Exterior lighting question/confirmation

#1

I’m going through the wiring harnesses with the ETM right now and trying to clean it up/simplify it – and moving as many components as I can to dash-mounted switches.

Couple questions:

  1. While I’ve seen threads discussing the moving of this stuff to buttons/switches, I wasn’t able to find the rules that allow for it. I’m kinda at the point of no return anyway, so I’ll probably just have to live with hoping no one complains if it’s not in the rules.

  2. If the rules are there, how do they pertain to parking/side marker/turn signal/hazard/reverse lights? I’ve already removed the central locking/power window/audio harnesses. Of what’s left, I’ve got all the easy ignition/starter/run/accy wires labeled and my next step is to hash out the wiring for the lights. I only glanced at the hazard switch circuit page yesterday before I stopped working, but it looked like something I might just decide to reuse instead of recreating the switch circuitry. Or maybe it can simply be replaced by a DPST switch.

If it’s not much of a pain, I’ll probably prefer to keep the lighting system working. But if I get to the point where I really would prefer simplicity over having those extremely useful turn-signals, I’d like to know if that’s even an option.

Thanks,

Som

#2

There’s this:

9.3.13.32. Turn signal and windshield wiper stalks may be modified, removed, or replaced with
alternate switches located elsewhere in the driver compartment

#3

Som, imagineer with interior switches all you want. No one cares about interior electrical stuff like that. Every dozen switches is worth a car-length at the checker. 6 gauges is worth 2 car lengths.

#4

Woot! :slight_smile:

To be clear, are eliminating the parking/side marker/reverse light/turn signal capabilities things that people care about? It’s one thing to imagineer my own switch layout, it’s another to say “You know what? I don’t ever need this, I’m gonna cut all the wiring out of the car that relates to it”.

Thanks for the help! :slight_smile:

Som

#5

Don’t care.

Here’s a thought tho. A lot of folks take forever to get their car built because they spend a lot of time doing little stuff because they want everything to be perfect.

Many of them never to get the car built and the dream of W2W in a SpecE30 is ultimately a fail. Those half finished cars are a nice source of replacement cars to replace the inevitable KIAs.

I would encourage you to create a ToDo list with two columns. Must do and Nice to do. Get the Must do done in the next couple weeks and then get on the track. In the months that follow, while your racing and having an absolute blast one or two weekends/mo, start knocking out the Nice to do tasks.

Perfect is often the enemy of good enough.

#6

Totally agree! So much so that I already have that list – though I have 3 columns – “must”, “should”, “nice to have”.

I actually tracked the car a couple weeks ago and it ran pretty well. My remaining “must” list is not particularly long – fire system, kill switch, dash, and decals. I’ve got 3 more weekends between now and the first race weekend. I think I can tackle the fire system/decals in a weekend.

Admittedly, the electrical was in the “nice to have” column, but since I’m installing a solenoid kill switch with a few remote switches (passenger B-pillar, driver A-pillar, and dash), I figure I was already going to be taking on some of the electrical and switches while doing that. Plus it keeps me from trying to install/uninstall/install the dash as I can just do it all now, install the dash, and be done with it.

It’s actually not been particularly difficult, so far. Just time consuming. The ETK makes it pretty straightforward, even though there appear to be a handful of mistakes here and there (or maybe just things that don’t apply to my 12/86 build car – like the “Hot on Run Only” wire going from the ignition to C200 being GN/GY on my car, but VI in the ETK). I’m thinking I should be done with it by this weekend. Then probably another week to figure out why I can’t get the engine to start (as I’m sure I’ll inevitably have a couple things left to figure out…) :slight_smile:

That still leaves me 2 weeks for the fire system. :slight_smile:

Som

#7

What if one of them is to depower a 170 whp motor by 10 whp?