Where to exit the engine harness from the body

[PotvinGuy]

Gary, a bit of advice: many of the electrical problems I've seen involve bad grounds. I don't use the frame or engine for grounding. Each load and sensor has a ground wire that runs back to a bus on the wiring panel, and the bus connects to the battery. Some of today's fancy parts, like EFI and fan controllers, are especially sensitive to any electrical noise, and there can be lots of noise in the frame and engine. Unfortunately some sensors (water temp, oil pressure) have only one wire and depend on the engine for ground. If you put Teflon tape on the threads you can get little or no ground and the sensor gives a bad reading. I use 2-wire sensors if available or add a ground wire to a 1-wire sensor. Or use mechanical gauges and avoid the sensor problem. I also like mechanical gauges for the 270 degree sweep instead of the 90 degree sweep of electrical gauges.

 

[Gary49]

Gary, a bit of advice: many of the electrical problems I've seen involve bad grounds. I don't use the frame or engine for grounding. Each load and sensor has a ground wire that runs back to a bus on the wiring panel, and the bus connects to the battery. Some of today's fancy parts, like EFI and fan controllers, are especially sensitive to any electrical noise, and there can be lots of noise in the frame and engine. Unfortunately some sensors (water temp, oil pressure) have only one wire and depend on the engine for ground. If you put Teflon tape on the threads you can get little or no ground and the sensor gives a bad reading. I use 2-wire sensors if available or add a ground wire to a 1-wire sensor. Or use mechanical gauges and avoid the sensor problem. I also like mechanical gauges for the 270 degree sweep instead of the 90 degree sweep of electrical gauges.

That's good advice. I will certainly take note of it.
Gary

 

[old round fart]

NAILED IT!!! Lol

 

[Gerry]

I also run earth wires rather than rely on the chassis ground. In fact I have modified a few sensors to take an earth wire, just because, as said, they struggle for ground when teflon tape is used on their threads. On the oil pressure switch, I drilled and tapped the hex section with a 3mm bolt to take the ground wire; fiddly but worth the effort I hope.

My earth bar looks like a squid in the throws of fighting off an octopus. The earth bar is the brass strip this side of the battery. I also invested in one of the modular fuse boxes so I could configure it with relays etc for my needs. EFI wiring is not my idea of fun.

 

[PotvinGuy]

If you look at the marine fuse block in upper middle, you can see the incorporated ground bus at the top of it:

Even with 12 terminals, I had several with 2 wires...lotsa grounds!

 

[PaulColt]

Great idea on the marine block. Also love the options on your bucket. Death ray!

 

[Gary49]

Death Ray! I didn't catch that until PaulColt mentioned it. Good eye. I noticed the solid state relay. I was thinking of using some spares I had lying around from some automation projects but I had never seen any used in automotive applications until now. I'm still not sure if I should.
Gary

 

[Gerry]

Modular systen, You can slot in either fuse sections, relay sections, (2 sizes) or whatever you need to build your own system. I used the far right section to hold a main 50Amp fuse block.






Printed the 'map' out from my PC and stuck it to the inside of the cover.

 

[PaulColt]

Love that idea

 

[volksnut]

Originally mine didn't have a fuse box but I'm correcting that now, it's now mounted inside under the seat and exits under floor and up through a hole near the foot well are. The engine controls will exit near trans under firewall as nothing is mounted on it. I have a buss bar for grounds under dash along with a relay panel.

 

[PotvinGuy]

Death Ray! I didn't catch that until PaulColt mentioned it. Good eye. I noticed the solid state relay. I was thinking of using some spares I had lying around from some automation projects but I had never seen any used in automotive applications until now. I'm still not sure if I should.
Gary

If you have one rated for 40 or 50 amps, go for it. I had mine just laying around and figured it would be a good off/on switch for all power. Works like a charm.
The Death Ray...well, it's reserved for red '57 Chevys at a cruise

 

[old round fart]

You are going to need a boat load of Death Rays to get all of them!

 

[PotvinGuy]

I blow them into thousands of little bow ties!

 

[davidmross85]

Very impressive PotvinGuy. I bought mine already wired up and wish I hadn't of. What a hack job. I've cleaned some of it up but would love to get it to the point of looking as clean as yours.

 

[PotvinGuy]

Thanks, David. It helps to start with a blank slate and be an electrical engineer!

 

[fletcherson]

I also run earth wires rather than rely on the chassis ground. In fact I have modified a few sensors to take an earth wire, just because, as said, they struggle for ground when teflon tape is used on their threads. On the oil pressure switch, I drilled and tapped the hex section with a 3mm bolt to take the ground wire; fiddly but worth the effort I hope.

My earth bar looks like a squid in the throws of fighting off an octopus. The earth bar is the brass strip this side of the battery. I also invested in one of the modular fuse boxes so I could configure it with relays etc for my needs. EFI wiring is not my idea of fun.

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Good ground to the engine is also a factor to preserving the radiator and cooling system components.