S14 Fusebox Relocation and Q&A thread

[rbpowerds14]

i love this thread! thank you guys for the help!

[rbpowerds14]

another question though-u guys got a good link to where ur getting ur braided wireloom, please

ive found some that are split loom designe. its braided too, i guess that will work to for the lasy person so u dont have to depin all the connectors. heres the web link-
Cable Management and Wire Organizer Products from CableOrganizer.com

seems like there prices are good to

[Om1kron]

cable organizer is pretty cool but I use wirecare, they're all the way in jersey and kinda fail on sending you an email when they ship your shit. But it says on their website they ship everything 24 hours later after your order is placed.

I originally ordered my stuff from some shop in florida but their website is clunky and sucks ass.

www.wirecare.com

I use tech flex non fray fire retardant sleeving.

https://www.wirecare.com/products.as...CP&prodline=ES

1/8 is for anything that has like 2 wires on a small plug
1/4 is the smallest I would recommend getting away with on pretty much every lengthy large connector up to 8 wires and is the easiest to work with.

3/8 I would use for junction wiring to clean it up, say like my water temp sensors, tps sensor and my cas sensor I would run this over that which I had already loomed with 1/4.

1/2 is what I believe I am using for the whole harness through the firewall.

[rbpowerds14]

what heat shriking tubing ratio?
2-1
3-1
4-1
also might sound like a stupid question(sorry) but can i use the shrink tubing? since im gonna use the split tube loom, can i cut the shrik tubing in half wrap it around it and heat it up? will it hold? or am i just gonna have to use electrical tape?
thanks

[Om1kron]

I'm partial to 3-1 as it's easier to get over groups of wires without being a bitch... you should see the tubing I got for the firewall grommet. All of the tubing I got was glue lined, it takes a bit longer to shrink but you can bet it wont slide off. You have to slice it off with a razor blade to remove the loom.

I found out the hard way when I did it early to one connection that wasn't ready for that yet.

With my second order of loom I can now do the interior portion of the harness to rid myself of the extra wires =)

[onepuff]

So i made a little more progress cleaning up the engine harness.

Got these in the other day.





Here is the pin and socket.


Here they are connected.


Starting to solder the wires on.


Here is after being soldered and crimped. All connections are very solid.


Here with a few pins installed already. Wall mount side.


Here is the engine side connector.



Here's my homemade depinning tool. They run about $30 for the real version. This one works just fine. And i can use it to pour myself a drank afterwards.


Done with one socket to spare.


Interior side done.


Engine side done.


Interior engine harness before.



Interior engine harness after. Still need to shorten a few wires that run to the M63 connector and wrap things up. Much less mess though already.


Here is the nearly completed engine harness(engine side). Still need some injector clips to finish it up.


Let me know what ya'll think.

[GSXRJJordan]

Love it! Although I pinned out enough of those mil-spec connectors as an AT in the Navy to know that they're not 100%. Why split the harness at all, though?

The work looks good, and I love your soldering station (high $$$ stuff!).

[onepuff]

Originally Posted by GSXRJJordan

Love it! Although I pinned out enough of those mil-spec connectors as an AT in the Navy to know that they're not 100%. Why split the harness at all, though?

The work looks good, and I love your soldering station (high $$$ stuff!).

1. It will make it a cake walk to pull the engine in the future.
2. I wanted to get rid of the extra 2 feet of wiring i had folded up by the ECU.
3. It looks killer.

It is supposed to be good for 500 connect/disconnect cycles so i doubt i will have any problems from it. I don't plan on pulling the engine that much.

Yea my soldering ssetup sucks balls, but my Weller soldering station rocks. I need to put this together, wouldn't have taken me all night to solder that shit up.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Thir...d-for-electro/

Oh yea my pops was an AT on the USS Kittyhawk back in the day. He put a few of these things together too.

[driver11324]

I am doing this to my harness in the next couple of weeks. Great work!! I have some questions about the barrel connecter and your setup. You dont have to use Mil-spec wiring with the barrel connecter right? and where did you get it?

