Electronic Hand throttle

[DaveFL]

Thought i'd post up the latest addition to my Rubi. This is something a club member came up with and so far its we run this set up on 4 different Jeeps with only 1 failure in the past 3 years.

We start by building a plate that attaches to the throttle body and fits the Solenoid we use. We use a Napa idle control Solenoid for older chevy carbs. its pretty readily available and runs a little over $20.



The plate fabed onto the throttle body with the solenoid attached:



As you can see the plunger is postioned to depress the throttle cable assembly.

Basically the draw is less than an amp so its a a direct wire in, no fuse or relay needed. Wiring runs from the battery or terminal to a switch and then to the solenoid itself. The solenoid acts as its own ground so no round wires needed. With a flip of the switch the plunger drops depressing the throttle control cable, the solenoid is adjustable so you can dial in your desired RPMs (I have mine set at 1800). As long as the switch is open you maintain a constant selected RPMs once you close the switch and break the circut your Jeep drops back to normal idle.

Wired pics:




My switch location other three have it wired to a switch on the left side dash bar of the cage, I like mine here near gear shift, I did put a racing style saftey switch on it just in case of accidental contact.





There are two iregularities with it, first is with the 03+ Jeeps when you first flip the swicth it jumps it up to a higher RPM then the Idel speed controler takes over and lowers it so you have to set it higher for intial RPMs. Mine jumps to 2100 RPM at first then within a second drops to 1800.

The other, the pluger itself does not have the power to depress the throttle cable, so you have to flip the switch then tap the gas before the solenoid takes over, I do mean tap, any small tap of the pedal instantly puts the solenoid in motion.

All in all I love the system it has run flawlessly for the past 3 years in 3 other Jeeps on some serious wheeling trips. The only failure was on a YJ where the wiring plug made contact with the hood and broke it off. There is ample enough room in a TJ even with a Throttle body spacer that this should not happen.

Dave

[SecondTJ]

what kind of shifter is that?

[jzmtl]

So you really can't choose what RPM you want the engine to be at?

[dougolupski]

Something like this inline might work depending on the stepper motor.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062299&cp=&kw=potentiometer&p arentPage=search

[bee guz]

Nice Idea, but you can have only 1 idle point, which is good for some things Iguess

[jzmtl]

I'm guessing some window regulator motor, or powerlock motor will let you able to choose idle point, but really why make things unnecessarily complicated when a bike lever and cable would work?

[Jeepdrivinmid]

any chance of specs of the fabbed plate or maybe yall would like to make some cash?

[dyna]

Cool idea, get a adjustable reostat setup from a dimmer switch or? and put a dial in your cab and dial in your idle rpm. Wonder if it would work with different voltage inputs?

[dougolupski]

If you used new sytle idle air control it should work. The new ones are stepper motors so they have a lot of adjustment in them.

[Bgeddes]

Cool idea, get a adjustable reostat setup from a dimmer switch or? and put a dial in your cab and dial in your idle rpm.

Soleniods won't work well like that, but nice idea.

Fuses are to protect the wiring. Please fuse this system. If you used say, 14AWG wire, it can carry 30 amps for a short period. That's plenty to lgiht your Jeep on fire.

[neZZr]

I really like this idea... at least for bumping the throttle for winching and York OBA. I never thought I would use a hand throttle for driving purposes anyway, with the 4:1 it just doesn't seem necessary once you get the foot wedge maneuver down

I would REALLY like to see someone come out with a stepper motor setup... something spring loaded so if the stepper ever failed it would fail in the off position. Is that how these solenoids operate should one ever fail???

BTW... do you have a diagram or a picture of the solenoid mounting bracket itself?

[ChiliPalmer]

Anybody seen this one...click.

[DaveFL]

Gonna try this again I posted a long reply to all questions but for some reason it didnt post.

First off, the shifter is a B&M short throw shifter that I bent in 2 locations to provide clearance for the Tummy Tuck and also give me a more comfortable reach/grab from the center console.

As for the solenoid being non adjustable Im pretty comfortable at its exact RPM setting. With 4.88 gears and the Rubi 4 to 1 Its dialed in perfect for my wheeling style I have yet to need more RPM's but if I do need a bump I can always tap the gas and let it idle back down. Basically I have removed any crazy lurch you might get.

It would be nice to find a reostat that would let you dial in what you want, but we kept the methodolgy KISS. The solenoid we use is proven to take the heat and abuse in an engine compartment and remains pretty bombproof. Further more any reostat device would require a switch that you dial in it would have to hold selected postioning pretty strongly since last time I checked the area's I want the throttle control on are pretty bumpy Thats one of the reasons folks like the cable hand throttles once adjusted they hold location pretty well.

As for fusing, Mine is actually fused through my Painless power block. The solenod draws .25 amps so in all honesty a fuse while better safe than sorry is really only going to protect you from wire failure. Theres nothing wrong with putting a small in line fuse in the wiring.

I will try to get more info on the plate itself, my buddy builds the plate at his machine shop. There have been a few requests from prefabbed plates from others which I will check on, no idea if he wants to get that far involved but I will post what I can find out.

As for the device on Stu's site it's top of the line and I looked into it, but I really dont care to spend 200$ or more for a throttle control.

[Grewe02]

Originally Posted by DaveFL

As for the device on Stu's site it's top of the line and I looked into it, but I really dont care to spend 200$ or more for a throttle control.

[JJs99TJ]

not a bad idea, but i too like the simple hand throttle. i use it
and it works fine for winch purposes, "3rd foot" duty, and (flame
suit on) cruise control