Ok guys I hope I'm in the right place for this. Seemed to be the right way to go. Over the summer I had a catastrophic failure on my Clayton Racing 383 LT1 and its in the process of being put back together slowly but surely. I've decided to go against my desire to rush the car back together for spring and really take my time and reevaluate the entire Car. This car from day one has been haunted by electrical gremlins and in my mind I always thought it could be done better and simpler. I recently removed the HVAC system and seeing as this is going to be primarily a Street/Show car I dont have any plans of ever putting ac or heat back in it. I have the Vette for when I feel like being comfortable lol.

So here is a small synopsis of what I have planed and I would love to hear your thoughts suggestions and advice (even if its to tell me to leave it alone)

-Gut the entire wiring harness out of the car, or attempt to preserve existing pieces of the wiring

-Build a centralized fuse/relay box that will tuck under either the seat or the dash but still be readily accessible for service

-Run wires for the bare esentials (Headlights, Tail lights, Brake Lights, Turn Signals, Window motors, Wiper motors, fuel system, stereo(gotta keep my tunes))

-Run analog auto meter style cluster to eliminate need for factory gauge cluster.

-In place of the HVAC have a switch panel with ignition, fuel pump, fans, start button, ect.

I guess where I'm a little weary and unsure is when I get to the stuff like making the stuff in the steering column work (turn signals, wiper motor switches, horn), and eliminating the BCM and stuff like that. Its all a little lost on me.

Basically in the end i want a simplified wiring system that can carry out the basic functions of a factory car as far as lights, signals, and the very few power accessories I plan to keep.

I have also been looking into ISIS multiplex systems (http://www.isispower.com/) and considered the possibility there but again. My goal is to maintain stock function on the listed items. While cutting out the miles of stuff I no longer need.

The PCM I'm running is an LS1 style (24x conversion LT1 build) and I'm assuming it wouldn't be hard to make the harness stand alone aside from driving the gauges.

So again, just want some matters of opinion and thoughts on this even if its leave it alone and just use what you need on the stocker. I'm at a good point to do it now since the cars pretty much ripped apart and I want to make sure I take my time and do it all right this go round. Look forward to hearing your suggestions.

Also I should add cost and time factory aren't an issue, this projects going to go one step at a time when I have the funds to work on it. In no hurry to finish it, but just want to get a solid direction before I get much farther along. Thanks!

 

watching this

 

thread never went anywhere but I had a gentleman who did his car contact me through PM and we shared some info back and forth. I'm still on the fence but when I get back on the car next month is still in the considerations.

 

what you are asking, while it can be fairly simple overall, is a lot to discuss and address going from the oem setup and more than i'm willing to type.
the basic 3 components are the PCM, BCM, and dash cluster. the oem dash cluster receives a data stream from the pcm so it's not something you can change. i don't know what you mean by gremlins but those are usually caused by either a bad pcm or bcm, as everything is basically wired into the bcm (door locks and lights for example and alarm system) which is what makes everything complex.
if you want to go electrically simple, then first thing is how are you controlling the engine. if it's an oem pcm that's been reprogrammed then as long as that'll work without a bcm i would say remove the bcm and dash cluster, and stock radio. hardest part would be getting to the wiring that comes out of the base of steering column and identifying what wires work turn signal, wipers, horn, etc.
from there you wire everything via relays, most of which are underhood in those fuse boxes so you can utilize those.
for the oem alternator i believe you put +5v to it to get it to charge, unless you are using a different aftermarket one.
the other thing you may lose out on is ABS braking, which may not be a big deal.

 

but before you start wiring anything, plan out everything electrically on paper then work off that. don't go wiring from the hip from a plan that you have in your head.
you can google car wiring diagrams and ignition diagrams to get going, everything will be fundamentally the same regarding battery, alternator, and basic engine ignition system regarding ignition key and starter.

 

get a days sub to alldata and print up every connector and wiring diagram
best to have a color printer and if you can,print in 11x17
or get a FSM.
I have a new one for 94-5 F body PM me if interested

 

has this project gone anywhere and anymore light to shed on the subject?

 

did this ever get done? looking to so the same myself. using holley dominator and factory gauges

 

AFAIK the gauges pull their signal from the ECU itself, so you will not be able to run the factory gauges with the Holley. When I did my install I used all aftermarket gauges with their own dedicated sensors (the Holley sensors cannot have a split signal). Doing it this way I was able to cut down the wiring bundle through the firewall on the driver's side to 13 wires and eliminate the underhood fuse block entirely.

 

No never completed it. Car is still setting in my driveway with no motor. Vette took priority for a bit. Hoping to get back into this car this year and start putting it back together, sittings been hard on it though and its got a long road ahead

 

I've had bs3 on the car before and all of my gauges worked with no piggy backed ls1 ecu. It may help to know though that my car is a 94 z28 lol

 

No different from my 93 wiring-wise, I ran an 0411 PCM directly to my stock cluster without a piggy back LT1 PCM. Does the BS3 use analog outputs? If so, that may be why. The Holley EFI uses CAN BUS to send readings to the gauges, so output from the Holley directly to the stock cluster is a no-go. If you are able to ID the wires in the cluster, you may be able to wire independent senders directly to the gauges. IIRC when I trimmed out all of my wiring, it was around 28 lbs.

 

This is not entirely true. I split the signal from my fuel pressure sending unit and also the coolant temp. I think anything that runs on a sensor that uses a 0-5V output can be split and go both to the Holley box and the autometer gauges.

 

I don't doubt that you're correct, but that's one of the things Holley recommends not to do. I considered doing it myself, but it was just as easy to run dedicated senders and leave a clean signal to the ECU.

 

Some dude from Holley told me to do it??????

 

This isn't advanced or engineering lol. It's straight electrical work.


Good luck.

 

They told me not to when I was asking them how to install aftermarket gauges. They told me only Holley gauges would work with the system because you couldn't split the signal from the senders due to it sending a dirty signal to the ECU. So I ran dedicated senders and used Autometer gauges.

 

Typical auto company tech help. lol

It was one of their engineers that told me it would be fine, if that matters.

I'm only here to report, that you can do it. Gauge readouts are unaffected and never had an issue with it. If wiring a car, it can help tighten up the job a bit.

 

I'm sure it's like you said earlier, a 0-5v sender could be split with no ill effects. I more or less did it to have my gauges separate from the system (redundancy). That way if my gauge says I have low oil pressure, I can pull up the laptop and verify that the gauge has something wrong or if my second sender says the same thing.