Rostra Electronic Cruise Control Installation

[builderbob]

Let us begin.
 
In this thread, I’ll try to detail the installation of Rostra’s Universal Cruise Control System. Time not allowing, I won’t be able to do it all in one weekend. It may take two as the misses has other ideas about how I should spend my time. :'(  I'll update the thread as I make progress.
The Rostra system is available from many online retailers.  I got mine from Amazon.  You will also need to purchase the dash-mount control module as it is sold separately.  Pay $70 to $75 for the Rostra branded control or buy this aftermarket control from Amazon.  After frying the original pad, I purchased the unbranded replacement and it works fine.  At $17, I bought an extra just in case.

In addition to the Rostra unit and control pad, you're gonna need:
2 relays and matching sockets (only one, if your fuse block is already switched)Fuse block14 & 16 gauge wire, stranded, various colorsTerminal ringsheat shrink tubingRTV sealerWire tiesSolder and/or butt connectorsPosi-taps1 1/4" x 1 1/4" angle aluminum stock (for control bracket)Heavy-duty velcro (for mounting actuator)3/8" PEX pipe and appropriately sized spring to fit insidePiece of rubber hose sized to fit around the PEX pipe2 hose clamps
Tools you'll need include:
MulitmeterWire stripperCrimperUtility knifeTorch or soldering ironDrill & bitstap & die setVarious hand tools (screwdrivers, pliers, sockets, allen wrenches, etc)
And, the most important thing you'll need is patience.  Lots of it.
Last, do this project [em]AT YOUR OWN RISK[/em].  I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information provided.  Your results may vary.
 
 
 
First thing to do is to determine where to mount the actuator.  Ideally, we'll keep it away from the heat of the engine and protected from the elements.  That leaves only one location; under the seat.
But, wait!  There's not enough room under there!
We'll have to make some.
Start by removing the 4 hex-head bolts that fasten the seat latch assembly to the frame.  Pull the assembly out and let it hang by its cable along side the bike.
I set the actuator over the area that I wanted it to reside in and eyeballed the area of the inner fender (tray) that would have to be removed.  Then I carefully started trimming away with a sharp utility knife.  When I finally had enough space for the unit, I had cut out a substantial portion of the tray.

The throttle cable exits the actuator on the front, lower left side.  There is some extra trimming of the tray that has to happen in that area in order to allow the cable to pass through.

Test fitting the actuator.

I think I have a good fit now.  I'll attach some heavy-duty velcro to the bottom of the actuator to keep it in place.  That will be one of my last steps as this thing will be in and out of the bike several more times before I'm finished.
Next step will be to waterproof the control pad.  As it is made for car interiors, it needs some special attention in order to survive the elements.  I'll cover that in the next installment.
 

[builderbob]

On to the control pad.
 
The control pad has all of the functions you would expect from electronic cruise control: on/off, set, resume, cancel, accelerate (up & down). It also has two led indicators showing power on and engaged. The thing is not waterproof by a long shot, so we have to make it so.
 
Control:
 

 
There are two barbed fasteners on the back that have to be removed. I used a Dremel with a cutoff wheel to zip them off.
 

 

 
Then I test fitted the control on the left cluster in the location where Yamaha would have put it (and may still) if the FJ had come with CC. In the picture it is held on temporarily with double sided foam tape. For the final installation, I'll try heavy duty automotive tape. If that doesn't work I'll have to fabricate a bracket.
 

 
Time to seal it up.
 
Carefully pry the control apart with a small screwdriver. Note the orientation of the led indicators & buttons to the tiny circuit board. It is possible to reassemble it incorrectly. The actual buttons are part of a flexible vinyl sheet and is easily removed from the front cover.
 

 
With the buttons face up, apply a bead of RTV around the buttons and led windows.
 

 
Then, place the button sheet back inside the front cover, pressing evenly all the way around to insure a good seal. Some sealant will squeeze out around the buttons. Wipe off the excess with a cotton swab and set aside to dry. Some residue will remain on the cover. It will fairly easily rub off after the sealant is dry. Let it sit for a while and then apply more RTV around the edge of the button sheet. Smooth it level with the sheet. Too much will prevent the two halves of the cover from mating properly. Set aside to dry.
 

