I've just got round to writing up my build of a new Mi16 loom for the 205 conversion and thought I'd post it up here as hopefully it'll be of interest to you guys. Be warned - it's a bit of a longun!
When I bought the Mi16 engine ready for the conversion it came with the BX16v harness that had been partially modified already. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a mess but after a bit of time spent with a multimeter I had got my head around it. I made some repairs and judged it was ok to use, at least temporarily. Having fitted the harness I then discovered the ECU would not run the fuel pump as it should. The software logic in the ECU is designed so that the fuel pump will run for about 1 second as soon as the key is turned to the ignition position, then, when the key is turned to the starter position and the engine turns over, the ECU will detect a signal from the Crank Angle Sensor (CAS) and activate the fuel pump to start supplying fuel (it continues to do this all the time it is receiving a signal from the CAS, i.e. when the engine is turning) . From a wiring point of view the ECU controls the fuel pump activation by earthing the Fuel Pump Relay. However in its current state the original harness didn’t do this, and even having spent ages checking it over I couldn’t work out why, I even got to the point where I suspected the ECU of being at fault. To get by I wired the Fuel Pump into a toggle switch on the dash. The other obvious flaw to this harness was the length due to the ECU being mounted under the driver seat in the BX16v. Because of the condition of the harness and the poor layout in the 205, I had always intended to build a new harness specifically designed for the conversion in both layout and fundamental wiring design. This time came around sooner than planned as I had a few teething problems during the early days of running the car. First was the melting of a whole chunk of the harness when the bonnet scissor prop cut into the loom and earthed the main live cable: The repair ended up like this: Following this the fan blades on the alternator cut through the Crank Angle Sensor shielded cable, obviously completely stopping the engine from running. Which prompted the fabrication of this: Obviously the original condition and the subsequent repairs to these issues left the harness open to all kinds of reliability issues so I got started with designing the new harness.