Engine harness

#1

After replacing two old engine harnesses with finally a good one, I am thnking MegaSguirt is not a bad idea. I know I could of just found the bad circuit, but I had the harnesses available. It is amazing how brittle the harnesses have gotten.

#2

I don’t know about Megasquirt, but I’d love to be allowed to make my own engine harness.

#3

Go for it.

#4

Uhh, I’m pretty sure the rules don’t expressly allow that. Unfortunate because you could recreate one yourself for much less than the cost of new. All of the pins and connectors are available new. Or even reuse and re-pin a few of the original connectors. Or substitute in new weatherpack connectors here and there. Quality wire is widely available. I’d probably even reuse a lot of the original wire after inspecting to make sure it’s sound. Certainly a lot of labor, but my labor rate is free and I’m not afraid to tackle complicated jobs. Problem is, I consider this to fall under the “if it doesn’t say you can do it, then you can’t” area of the rules.

#5

+1

At some point common sense has to prevail. If someone formally challenges you on a common sense issue, once it becomes public everyone will harrass the guy so badly that he’ll feel expelled from the community and he’ll go irritate else where. There’s always openings in SM.

There’s a number of wiring harness mods already popular. Most of it is to bypass connectors that have proved problematic in the past. Off the top of my head:

–Hard wiring the injectors.
–Bypassing some connector under the dash. Big purple wire that I’m told supplies V to the DME or something.
–Master Relay bypass. Once car is started throw the switch and any flakiness in the Master Relay or it’s socket isn’t an issue.
–Improving grounds in every way imaginable.

I’m not part of the SpecE30 chain of command, and hopefully no one in SpecE30 has ever heard me utter an unkind word about anyone. I mean other than the Molitor saga. But if anyone caused official trouble for a racer over the above issues, I’d lead the march to his paddock space. SpecE30 is about having fun with, and helping, your buddies. That community spirit is by far the most important thing we have.

Sure, there’s certainly a place for legit challenges. They help folks honest. But a mean-spirited BS challenge only creates disbelief and animosity. A person might as well cut an artery of our terrific comradery and watch it bleed out. I will try to do my part to protect that sense of that spirit of having fun, and helping your buddies. That means helping newbies when one can, and leading the march on the SOB that leveled a formal challenge that is complete BS.

Splicing in a new connector in an engine harness is a completely reasonable service activity. Ok, it might not be spelled out in the service manual, but the service manual doesn’t go into much detail on how to remove every single fastener either. And if you can splice in one new connector than you can splice in all new.

As we all know a new engine harness is expensive. No one cares if you spliced in a new ABS connector because all of ours are crumbling into their component molecules. No one would care if you replaced brake light wiring because you found it to be unreliable, etc. We’re just talking about wiring here. The common sense rule applies.

Off my soapbox. Chasing down engine management problems I’ve fooled with a lot of engine compartment wiring. What I found, to my surprise, was that it was ALL black with tarnish. Even the wire several feet away from the connector was black with tarnish. It’s a wonder that any of our connectors work.

Caveat. Inside the passenger compartment tho, the wiring looked pretty good.

#6

I’ve gone through three used harnesses and now have a brand new harness in the car. I cut one of the failed harnesses open with the idea of repairing it. The only problem that harness had (that I knew of) was with the CPS wiring. I gave up on that after a good look at the wires in the harness. They were in very bad condition (brittle & cracked insulation). It is a wonder that something didn’t short out.

A new harness sounds expensive, but if you tow a car four hours or more to an event the gas and event cost is about what a harness costs. Viewed that way the cost of the harness doesn’t seem so bad. Building a harness would be a lot of work and may not be all that much cheaper if you use all new connectors.

#7

I think I made a rule request this winter for wiring to be free after someone pointed out that installing firewall connectors in my body harness would be illegal. When I gutted the car and installed the iq3 I removed the entire active check system and window, lock and side marker wires.

#8

“Wiring is free” might be too broad to get approved. What you want to do when you request a rule change is provide the specific text of the rule change you envision. You have to massage the words precisely in order to reduce the opportunities for some hard-head to exploit. Also, think about that foghat guy or whatever his handle is that spins himself up into a storm over uncommon interpretations.

“Wiring is free” could open the door to all sorts of things as “wiring”. Instead, request a rule change along the lines of “Engine harness connectors can be replaced as long as the new connector provides no additional functionality”, and “Any wiring in the car can be removed as long as it does not impair required functions like brakelights.”