DIYEFI.org Forum

Hi Fred,

I'm kind of mystified about the bit of plastic tubing in your kit, too! It isn't normally something we include with the kit. I couldn't even find any tubing that looked like that on our shelves. My best guess is that you're looking at a bit of stray packing material there, as we tend to re-use packing material from items sent to us and sometimes some really weird things get in there.

The spare zener diode is for the few people who still trigger off a coil negative - it is mentioned in the build guide, but it's in a step most people skip.

About the harness - different people have different preferences there, so we try to offer a couple of the most popular options and provide people with the information they need to make an informed decision. For those who prefer making solder cup harnesses, we sell the wiring on its own without the connector, and the solder cup connector is included with the kit. We've maintained the selling the wiring on its own with the new MS3 harness as well, with slightly under 1/3 of our customers favoring this approach.

Our goal with the harness was to come up with the most reliable harness we could mass produce. We didn't see a good way to meet that goal with a soldered connector as they are time consuming to solder and ensuring the connection will hold up under vibration is pretty difficult. A couple years ago, we did have a couple of improper crimps at the D-sub, but we were able to tighten up the quality control on them and the problem hasn't repeated itself. And we haven't seen any reports of the harness itself fail. We feature the details about the harness - including the use of crimp connectors, what pins are used, and the wire gauges - on our catalog page, so customers can see if it fits their needs.

Thanks,

Matt Cramer
DIYAutoTune.com Support

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