Ford 7.3L Power Stroke (1999-2003) :: Individually Lighted Position Display For The Chip

So the idea has been kicked around before, but to my knowledge no one yet has done it on FTE. That is, a lighted display switch for our chips that only lights up the current position. Well, I've got it done!!

First some pics, then read below for how I did it. First pics are in the light, the next two are how it looks in positions 1 & 5 at night.

Now, for how I did it. First off, I started with one of the lighted displays from BCPD. Each number has an individual LED behind it, so I could wire up each one for the position it's in.

The back of all the chips have 7 wires attached to it. One is black, it's in the middle, and it is a common ground to the chip. The other 6 wires are all position grounds. The switch works by grounding one wire to the black wire for the position you are in. If you look at where the wires plug into the chips, the one farthest away from the black is position #1, and they count up sequentially from there toward the black wire.

First thing is to unplug the the selector **** cord from the chip before doing any work. I acutally ordered a spare switch from Jody, just in case I screwed up something (which I didn't), I wouldn't be without my chip.

I took the black rubber off the back of the switch to access the soldered connections. I soldered the ground for each LED on the display to the appropriate pole with the wire connected to it on the back of the display. I had some CAT 5 ethernet cable lying around, and I used the wires inside of it for the ground from the switch to the display. You can use a DVM or continuity tester to check for continuity between the black wire and each position to veryify which wire belongs to what position. I ran the extra wires out the bottom of the rubber cover, along with the original wires.

For power, I only wanted the lights to be on at night. So, I tapped into the wire for the gauge lights, put a 1 amp inline fuse (old glass type fuse), and connected all the hot wires of the LED's so they are a common hot. The LEDs already had resistors wired into them, so I didn't need to add any more.

The fit for everything where I put it was a little tight, but I eventually got it to fit, as you can see. And all the lights do work, and show up quite well at night. The display works by having a common hot to all LED's and grounding the one that for the position it's in, completing the circuit and lighting the LED.

Some other ideas would be to wire up 6 different colored LED's to constant power and place them somewhere else, say in the A-Pillar, dash, or on the door to the inside of the mirror. So, you'd have a different color LED for each position. It's not limited to using the BCPD display, that's just what I already had. The creativity is up to you on how you'd choose to light things up for each position.

Finally, I did talk to Jody about doing this and any negative effects it would have on the chip. He said there would be none, since you're just pulling a ground from it. Also, if you use an LED, they are by design only allowing current to flow in one direction, since they are diode's already. But, to be on the safe side, I used the 1 amp fuse on the power wire. You won't need any bigger than that as the LED's don't draw very much power at all.