Hello. Adding a shift light because they are cool, no really I am adding one cause I need the reminder sometimes. I ran through my normal search routine and I see some posts that say "they generally don't work on Porsche's" and say nothing at all.

I categorically reject both these answers.

I bought a ProformParts light from Jegs/Summit because sometimes I am cheap. After mounting it and wiring it I found that it does not work. The instruction were useless to help troubleshoot why. It basically says, "you probably wired it wrong; there is nothing possibly wrong with our plastic Chinese junk, check your power wires, what do you want for $50 you cheap female dog, have you checked your shoddy electrical work yet?!" ... that's pretty much verbatim.

In truth it was 11 pm and I did not bother debugging it. It will be first priority tonight.

I wired the red and black to positive and negative 12 volts and the green wire to the single wire at the back of the tach <from coil (-)>. The tach works as usual, which is to say spastic. (As part of my electrical upgrades I will be swapping the tach guts for the Sunpro guts.)

For Ignition I am running a Mallory Uni-Lite and a Blaster 2 MSD coil.

I will update the thread with a trouble shooting report tomorrow but for now lets hear hear how others have installed shift lights so there is something useful for future searches... Make, model, wiring, and success or FAILURE. Nothing wrong with reporting what has not worked.

Thanks,

Miguel

Oh and for those that need pictures:

When my original tach stopped working I was also putting in after market ignition etc. Just pused the easy button and bought a monster tach which fit right in the stock hole. and the shift light worked perfect.

That's how I fixed mine.

I have an Autometer that works most of the time. I still ignore it.
The last session at Sebring it wasn't behaving. I didn't check the wiring yet. Think something is lose.
Shane

I mounted mine on the Ginther screen at about eye height. Great for AutoXing, especially the 2nd to 3rd gear shifts.

In hill climbs I find it even more valuable because I am not taking my eyes off the road for a second!

Click to view attachment

A you using an MSD? There should be a lead for a shift light...

Been incommunicado all weekend but I am back.

Joe, that is the easy button for sure. I like the idea of looking at a 1970's Porsche dash. Hopefully I can find a solution that will let me keep the dash.

Shane, is yours the one that uses the external switch or pills?

Randal, whats the make and model that your using? Is it wired to the coil or did it take more effort to get it to work?

Calvin, not using an MSD unit. Mallory Unilite distributor triggering a blaster 2 coil.

I pulled out the voltmeter last night and check my power and what not; the short of it is yes its wired correctly.

The long of it: When I turn on the ignition circuit the shift light momentarily lights up. Then I opened the dash and check the connector at the shift light for power, 12v's check. Checked the ground connector, continuity with the chassis check. Signal wire is terminated at the tach signal post and the tach is recieving signal, signal check.

The last thing to look into is whether or not the signal being provided is usable by the sift light...

Miguel

My 2400 (4) uses a MSD unit, so it's wired from there. The wire harness layout is attached below. Also a picture of the shift light.



Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

It has a switch in the back for 4-6-8 cylinders. The pills load from the front. I run with a 5.6 rpm pill, but the gauge says I'm running past 6. I assume the shift light is correct because my gauge bounces around all the time.

Wanted to look around to find a wireless unit so a small but less powerful light could be mounted on the front of my visor.

http://www.spa-uk.co.uk/spa/docs/Remote%20...ht%20manual.pdf

Is this one for a video game?

Not sure which one that SPA one is Randal. Link was to the manual only. Seems like its helmet mounted though.

I ordered one of these from ebay. Its for motorcycles but it looks like some miata guys are using them on their miata's.



I am probably throwing away more good money.

Let me know if it works!

On a hill climb the last thing you are going to do it take your eyes off the road, so a helmet light should be perfect.

Wired up the shift light this weekend. Proper testing will happen Sunday.

The initial report is very positive. The lights are super bright. So bright that if they are pointing directly at you they would be distracting. So bright I ended up moving them from the initial location, at the 12 o'clock position in front of the tach, to where you see them mounted in the picture below.

There are no pills, switches, or dials on this shift light and it does not seem to care how many cylinders you might be running. In the programming routine you raise the rpms to the desired activation point and trigger the unit to record the number of pulses it is seeing at that moment. Then you raise the engine rpms to the max rpms you want to run at and again trigger the unit (by grounding a trigger wire.)

I am not entirely comfortable with this form of programming but it certainly makes it universal. I was rather annoyed at having to rev the motor to 6k rpms without a load on it and was certainly unhappy with having to do it several times because the instructions did not have a usable programming routine. (Look below for a programming routine that worked for me.)

I first set it up without a Tach-Adapt and it would light up but it gave a bunch of false readings at idle through 2k rpms. I had ordered the Tach-Adapt sold by PP a week ago just to have one hand in case I needed it. Sure enough once the Tach-Adapt was wired in the spastic pulses at the low rpms went away.

IF others do decided to try the unit for themselves be mindful that the programming directions are not correct. I stumbled on the correct procedure just before giving up and throwing the unit out the window. As I recall, turn on the engine, once the unit flashes its startup routine touch the reference wire to ground, the green outer lights will light up (maybe flash), raise the rpms up to where you want the initial lights to begin flashing, holding that rpm touch the reference wire to ground again, (hold it till the green lights go out and the center red lights up), with the center red light lite up raise the rpms to your max desired rpm and touch the reference wire to ground again. (Its either done now or requires one more touch of the reference wire.) Once you are done programming power down and restart to be sure you are out of the programming routine.