 
More to come!

[ULEWZ]

I installed the vacuum model on my FJR and the hookup was a pain. Looking forward to your wiring/hookup instructions. I assume you will have to drill into the throttle body arm?

[builderbob]

I installed the vacuum model on my FJR and the hookup was a pain. Looking forward to your wiring/hookup instructions. I assume you will have to drill into the throttle body arm?

I did the same to my 07 FJR.  It [em]was[/em] a pain!  At least there's no vacuum to deal with on this version. I haven't had the tank off yet, so I'm not sure of exactly what I'll find.  In spite of the 'drive by wire' aspect of our bikes, the throttle is still actuated by a cable.  I'll attach to wherever the throttle cable terminates.
 

[builderbob]

Finished sealing up the back of the control pad. It's a little messy, but I don't want it to leak. Besides, no one will see that side anyway.
 

 
Now it's time to get down to some serious business. In order to connect the actuator cable to the throttle, you pretty much have to remove all of the body work from the front and then remove the tank. There are a lot more pieces than I thought! I will say that the FJ's a much better design than the FJR in this regard. Somebody actually put some thought into how to make the job of disassembly simple, while maintaining the integrity of the attachments.
 
I won't go into how I got it to this point. It's fairly obvious when you start the process.
 

 
Here's the electronic gizmo that the throttle cables attach to. The actuator from the Rostra unit will attach to this as well. This is going to take some thought, however. Space is very tight and there's near zero room under the tank for brackets and such.
 

 
Maybe if I remove the air box I'll be able to get to the pulley on the throttle thingy.
 

 
Well, that didn't help much. Still very difficult to get access to the pulley.
 
I'm going to have to noodle this for a while. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

[skipperT]

Probably easiest to remove the throttle bodies from the bike for access.
 
It IS quite tight in that are, tough to get your hands - especially with the TPS and pulls right up against the LH frame rail.
 
Skip

[builderbob]

Probably easiest to remove the throttle bodies from the bike for access.  
It IS quite tight in that are, tough to get your hands - especially with the TPS and pulls right up against the LH frame rail.
 
Skip

I had that thought as well, but after looking at it some more, I think I can connect to the pulley without pulling the throttle bodies.  I want to avoid that if at all possible. Just have to do some more thinking about how to arrange the cable's anchor points.
 

[builderbob]

Does anyone have a diagram of the ECU showing which wires are in which pin positions? There's probably a post on this site with that information, but I couldn't find it.

[ULEWZ]

Good luck with this:
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

[builderbob]

Awesome! Thank you!

[builderbob]

Ok. Some minor success today.
 
The area around the TPS is so tight, I couldn't figure out how I was going to connect the cable from the CC unit. I unhooked the throttle cable that comes from the grip at the TPS yesterday thinking that I could get the little cable loop that comes with the CC around it. No way. Then I struggled for a couple of hours trying to get the throttle cable from the grip reconnected to the TPS. Argh! 
There is a tab on the TPS pulley that acts as a throttle stop.  I had been using it to open the throttle while I was messing around.  Why not just hook onto that?  But how?
I asked my wife to hold the throttle open while I drilled a hole in the tab.  She did a great job!  After that, I looked through the parts that came with the CC for something that would work with this new hole.  Nothing.  I'd have to imrovise... again.
If I could get a screw in that hole that would open up a few options.  No room behind the tab to get a nut started on a screw, so I tapped threads into the hole instead.

Then I found a proper screw, washers and used them with the small cable loop that came with the CC.

After dropping the screw, washers and cable loop into the abyss of the engine near the starter several times and fishing them out using compressed air and a magnet, I finally got the little assembly attached.  Used plenty of locktite on that screw.  I don't want that sucker falling out.

Next, I have to fabricate some sort of a guide for the cable from the CC actuator.  Hope to get that wrapped up today.  Then, it's onto wiring.
 
