Ok her is some updates. I am about to head out to parts store and grab some things I ran out of like wire loom and inline fuses. I will have the car running tonight and the wiring finished being wrapped and vacumme lines ran all that good stuff.

Yes I told the customer he must order a box but hers what we got until then.

 

Property tax, electricity, gas, GST, employee's deductions, benefits, eviromental levies, bottle contracts.......and those are just the first ones that pop into my head. You can't run a profitable business (because I do this for a living) and be on top of the table now-a-days charging $25/hr. Unless you sneak in a few extra hours on the bill or something

Everyone has to eat.

__________________________


Its coming along nicely......Is this a vert?

 

the previous owner of my TII must've gone to the same place because my remote start sounds JUST like that. There is a bundle of wires hanging over my clutch pedal I had to zip tie up under the dash because my foot got caught in the nest one day. Don't even get me started about discovering I even had remote start with the car on a hill in first gear......................................

 

Hahah, I hope whoever it was eventually sees this thread!

 

The only property my business takes is my car and my tools, so I have no building to pay electricity for, my volume is so low there's no way I'd have to pay GST (I tend to have one client every month or so, and the average bill is probably about $180 total), I have one employee (me) and I don't pay myself benefits, I take the substances I remove to the proper facilities, and I have no contracts.

Basically though, it's just a hobby turned slightly profitable. That's how I can charge $25/hr.

I do think it's unfortunate that the auto repair business is so costly, and I guess what really makes it so much worse is that a lot of shops out there will purposely deceive you and or perform expensive services you don't need. If a higher percentage of shops could be trusted, I wouldn't be so annoyed at the cost, but you have to shop around to get good service and even then you might get a horrible surprise.

 

Dude you are da MAN for cleaning all that mess up. I've had to go behind people several times and re-do everything they did, and some stuff they didn't Nothing near as bad as all that. Looks good now though.

 

I don't know how someone could sleep at night after having done a **** poor job like that to someone elses car. Its one thing to **** up your own ride, but to do that to someone elses car and charge them for it is a sin.

 

dude, mad props for cleaning that **** up.

 

amazing job man, it looked like something someone would do to make their car look way more complicated, but realy it just looks really retarded, i would cry if my car looked like that

say howcome you just zip-tied all those wires? wouldnt it be easier to cut all the excess off, or to get a shorter wire or something? just saying

it looks way better anyway

 

Some gangster fun lol



Alright anyways back to work






Yeah yeah I know Red is suppose o be +, it's another 777 story and w/e

 

damn son, u gangsta! rockin the shocker and sheit lol

but seriously, awesome work! looks 10000000 times better now

 

Great work so far! Looks about a thousand times better. Here area few suggestions on how to further improve the job based on my experiences:

I don't know why people use inline fuse holders. Generally they are unreliable as the contacts tend to move around due to the tugging on the wire, and it can be a troubleshooting nightmare to have fuse holders randomly in wiring.

You may also not be happy with the long-term results of using audio-store distribution blocks. They really provide very little good contact with the wire, and tend to break easily. Looks like the plastic on yours is already cracked. Distribution posts are available from most electrical suppliers and while they don't look as pretty, they are highly reliable.

The crimp terminals and vampire clips are going to be a problem in a few years as well...

 

luckilly the previous owner of my haltech system was an electrical engineer.

looks like teh stock harness. this thing is completly and utterly plug and play. it even has the wiper conectors, and the ignition connectors built right in so i dont hack up anything.

yes, thats my horribly disfigured foot.

 

Hey thank you. What else can I use besides the clip terminals and vampire clips I assume this is the eye loop connectors? Always thought that is what you are supos to use. But then again im not an electrical engineer. The audio fuse box I used it because it was laying in the car when I got it and was cracked at the plastic so I figured it would be good and work well to use there. Make it easier to run a central ps to all the of the haltech and use of the heat brakers. Any more advice to improve my work is welcome plase.

 

Its what I use, except I snip the jacket off them, crip them, solder the terminal on and then heat srhink it.

I think Aaron was mostly commenting on using them by crimping alone, but I could be wrong.

Looks nice

 

Depends on what you're going to connect to. If you are going to a ground bolt or something like that, then the only choice would be a crimp on ring terminal. But you can minimize the problem of corrosion by using sealed terminals and packing them with dielectric grease. The sealed terminals have a plastic body around the crimping area that extends back onto the wire as a heat-shrinkable sleeve. Cover the stripped end of the wire with dielectric grease and use a long nail or pin to get some grease into the crimp. Then crimp the terminal and heatshrink.

You can also get the spade connectors like this as well. They have a jacket that covers the male and female spade If you use dielectric grease on the jackets they will stay sealed for a long time.

For harness to harness, I'm personally fond of the GM style WeatherPack connectors.





I just did a quick Google search and the first hit was this kit. The kits generally come with a few of each connector but make you purchase the expensive crimper separately. I refuse to spend $150 on a crimper so I generally solder the terminals and have found this to be very reliable. If you buy these connectors from the local auto parts store you'll get ripped off. I buy in bulk from WayTek Wire and generally keep a LOT of single barrel connectors on hand, then a good amount of two, three and quad (the square kind, not the rectangle). If you use dielectric grease when you assemble these it's very unlikely that they will ever fail. But don't use too much grease or they'll seal too well and you won't be able to push the connectors together due to trapped air!

