, piston rings, or just the cylinder scoring... Whatever it is, it seems to be affecting some cylinders more than others, which fits with what I've found so far. I'll check out the body harness connector next weekend but I don't expect to find anything.

Gonna stew on this for a while and come up with a new game plan. Got some other minor things to fix in the meantime.
 
BackInBlack said:
@Stangra is right. You gotta use FORScan to sync everything together. Whichever parts did not come with the pallet need to be setup on the pallet's PCM. Before you start, make sure you have your two keys that fit the ignition and that they have unique transponders.

Here's a video that shows how to do it. In this video, the guy is doing a '13-14 cluster swap onto a '11-12 car, but the procedure will be the same. There may be more depending on what other modules you need to add.
When you're done, you should check the other modules on the car against the AsBuilt configuration for the VIN of a car that matches the setup you're using. If you have the VIN of your donor, that should do it (assuming it has the same trim level). If not, I'd just go onto Copart and look for a car that matches your build, and use it's VIN to get the codes. If I understand right, your donor was a manual, so hopefully you won't need to flash the PCM right away. But if/when you need to flash it, if you don't have the VIN, you can use the VIN you grab from Copart (or somewhere like that) to program your PCM as well.
Click to expand...
Everything I'm swapping from the pallet came from the same vehicle. It was running on the pallet in my garage. I bought it from Cleveland Performance.
I should've just swapped all the components over like I planned. I even have a complete body harness, but so far I've just done the pin swap in the ECU plug.
Im headed out of town for a week, I'll swap in the last items next weekend and give her another try.
 
Firefighter46 said:
Everything I'm swapping from the pallet came from the same vehicle. It was running on the pallet in my garage. I bought it from Cleveland Performance.
I should've just swapped all the components over like I planned. I even have a complete body harness, but so far I've just done the pin swap in the ECU plug.
Im headed out of town for a week, I'll swap in the last items next weekend and give her another try.
Click to expand...
Just so you know, I don't think you need to do any of that. I think the problem you're facing currently is that you need to initialize the cluster. But if you want to skip that, it's easy enough to use the pallet's cluster (you will still need to program your keys). The clocksprings don't have any computer components that need programming. Either one of them will work.
 
Why would I need to program the key if the one that came with the pallet starts the pallet?
If the key, transponder, and cluster all get swapped then it should fire, right? Isn't the transponder in the clock spring?
 
Firefighter46 said:
Why would I need to program the key if the one that came with the pallet starts the pallet?
If the key, transponder, and cluster all get swapped then it should fire, right? Isn't the transponder in the clock spring?
Click to expand...
Because the ignition lock cylinder that came with the pallet isn't in your car (unless you swapped it). The key has to fit the lock, nothing more than that. If you want to use the pallet's keys, you can swap the lock cylinders but there's no need to do that unless you prefer to do the lock cylinder swap instead of programming the keys. My understanding is that the transceiver rings have nothing unique about them so there's no need to swap those.

The transponder is in the KEY

If you want to duplicate the pallet setup, all you need is the cluster and the ignition cylinder.
 
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A new theory: Cracked valve cover?

Been talking a lot with AI about my situation, and the AIs seem certain that I have an unmetered air leak because of the fact that my fuel trims go back to normal on the road. It seems to make sense to me. I went looking for more possibilities for an unmetered air leak and came up with the valve cover. Apparently this fits the symptoms quite nicely -- and is something I've seen some of you guys grapple with before. I don't see any visible cracks so first I'm gonna go back and do what Lund suggested: I'll try running PCV breathers. If this fixes my trims, then it's GT500 valve cover time.
 
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