Figured this could use its own thread. Just read through an EPIC seven page thread from one of the DSG guys (Alex, I think), who came up in a search for keywords similar to these, but otherwise had no luck.

Here's the situation: You've got the engine bay harness - all of it - and you want to remove non-essential leads/connectors. Then you want to upgrade leads/connectors where failures are common. What do you remove? What do you replace? And yes, my dear friend, John, I am thinking GM Weatherpak connectors throughout. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Caveat: The harness is staying in the car for this process. If I had half a dozen blokes on the hook for a new harness (and who had paid in advance), I'd be building a proper harness board right now, but as this is not the case, I'm just looking to do a little electrical pruning in the engine bay.

Ideas appreciated. Thanks.

With all of the factory parts? I don't think it's a question of what to replace; all the connectors are all 20 years old. It's more of a question of what CAN you replace.

The other question regarding what to remove is fairly simple and just depends what you still want in the car (ABS, A/C, etc.)

If you search really hard (I never have any luck) there was a discussion of a fellah who removed his fuel management harness i.e. ECU harness and either lengthened and or shortened each sensor's wiring and sheathed it in 'Milspec.'

It was a pretty detailed discussion and contained some pretty nifty picks.

Thanks, gents. Milspec would be nice, but would be overkill when I still need to buy things like tires, brakes, etc..

I guess I'm thinking more along the lines of things like all those goofy little solenoids here and there. The car will be running speed density and have a Cyclone intake manifold on it, so those might be worth mentioning.

My plan right now is to ziptie the harness where bits and sections split off, then strip back the plastic guards and start cleaning things up. This is not a cosmetic mod so much as a reliability mod. Seems to me a lot of DNFs occur due to electrical, hydraulic, or operator error.

Thanks.

So in for this thread! My harness is in desperate need of trimming and repair...

Well my harness is out and I have not even looked at it. Lets see what is thrown at this thread.

Word. I'm planning on starting at the ends and working my way back to the firewall on both ends. I'll be evaluating the condition of the connectors and whether or not I need to keep things along the way. Guess I'm more looking for thoughts on what to keep an eye out for while I go. Kinda like those vac line delete threads.

Cheers.

Dunno if this is helpful or not, but when I did the harness in my 1g DSM, this is all I needed for the motor:



Only thing not labeled is the starter wire harness which is the plug not labeled by the firewall plug. I ran my harness next to the shifter cables:



My maf sensor plug was ran inside because I run a translator, and for the wiper motor I ran it through the fender well on the pass. side:



Keep in mind, this is on a 1g dsm, no a/c, no emissions, no cruise, etc.

Okay, I new it was on here somewhere. Below is a link that may still be overkill for you Brian, but at least its something you can think about maybe doing down the road. This was a project strokin4door came up with a few years ago. Enjoy.

Harness Reworked

Linky no worky..

Quoting Pot:
Okay, I new it was on here somewhere. Below is a link that may still be overkill for you Brian, but at least its something you can think about maybe doing down the road. This was a project strokin4door came up with a few years ago. Enjoy.

Harness Reworked



Fixed link

I did this exact thing for the Chevette build but I had the luxury of having the harness out of the car. I didn't keep any solenoids, the ABS, or A/C. Just the bare minimums. The only real issues I saw when I got all the unneeded stuff out of there was the temp sender leads were a little toasty. I'm a big Weatherpak fan myself but there really aren't any places for them in the harness as all of the plugs are Mitsu specific.


I'll try and list the wires I stripped tomm, I dumped them all in a bucket and I hope they're still labeled from when I marked what to delete.

Excellent! I would love to do something like Strokin4dr (nohomo) did. That's excellent. Right now, I've got a couple spools of the cheap-o plastic wrap, but I think the braided might be better in the long run (without spending an arm and a leg to look cool with mil-spec like the Honda guys do).

And props to you, @abc123, for your supremely clever screen name and sharing a picture of the whole shebang out of the car. I haven't quite got that far yet. Toying with the idea of pulling it and working on it indoors, but also like being able to mock-route leads in the bay.

Thanks everyone. Good ideas!

If you do buy loom, make sure it's split loom. I got the grand idea of using braided sleeve and was only able to cover two small sections of the harness. There are too many branches and such to cover much with continuous sleeving.

Here's all the wires I eliminated. Now since I'm not going to put the motor into a VR4 or DSM chassis, I eliminated everything non-essential to the running of the motor. You will probably want to keep some of the stuff I sh*t canned. Stuff like the wipers, brake fluid idiot light, etc. Here's the drawings showing what wires I eliminated as well, if that helps any.





I mostly used this diagram though to trace what to eliminate. It's painstaking out of the car so I'm sure it's a cluster in the car.

Thanks, James. Super helpful!

This a DSM harness, but should still be very useful for identification purposes.


Don't mind the Xs on things, that pertains to a engine swap into a different chassis where those aren't needed. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Some good info here, gentlemen! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I'll say. Bookmarking.

I just took the two harnesses (fuel/TPS/ignition/etc and Coolant/O2/etc) and removed all the loom, got em down to bare wire and connectors. Then I plugged everything back in. From there I took friction tape, which is essentially hockey stick grip tape, and at the points where a connector left the mainline of harness, I tied it off it with the tape. Then I removed the harness again, and wrapped the entire thing in the friction tape. Takes a good couple of rolls to do each harness but the friction tape stays on very well, is very flexible and is difficult to see. This also decreased the diameter of the wire bundles so you could hide more of the wires, like the fuel for example, under the injectors instead of on top. While doing all this, I inspected the connectors and removed any connectors which had no function.

I'm going back in soon to do the wires by the battery and along the passenger frame rail.

/brox