 

[builderbob]

Just a short update. Haven't had any time during the week to do more work on this, although I did fabricate the cable guide mentioned above last weekend. The wife has plans for me tomorrow (Saturday) so I won't make any more progress until possibly Sunday. I'm kind of anxious to get this thing back together and working, and I'm sure that the Mrs would like it if my bike wasn't spread out in pieces all over the garage.
 
Back to it soon.

[builderbob]

As it turned out, I ended up with a nasty case of intestinal flu last weekend, so I didn't get anything done on the CC. Prior to that, I did rig up a cable guide, so I can at least show that.
 
The actuator cable is longer than needed so you have to coil it a bit before connecting it to the throttle. I oriented it so that it approaches the TPS from the rear. The actuator cable has to make a sharp 90 degree turn down to where it attaches to the TPS and I knew that would be a potential wear problem, so I came up with a guide made out of a section of 3/8" PEX pipe. PEX is semi-rigid and very heat resistant and will allow the cable to move smoothly around bends.
 
I needed to bend the PEX rather sharply at the business end to guide the cable down to its attachment point. Problem is that when you sharply bend this or most other kinds of pipe, it tends to collapse at the bend, reducing the diameter of the pipe at the bend. To prevent this from happening, I found a spring the same diameter as the ID of the pipe and slid it in. I heated the section of the pipe where the spring was located with a heat gun and when it was soft enough, I put a sharp bend in it with pliers. Then, I held it in position under cold water until it was set. Pulled the spring out and I had my guide.
 
This is a sample of the pipe that I used and the spring.
 

 
After I achieved the appropriate bend and cut the pipe to length, I threaded the actuator cable through it and connected it via a bead connector to the loop cable attached to the TPS.
 

 
The guide has to be mounted to something solid and the actuator cable has to be prevented from pulling the sheathed portion inside the guide under the force of opening the throttle, so I secured the guide with zip-ties to the top of the throttle cable boss and clamped stops on the guide and on the cable sheathing. This will prevent the guide from shifting position under load and prevent the cable sheathing from being pulled inside the guide.
[em]Edit:  The cable stop shown in this picture didn't work.  It wasn't strong enough to keep the sheathing from being pulled inside the guide and, as a result, the cable developed too much slack which adversely affected the operation of the CC.  See my solution for this problem on page 4 of this thread.
[/em]

 
Next, I'll get into the wiring. I've ordered a switched fuse block to supply power to the actuator and other accessories I might add later. Once that is delivered, I'll get on with the next stage.

[builderbob]

I think I've found some of the critical wiring connections.  Won't know until it's complete though, so if anyone sees a flaw in my assessment of these wires, please speak up!
These are the two connectors that plug into the ECU. We need two wires here; the VSS (vehicle speed sesnor) and a tach signal. The VSS wire is the most important, of course.  The tach signal is used an over-rev condition, in which case the Rostra unit will disengage if it is active.  The VSS wire is white with a yellow stripe.  The tach signal wire, which is actually the wire that activates coil #1, is orange with no stripe.  The gray wire from the Rostra unit will connect to the bike's VSS wire and the Rostra's dark blue wire will connect to the bike's tach signal wire.

Speaking of other connections, there's power from a switched source that has to be connected and a brake light signal that has to be tapped.  Then there's the control pad.  I'll get into all of these as I go along and post up my progress.

[builderbob]

Moving onto some other things this morning.
The Rostra unit seems to require substantial juice, judging from the 10 amp inline fuse that it came with. I don't want to connect it directly to the battery because, being the forgetful soul that I am, I won't remember to turn it off.
Instead, I'm installing a switched fuse block.  I'll bring power from the battery to a relay that will trigger from the tail light.  First, to find a location.
Again, under the seat is preferred.  This unit doesn't like to get wet.  I'm mounting to what is left of the tray behind the CC actuator.  I used some stand-offs between it and the tray and bolted it down with some #6 x 1 1/4" screws.  The relay will mount somewhere nearby.



I will paint the bracket black and then attach the control pad with some heavy duty automotive trim tape.
Heading up to NAPA now to see if they have an appropriate relay for the fuse block.