Whoah. So here we are, 8 months later... I had planned to write a post about my wiring harness. Did I write a post about my wiring harness? Nope. But I did build a wiring harness. For the third time since I've owned this car, I have built a complete engine wiring harness. And as you might know by now, I kinda like building wiring harnesses. So now I guess I'll write a little bit about this wiring harness, because I did put a bit of effort into it.
There were a couple things I decided to change this time around. First I wanted to have a wiring bulkhead, or a connector on the firewall where the wiring passes through to the interior. Did I strictly need this? Nope. But it's nice.
the old wiring pass through. there was a rubber grommet in the odd shaped hole
chopped out for the new connector plate
new connector plate ready for welding
connector mock-up
The other thing was that I wanted better engine protection. My new ECU has the ability to place limits on the engine based on oil pressure, knock levels, and fuel pressure, so I added provision for those sensors as well as oil temperature to the new harness.
The old harness as removed
Stripping it down to re-use most of the wires and connectors
The new firewall connector prior to sheathing.The loops are for flexibility.
New connector on the firewall
all sheathed up
full harness
I think there were 35 devices connected to this harness
After completing the engine bay side of the harness, I needed to make an interior harness. This would provide connection to the ECU, supply power to the ECU, injectors, coils, a few other sensors, and also some CAN bus communications provisions.
ECU plugs populated with wires
plugged into the ECU
planning wire routing
wires run, but not sheathed
Interior side of the engine harness 95% complete
While I was at it, I decided I should also clean up my under-dash wiring to the fuse panel. It wasn't terrible before, but I could do better. It took way too long to perform the wiring tidying, as is normal for all my projects.
Fuse panel before
Fuse panel after
So that's pretty much it. Wires. Neat, eh? Also, as you might remember from my drive-by-wire conversion post a mere 10 months ago I now use an electronic gas pedal. I used a pedal from a Subaru BRZ, since it has a pedal mounted on a metal shaft, which is much easier to modify to fit my car than the standard all-plastic accel pedals found in most cars today.
cutting and welding the pedal
test fitting the pedal
Final pedal positioning
Everything back in place and all buttoned up again
the good stuff, we keep it well hidden in the garage
topping off the radiator
With all that done, it was time to have yet another "first start". Of course a first start is always special, but I'm really hoping I can avoid any more "first starts" for a very long time. It's kinda like when everyone gets to attend Uncle Darrel's fourth wedding and we all roll our eyes as he's saying his vows. Ok maybe not that bad but anyway... here's what you came for: a shaky video with terrible audio. Enjoy.
Well that catches you up to about January of this year. With a little luck and the low low price of whatever it is we're charging you suckers these days, you'll get another update before January of next year.
PS: Looks like ol' Frank is out there living his best life. Take that Barb!