[Om1kron]

yeah mil spec connectors are rad as fuck but id rather have someone else do it. I don't have that much patience plus I have no idea how I would pin my 14ga wires through that (ignition and eccs relay)

[GSXRJJordan]

Originally Posted by onepuff

1. It will make it a cake walk to pull the engine in the future.
2. I wanted to get rid of the extra 2 feet of wiring i had folded up by the ECU.
3. It looks killer.

It is supposed to be good for 500 connect/disconnect cycles so i doubt i will have any problems from it. I don't plan on pulling the engine that much.

Yea my soldering ssetup sucks balls, but my Weller soldering station rocks. I need to put this together, wouldn't have taken me all night to solder that shit up.

Third Hand++: A multi-use helping hand for electronics and other delicate work.

Oh yea my pops was an AT on the USS Kittyhawk back in the day. He put a few of these things together too.

Did you say the USS Shittyhawk? I deployed on the Roosevelt and G. Washington before going back to a training command for the duration

When you pull the engine, you're going to leave the upper harness plugged in? It takes like 10 secs to unplug everything. I get what you mean about removing the "excess" wiring (you'd have to cut it all anyway, so why not put a connector in there), but it still seems like a whole ton of work.

Om1kron, you don't need 14ga wiring anywhere in the upper harness lol. Simply not enough power going through there.

[Om1kron]

it's 14 or 16... I always get lower to be safe... same reason why i'll be upping the ga to the fuel pump eventually. But it has nothing to do with this thread.

You can go back and forth with me all day about it's not needed blah blah...

And my girlfriend can tell me "I don't notice the difference in dvd quality with hdmi cables or regular component" and "the audio sounds the same even with your fancy digital audio cable."

sooooo there. =)

[GSXRJJordan]

Hahaha you just compared me to your girlfriend. I'm touched.

[thread continues]

[Om1kron]

I'll touch you...... also onepuff, your fusebox links went dead...

but I found similar stuff over at pegasusautoracing.com

which is sweet because now I can order my damn wires and shit from them as well...

Also how are the 75 and 150 amp fuses handled when converting over to a box like this, each slot is rated up to 30 amps and the fusebox panel itself is rated to 150 amps tops. So do you guys add those in separate, eliminate them somehow, that's whats confusing me about the custom fusebox shit.

[GSXRJJordan]

You go with an inline fuse on the way to the fusebox - with something as big as a 150A, most car audio pros like to have a few separate fused leads in parallel rather than a single huge lead, just because it keeps heat down.

[Om1kron]

gosh... this is going to get expensive... and confusing.

[jakethesnake]

bad ass idea man cant wait to see it all finished and tucked away

[onepuff]

Originally Posted by driver11324

I am doing this to my harness in the next couple of weeks. Great work!! I have some questions about the barrel connecter and your setup. You dont have to use Mil-spec wiring with the barrel connecter right? and where did you get it?

I got them at Digi-Key.com and no you don't have to use mil-spec wiring with it. It's just like using a fancy (and confusing) Molex connector.

[WoolyS14DET]

If the rep system was still around I would give you one !!! Great thread and nice work !! I like the connector and i had the same idea and wanted to do this to my 14 in the near future to also get rid of the extra wiring. In my book it's all about clean look. I did how ever already get rid of some of the extra wires in the engine bay when I did my swap and my battery is already relocated to the trunk. But excellent job !!! Keep the pics coming !

[onepuff]

Originally Posted by Om1kron

yeah mil spec connectors are rad as fuck but id rather have someone else do it. I don't have that much patience plus I have no idea how I would pin my 14ga wires through that (ignition and eccs relay)

Patience! Shit you come do your engine scrubbing on my RB and i'll do your harness.

[Om1kron]

hahahahah! touche man...

[onepuff]

Originally Posted by GSXRJJordan

Did you say the USS Shittyhawk? I deployed on the Roosevelt and G. Washington before going back to a training command for the duration

When you pull the engine, you're going to leave the upper harness plugged in? It takes like 10 secs to unplug everything. I get what you mean about removing the "excess" wiring (you'd have to cut it all anyway, so why not put a connector in there), but it still seems like a whole ton of work.

