Note: I don't like commercial posts and try to avoid them wherever possible but since there is a lot of discussion of our (Trigger-wheels.com) products going on that I thought that it was worth a response from the horses mouth.
Maybe if its so easy I_jonez could start banging out looms for us if we supply the wires?
The wire isn't so much the issue as the connectors. Go to a breakers and used coil packs are easy to come by, EDIS modules not too hard either but getting ever harder. Go to ebay and you'll find a number of them but in general they won't come with connectors. EDIS module connectors on their own are pretty much impossible to find.
It took us a couple of years to secure a reliable source of coilpack connectors and pins and it's only in the last few months that we've been able to do the same for EDIS-4 connectors. Sadly the convoluted route we have to use to source the EDIS-4 connectors means they're not cheap. The new coilpack connectors though we buy in _huge_ quantities so thankfully work out much more reasonably priced and because of the better availability of parts we're able to supply used connectors for people pinching every last penny. Because we purchase so many of those coilpack connectors that has improves access to the parts for lots of other businesses which have been able to do stuff on the back of what we have done, whilst some of their offerings compete with our own the overall benefit to the "ecosystem" is positive which is fine by us.
From what I have seen if Wilson is able to do the coil/crank sensor/EDIS part of the loom using parts you supply for £45 inc vat then that seems like a pretty fair price to me. I do have some concerns over the crank sensor brackets that he is selling though - it might be that the pictures I have seen are misleading me but having done thousands of the things over the years I'm happy to offer the Wilson the benefit of our experience developing/testing/producing/supporting such things offline. Likewise we're always looking for good dealers/fitting agents etc so if Wilson would like to get in touch with us there may be a useful conversation to be had there in that respect.
I personally don't really understand people sourcing their ECU from the states. Sure on paper it might work out 10-15% cheaper than than buying the ECU alone from us (As an aside yes you can do that, people don't seem to realise it but we can supply the bare ECU or the complete A-series package or anything in between) but it only works out that cheap if you don't get a customs charge.. In theory anything bought from outside the EU worth over £15 in value is subject to VAT (and potentialy import duty as well). Yes a proportion of consignments escape the charges but if you're not one of the lucky ones you get charged 20% VAT, an £8 "collection fee" plus any applicable import duty on top of all that. All of a sudden your 10-15% cost saving has turned into a pretty bad deal. What's more because you've purchased from the states any warranty is with them - you've lost out on the benefit of having local support (which if you ask any of our customers I suspect they'll rave about). Whilst we'll probably still offer some support if you purchased your system from someone else because we're nice people there are limits to how much we can do and our paying customers have to come first.
I know that Charlie had some issues mounting his coil pack using our standard bracket in his desired location. For whatever reason this wasn't an issue that we'd come across before on all the many hundreds of installs but as a result we're going to be producing some new backets that will give improved flexibility. We also now stock an alternative "bulkhead" mounting bracket, which whilst not mini-specific might be of use. If Charlie wants to try out either of these options he is welcome to get in touch and we can let him have one to try out and give his stamp of approval to.
cng,
Firstly, it's excellent that you posted on here and in no way a commercial hike, and I hope I have not caused any offence - genuinely that's not my thing.
Some points:
1) I was a little put out by the description in the kit that it contained a 'loom kit'. The reasoning for separate wires and providing long lengths makes sense that it makes the installation flexible. But, I would not describe it using the word 'loom' as I think that word conjours up ideas - well I did in my head. If nobody else has mentioned it then I was reading too much into it.
2) As to the bracket, I was expecting it to mount on the bell housing (it seems to be common place to mount it) but it didn't have any holes to mount as such. It's a general mount and again not mini specific. My drilling skills are poor and getting holes 66mm apart to mount on the bell housing was not so easy for me (I am very slow at all this). The circular cut out holes make it so you can only mount the coil pack one way, with more weight distributed to the left and right. I would have thought it was more logical to fit the mount with the major portion of the weight along the bell housing. This is again particularly mini specific as is mounting on the bell housing, I am just copying what I have seen as ideally I'd prefer to mount at the 4 corners of the bracket.
3) As to the EDIS, I've become a little disconnected from cars over the years and since I drop my wife off by a scappy which has 4 fiestas in view from the road, I wished I gone and been a little more gung ho and got the parts from there.
It's a very kind offer for the alternative bulkhead mounting bracket. It wont go on my Mk II as my water bottle is in the way. Also, I've already drilled the 'holed' bracket and it would not be right to swap it over - it does its job!
The bulkhead bracket could be worth having as an option for other MKs which don't have the water bottle restricting fitting. Having electrics away from the grille area can only be a good thing!
Charlie
Edited by charliedurrant, 02 January 2012 - 09:49 PM.
