I am currently wiring up my ignition / megajolt. My oh my there are a lot of connectors. Anyways I have purchased some shielded microphone cable for connecting the VR sensor to the EDIS 8 and to connect the MegaJolt Junior Lite to the Edis 8. My EDIS 8 is only 3 inches from my MegaJoltJL so do I need to bother using the shielded cable? The tails on the connectors could easily just be connected. Seems daft to have the cable come out of the MJJL connect to shielded cable, have 2 inch of shield and connect to EDIS 8.

How critical is this shielded cable? The PIP/SAW run through the same hole as the power to the MJJL, does this need to be shielded?

[Edited on 21/7/11 by Irony]

Difficult to say - but on the basis that you have the cable and it's not hard to do, I'd go with the shielded cable.

It's not worth doing it for such a short distance with PIP/SAW.
More important are the VR and coil wires to the EDIS, so shield those.

Having said that, if you pull a modern Ford loom apart, there's no shielding to either VR or coils.
Must be witchcraft.

The pip and saw on mine where just plain wires. The sheilded bit goes from the jolt down to the VR sensor. No need to worry IMO.

i've had mine running (only a few seconds at a time) without sheilded cable, so not essential, but if you have it, you may as well use it imo

I had loads of problems with a dodgy Megajolt loom, only fully cured when I used new fully shielded wire and supported the VR sensor plug.
Do it properly IMHO
I also threw the light microphone wire away as this broke up easily when the car was used in anger and replaced with Triggerwheels proper stuff.
It was a real disappointment the car spluttering and breaking down all the time.

I am naively hoping that the Shielded Cable I have bought will be up to the job. I looks and feels like the proper stuff and it has all sorts of Military Grade Standards it complies to printed out on a seperate sheet of paper. Could be crap though.

I just don't want to cut the tails on the EDIS8 connecter et al literally 1 inch from the connector itself. There doesn't seem to be much info on whats exceptable and whats not

You probably don't need to use shielded cable if it's only a few inches - but you should keep the wire away from high-current conductors (like the 12v supply to the coil, for example), and preferably not bunched up with other signal wires.

I also used triggerwheel's shielded cable for my MJ installation - the difference is noticeable between that and the stuff from Maplins - it has much tougher, thicker, oil-and-petrol-fume-resistant plastic sleeving for a start, and feels much more substantial. I'd guess that anything that isn't too delicate will do the job, but bear in mind the hot, oily, damp smug under most bonnets and the effect it may have on cheap cables!

I might try and keep the cables that should be shielded away from other cables at all times

I have tried both non shielded and shielded... only difference I found was a slightly more stable signals (especially around idle) with the shielded.

But plain wire does work perfectly well in my experience with MJLJ (over around 1.5m ish)