Om1kron, you don't need 14ga wiring anywhere in the upper harness lol. Simply not enough power going through there.

Shittyhawk hahaha. Yea all those Navy guys are anyway. J/K

The RB engine harness can be a pain to get to some of the connectors under the intake mani. It took about one night to solder everything up and get the pins all in. It's cold as fuck here in Ohio and i could do all this inside so it wasn't that big of a deal for me. If I were to have a third hand soldering setup and the real crimping tool i could do this all day(for some money of course).

This is another reason for my cleanup. This shit just looks ghetto as fuck.
Can't even see the damn firewall.

[GSXRJJordan]

Ewwww RB20! And I'm ?

Lol post up pics after it's all in the car, I wanna see how clean it is

[Om1kron]

Originally Posted by GSXRJJordan

You go with an inline fuse on the way to the fusebox - with something as big as a 150A, most car audio pros like to have a few separate fused leads in parallel rather than a single huge lead, just because it keeps heat down.

so when you say... in parallel... you mean like on one cable instead of having a 150 amp fuse in the middle of it's path they put two 75 amp inline fuses on the same wire?

[GSXRJJordan]

Originally Posted by Om1kron

so when you say... in parallel... you mean like on one cable instead of having a 150 amp fuse in the middle of it's path they put two 75 amp inline fuses on the same wire?

Nope, that'd be series, and one would blow before the other at about 75A load.

Start with this - you'll never have anywhere near 100A total current (unless you're into car audio and have some big amps), but lets assume you want your system fused at ~100A. What are your (smart) options?
1) you could use one 1/0 gauge wire, with an inline 100A fuse
2) you could use 3 4ga (or even 8ga!) wires in parallel, each with it's own 30A/35A fuse (they each start and end at the same spot, but are 3 separately fused wires).

The 1/0 gauge wire is harder to run (doesn't turn very much at all), much harder to crimp, and will get MUCH hotter before that 100A fuse blows. The three 4ga wires will keep the heat down (because each will never carry more than 30A), and they're easier to run along the car).

This is why most distribution blocks have multiple ins/outs.

[onepuff]

Yea the RB sounds so sexy tho.
It will be a while before i get everything in.
I've got a lot of cleanin, weldin, grindin, fillin, sandin, and paintin to do before it all goes in. I'll be tucking the brake and clutch lines before that tho.

[Om1kron]

haha good shit one puff, i'm actually doing my engine bay last... It can stay black for now...

in the future I will be doing the same thing, tucking lines, shaving and filling un-used holes, and tubbing the fenders (because I like how it looks, suck me low haters. Don't like it click the back button.) but I want to make sure I know what holes will be used in the engine bay and which will be eliminated.

Also like gsracer I'm going to make my radiator support 2 parts upper half will bolt in, bottom half will be welded in to make engine removal easier in the future. I'm running SOLID engine mounts so doing a clutch swap with an engine I cant tilt backwards will be next to impossible hence why it's not sitting in the car now...

but back on topic...

the wiring setup sounds neat but I probably need one of your 4th grade drawings to picture it in my head or a link to a thread where someone has that setup... sounds like a bitch of a time.

Also kicker makes a flexwire that should eliminate that issue of bend-ability.

(borrowing image)


note to self, renew photobucket account next week... cant upload anymore pictures lol.

you can buy it in amp install kits too... hey look 100 amp fuse.

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...icker+PK4.html

[GSXRJJordan]

Yup, that'd work. BTW, that Kicker wire is 4ga, the shit that's really hard to bend is the 1/0ga (an inch thick).

[Om1kron]

nah they have super flex 0/1 or 1/0 whatever it is too.

Priced Per Foot | 0/1 Gauge Power / Ground Wire | Power & Ground Cable | Cables & Wires | Car Accessories and Installation | Car Audio and Video at Sonic Electronix

[onepuff]

Got the interior side pretty much all done. I'll run the power and signal wires to the Buick coil through a small grommet hidden below wherever i decide to mount the coils.


Just need to decide how i want to mount them.




Here's the leftovers of my work so far.