ECT (Engine Coolant

Temperature) Sensor:

The ECT sensor is one of the most important components on a modern car. It tells
how hot or cold the engine coolant.
Theory of Operation
Inside the sensor is found what is called a thermistor as shown in above figure, which is an electronic
temperature sensitive variable-resistor. (ECT) is a device that changes resistance as temperature
changes. The ECT (thermistor) is a negative temperature coefficient sensor. This means that as
temperature goes up resistance and voltage goes down or vise-versa. The ECT sensor receives a 5.00
volts reference voltage from the Engine Control Module (ECM) as shown in below figure.

The engine coolant temperature sensor simply tells the car's computer (ECM) the current
temperature of the vehicle. When the temperature of the coolant reaches between 75 and 95
degrees (depending on the manufacturer specifications), the ECM instructs the radiator fan to turn
on and start cooling down the liquid.
Some manufacturers use a dual scale ECT signal determined by two different pull-up resistors inside
the ECM. A high (3.60 K Ohms) and low (345 Ohms) impedance circuit is provided internally by the ECM
for the 5.00 volts reference. At low coolant temperatures the ECM uses one of the pull-up resistors (3.60
K ohms). As temperature increases and crosses over a certain temperature value (around 120 deg. F) the
ECM switches the 5.00 volt reference internally to the other pull-up resistor (345 Ohms).
This is done to improve ECM control on a hotter engine.

Connection:
The ECT sensor comes as either a 2 or 3-wire type. The vast majority of ECT sensors are of the 2-wire
type. These are connected on one side to an ECM provided sensor ground and the other side to a
reference line (usually 5.00 volts), also from the ECM through the dropping resistor inside it. As
temperature goes up the resistance of the ECT (thermistor) goes down and so does the voltage drop
across it. The resistor in series with the ECT inside the ECM is provided for current limiting and as a
voltage divider. This way in the event of an ECT wiring short the ECM would not get damaged.
The 3-wire type ECT sensor works the same way as the 2-wire, it just has an extra thermistor inside to
provide a signal to the temperature gauge or separate ignition module.

The ECM uses the ECT input to determine various component operation and engine control modes. It
uses the ECT signal input to make calculations for the following:
Fuel delivery or injector pulse-width.

 Cold start enrichment mode.

Cooling fan operation.
Determine open and close loop initiation.
Idle control (IAC) operation.
Ignition timing corrections.

Usually it is located either on the bottom of the radiator, or by follow the top radiator hose
towards the engine block. You'll see it on mounted on the engine block as shown below.
It can be cleaned using a wire brush when you entirely change your engine coolant (approx.
every 80,000 km or 50,000 miles).

Mega-Squirt uses coolant and air temperature sensors to determine the warm-up characteristics of the
engine and the density of the intake air. They are essential to proper functioning of a Mega-Squirt controller.
Both sensors are Negative Temperature Coefficient (NTC) thermistors. This means that they are resistors
whose resistance decreases as their temperature goes up.
Mega-Squirt uses the temperature sensor as one leg of a voltage divider. 5.00 Volts (we will call this V s) is
supplied to a default (2.49K Ohm) resistor (called a "bias resistor", and we will denote it as R b) and this
resistor is connected to the temperature sensor (denoted here by R s) which in turn is connected to ground.

Function

Number of Wires to Mega-Squirt

Pins on DB37

Coolant
temperature (CLT)

21

Sensor Ground

19

On the relay board, the grounds for the coolant temperature sensor brought in separately in to pins 19 (on
JP1), and feed to pin 19 of the DB37. Pin 19 of the DB37 MUST be grounded if your sensor grounds are
brought back to the relay board as designed. The relay board cable has a return wire that goes from DB37pin 19 to a common ground on the Mega-Squirt PCB.

If you don't have this wire, you need to connect the sensors to ground. You can do this by:

adding an extra wire to pin 19 of the JP1terminal block and running it to the same spot the main
Mega-Squirt EFI (Electronic Fuel Injection) controller ground is located, OR

moving your sensor grounds directly to the same place that the Mega-Squirt EFI controller grounds
itself on the engine, OR

connecting a wire between pins 19 of the two ends of your relay board/Mega-Squirt EFI
controller DB37 connection cable, as shown in the schematic above

The voltage between the two resistors is:

V = Vs * (Rs/ (Rb+Rs)) = 5.00 * (Rs/ (Rs+2490))

Resistor Rp does not affect the voltage divider, it simply limits the current to the processor pin (there should
be very little current anyhow, the input is "high impedance").
Mega-Squirt reads this voltage as a series of voltage steps: 256 0.020 Volt steps for MS-I, 1023 0.005 Volt
steps for MS-II. The conversion from volts to steps is done by the analog-to-digital converter (ADC).
Before electronic fuel injection (EFI), the temperature sensors were used mostly to drive gauges or 'idiot
lights', rather than control the engine. In addition, these gauges were highly damped, and electrical noise in
the signal was not a problem. As a result, many non-EFI vehicles have 'one-wire' temperature sensors, and
ground the sensor through the engine block. However, when EFI came along (in the mid-1980s) temperature
sensors were used to determine the instantaneous fueling and spark advance in some cases, and reducing
noise became essential. The manufacturer's solution was 'two-wire' sensors that use a dedicated ground
return to the ECU (instead of the much more noisy high current ground). Mega-Squirt controllers adopt a
similar scheme. DB37 pin #19 is used for the sensor ground, and the IAT, CLT and TPS ground wires should
be run to it (or the labeled spots ('ret') on the relay board that connects to pin #19
Naturally aspirated engines using Mega-Squirt can use the same sensors for coolant and air temperature.
These sensors are inexpensive (roughly $18 US)

Questions
1- What is the function and location of ECM?
2- Type of mega-squirt which we work on it?
3- Relation bet Relay board JP1& mega-squirt board DB37?

References
http://www.diycardoctor.com/the_ect_sensor_temperature.htm
https://axleaddict.com/misc/Types-of-Sensors-in-a-Car
http://www.megamanual.com/v22manual/mwire.htm#clt
http://www.bgsoflex.com/mspower/mspower_ShemV1.2.pdf