Tacho wire location and color? - for Shift light

Hi Guys ( and girls ) My wife purchased me a ****-I Shift light indicator for my B-day. I am trying to find the location and color for the Tacho wire, or a wire that I can get the pulse from to run this light. It works with modern ignitions as well. So can some one with a wiring diagram, maybe post up an image? Please let me know your thoughts... Regards David

Consolidated wrote a geat article on RPM access (for the Traqmate, but RPM is RPM), it should answer all your questions... :cheers:

Great Article, I have a new TracMate as well. ( otherw part of my gift ). But need to know the location in the front of the car. He mentions it in his article at the bottom of the page. Regards David

Loved the shift light/alarm on my STi. But I'd prefer the one I heard that comes on the GT3. It's programmable for every gear. You really do need to be able to program it for every gear.

Anyone with a wiring Diagram?

I found information on tapping the tachometer signal at the dash in a google search and also thru ******** and renntech forums. There is a photolog of a Boxster that tapped wires behind the dash, but it looked slightly more difficult than tapping the DME , wish I had kept the link. I was concerned with damaging the dash but it's certainly feasible. If you post a request on renntech for a Cayman wiring diagram I bet you'd get a quick response, there are some very knowledgeable people on that forum. Please be sure to post it up here if you find it. Also, to get the correct RPM in Traqmate you need to set the "number of cylinders" to 1 and not 6 to get the right multiplier if you tap off the DME .

In doing searches before starting my install of the shift-i light I came across this old post. Any updates on how you chose to do the install? Running the tacho connect from the dash was my first thought on how to install it rather then running a wire all the way back to the ECU . -Adam

I've sold my CS since this post, but from memory tapping behind the dash was much more involved and riskier in my estimation than tucking the wire in the tunnel and behind the carpeting to the DME . However, your not mounting a datalogger so the dash maybe a better solution.

I'll give the dash a shot... Glancing at the pet manual and more searches it looks like 1. remove the steering column trim 2. remove the instrument cluster (couple of screws) 3. tap into the tacho wire (and guess which one it is I guess) 4. run the dc ignition to the fuse box RS60 Look Gauge - Articles has details for most of what is needed I suspect. So how I find out which one is the tacho wire is the main question I guess. -Adam

Adam, did you manage to complete the shift light install using the tach wire? Any tip's you have would be greatly appreciated.

Can't you just tap into the OBD II tach wire? That's what I did on a Boxster.

Tapping it there makes sense, which wire?

Well, on a 986, power is pin 1, tach is pin 9 and ground is pin 4. CB-Racing, 986 OBDii Wiring I don't know for sure that it is the same on a 987 but I don't see why Porsche would bother to change that. It would be fairly easy to check also. Power and ground just with a volt meter. Tach I suppose you could push the tack light wire into pin 9 socket and see if the light behaves properly.

For anybody else looking here I can let you know Cayman do not have any tach/rpm signal in the OBD . I tried. Still looking for a solution