 

I have a ? Aaron. All of my wiering work is solderd and heat shrunk with di electrical grease inside the heatshrink to seal them. As I understand this is corect method or could use the connectors you show but that just addes another connector in the line needlessly. So the only point I have in the system that is not done this way is the 12vdc + - supply to the haltech, this is shown in the trunk on brakers. With the method I used, maybe I am dumbfounded but I don't see how I could use otehr type of connectors. Is there entierly a bettor method then how I chose to wire them? If I used them into a connector like this instead of the distro block I still have an eye loop style connector going to the battery. So I am always ending up with the week link connector in the chain as I am using to the brakers.

So am I missing something?

 

Holy crap!!!....you've got a lot of work ahead of you. Best of luck. When I get around to installing my Megasquirt, I'll post pics and a writeup. I can't stress enough about using heat-shrunk solder joints, especially on high-current as well as high-impedence circuits. And NEVER those blue "scotch-lok" connectors.....they usually damage wire strands and are a source of entry for oxidation and corrosion. Just my 2 cents.

 

I absolutely hate that Weatherpak crap.
I'd rather go with Duestch connectors.

You can get either from Summit Racing.


-Ted

 

Can you guys just hold off for a second while I get the popcorn ready?

 

The connectors are used when making connections between harnesses. For things like most breakers, you have no choice but to use ring or spade terminals. In that case the best version to use are the ones I mentioned above that are sealed.

A good example of where I use a connector is to connect a standalone to the stock body harness to run the coils. I like to keep the car as if the OEMs did it. That is, make sure that each harness is separate and can be removed without any cutting. My standard setup is to add a three position connector to the trailing coil (one for trigger, one for toggle and another for IGN to switch on the standalone) and then a single barrel for the leading. Of course if you are totally replacing the body harness wiring then this is not an issue. Another is ignition boxes. Many boxes come with flying lead harnesses, or pre-crimped spade terminals. I always cut them off and apply a proper connector. No part in my opinion should be ever soldered to a harness except a connector.

I've heard you mention this before. What's the reason? The Deustch connectors look a lot like the Molex weather tight connector, which I don't generally use because they only handle thinner wires while the WeatherPack has pins and plugs available for larger wires.

 

Holy ****, that is horrible!

In a case like that, I would just rip everything out, and start fresh. I wouldn't try organizing anything untill you start over.

Thats just plain crap. Good Luck to you!

edit, didn't see the second page. Looks a million times better, I also would use weatherPAC connectors. Can be a bit pricey for a whole kit but they should work great!

 

That does look a lot better than what you started with. Goodness, only people who either don't know what they're doing or are in a big hurry would do such a terrible job.

When I redid my main power distribution wiring, I used Marine parts. They make common bus bars that are made of tin-plated copper and have very sturdy 1/4-3/8" studs; and insulated with a block of plastic that's very strong. I used tin-plated lugs to terminate everything, protected by a combination of electrolytic grease and heat shrink tubing (I used Marine-grade cable, tin-plated copper). I have two bus bars, one in the engine bay, and one in the passenger area for the amplifiers and other auxiliary feeds. It's a very solid and reliable.

For the battery--given that I retained the stock location and only had so much space to package everything--I mounted a marine circuit breaker to the hold-down bracket. Everything is wrapped in convoluted tubing, silicone tape, glue-filled heat-shrink tubing or combination depending on where it is.

Here are some attached pictures that show you what I mean. Note that the alternator now has its own 150-amp high-amp fuse. The engine fog lamp harness was made from scratch; I didn't much like the quality of the harness Hella supplied.

I'm a big believer in the Weatherpac-style connectors too; I use them in the engine compartment for the CAS, ignition box, and few other components. For grounds, I tend to use solder seals (heatshrink with a solder ring that solders multiple wires together into one solid connection), cover it in heat shrink and terminate it with one crimp ring connector after chasing the threads in the body with a tap and use a stainless bolt and washer (with anti-seize to prevent corrosion). Where possible, I also use crimp terminals that are soldered and then sealed with heat shrink. Factory 1/4" quick-disconnects are fine too for low-amperage loads, but I'd use for the interior only.

 

Can you say fire trap??

 

Yack, the "Molex" stuff I've seen are horrible also.

The Duetsch plugs are more durable.
The Weatherpak housings are a lot more flexible.
This is bad when trying to plug them in and the pins are not aligned correctly.
I've gotten Weatherpak plugs warped cause the stupid pins didn't want to go in.
Duetsch plugs align a lot easier.

The Duetsch pins are a lot better designed and built - they are solid.
Not hollow "shells" like the Weatherpak stuff - thus, the pins are a lot more compact, but allow a lot more current to flow.

I've never seen anything bigger than the 7-pin Weatherpak, but Duetsch goes up to 12 and I think up to 14 and maybe 16 pin plugs.
This way you're not limited to smaller bundles.

The Weatherpak plugs can be compact, but once you start to get over 4...6 wires, I think the Duetsch plug is more compact.

MoTeC uses them on their wiring harnesses.
Good enough?


-Ted