After Market Cruise Controls

All, Has anyone purchased a aftermarket cruise control kit?

Is there certain ones to stay away from or certain ones that are better than others?

I am thinking about getting one for my 1989 suzuki swift GLX wagon. I do a 100 mile commute daily. I recently installed/rebuilt a new engine in this swift this past Decemeber.

Are they overally hard to install? Any pitfalls I should watch for? Any places online you would suggest? Any other info?

Thanks in advance, Chris

Reply to
Chris Gray
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I put one on my '74 Wagoneer in 1989, and it worked great until my wife broke the stalk off and stripped some insulation off the wires which shorted it out and ruined it.

I'm looking at replacing it with one from Autozone, I think it's $99.

I usually buy the cheapest I can find. I imagine they all work pretty much the same. A friend and my brother also installed cruise controls on their vehicles. They worked fine, but the one on the '82 Toyota truck wasn't great because of the lack of power that thing had in overdrive. Not the cruise control's fault.

Your Suzuki may not have enough power to keep you happy up hills. Cruise controls use engine vacuum to pull the throttle open. If you run at full throttle much (typical in small engined vehicles when climbing) the vacuum will be lost and the cruise control will fail to keep the throttle open. You may just have to help it up the hills with your foot. After cresting the top, the vacuum will build back up and the cruise will take over again.

Not bad. You'll have to run some wires through the dash, attach a cable to the throttle assembly, hook a wire to your brake light switch or clutch, and attach magnets to the drive shaft or axle shaft. It should come with everything you need.

I'd like to find one like I had on my Jeep, which regulated speed with a wire to the ignition, so I didn't have to use magnets on the drive shaft, but it seems that the new ones have drive shaft triggers unless they have a VSS (vehicle speed sensor) adaptor.

Good luck!

KennyH

Horsepower is cheaper than therapy.

Reply to
KHanawalt

Check with the dealer. They may have aftermarket units specific to your model, which makes installation much easier. I did this with an old Geo Prizm I once had. The unit was made by Rostra (a huge OEM supplier) but the instructions & wiring were pretty much tailor-made for my car.

Sure you could get a cheaper unit (I think mine was $200) but you'll spend who knows how long trying to probe your wiring harness for a particular wire if you buy a generic, one-size-doesn't-fit-all system.

Reply to
Bob M.

SNIP

A bit of an odd question, but has anyone found a way to defeat the typical cruise control's low-speed limit of about 25 MPH or so? I would like to use a cruise control to control the RPM of an engine with a PTO, to maintain constant RPM during varying PTO loads. Perhaps there's an aftermarket CC that also will control on RPM, ignoring the MPH. My application is a 4 cylinder 4 stroke that will operate at 1600 to about 2400 RPM.

Ed

Reply to
Ed Price

Hi, Chris. I've installed several, OEM's (from salvage yard--gm-to-similar-gm; ford-to-similar-ford, etc) and had several installed by custom shops specializing in aftermarket electronics. When putting one on a small engine, I've found that u need to install a vacuum-reservoir--a canister that supplies extra vacuum for climbing those hills. Even considering using two on my daughter's Subaru which has no "button" to release O/D like my Toyota pickup has. Buy it from same auto/electronics store selling cc units. Simple to splice into vacuum line usig a tee. HTH & good luck. sdlomi

Reply to
sdlomi2

If the cruise control uses magnets attached to the driveshaft (RWD) or axle shaft (FWD), just increase the number of magnets to fool the CC's brain into thinking the PTO shaft is turning faster than it is.

For example, if the cruise control expects to see 2 magnets on a conventional RWD car's driveshaft, and has a 25 mph low speed threshold, it will start working at 12.5 mph if you attach 4 magnets.

5 magnets would get you 10 mph, etc.

A 205/70R-14 tire will turn about 800 revolutions per mile, with a

3:1 rear axle ratio, the driveshaft is turning 2400 rpm at 60 mph. At 25 mph the driveshaft would be turning 1000 rpm. If the CC instructions suggest using two magnets, that's 2000 pulses per minute. Assuming your PTO turns at 540 rpm, you'd need four magnets on the PTO shaft to exceed this threshold. Five magnets would give you plenty of margin.

The engine RPM range you mention should be no problem for the CC, the last one I installed had an inductive pickup that attached to a sparkplug wire, to detect engine RPM and shut down the CC in case the engine was running too fast.

Reply to
Mark Olson

To the original poster:

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Find a phone number on the website and call for a list of local distributors. The website list of distributors is painfully incomplete.

Call around to several, I found a wide range of prices.

They make one model that does not use vacuum, it uses an electric motor to move the throttle. On late model cars they can tap directly into the vehicle speed sensing circuits for speedos etc. No magnets required. They have many different style on off switches, some look like a factory install.

Erich installed one in my Sunbeam Tiger, works great.

Reply to
Kathy and Erich Coiner

got mine from J C Witless, it's the servo type, doesn't use vacuum. it's a lot better. good luck, sam

Reply to
sammmm

I added factory cruise control to my car using junkyard parts. You'd never know that it didn't come with the car. If you have a U-pull-it place that sells parts cheap near you then this is definately the way to go.

Installation was about as easy as it gets using this method because the wiring harness and mounting places and pre drilled and tapped holes are already in place. No stalk to break either, uses sterring wheel buttons.

Reply to
Childfree Scott

|To the original poster: | |

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| |Find a phone number on the website and call for a list of local |distributors. |The website list of distributors is painfully incomplete. | |Call around to several, I found a wide range of prices. | |They make one model that does not use vacuum, it uses an electric motor to |move the throttle. On late model cars they can tap directly into the |vehicle speed sensing circuits for speedos etc. No magnets required. |They have many different style on off switches, some look like a factory |install. | |Erich |installed one in my Sunbeam Tiger, works great.

I will second that. Rostra bought out the Perfect Circle cruise control division years ago. PC kits were the Cadillac of the field. I have used several. Current Rostras are far beyond those, and they are good. Thousands were installed by dealerships in the 1980s. Rex in Fort Worth

Reply to
Rex B

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