Honestly, I'm just trying to get this thing on the road, but I want to do at least some of the work properly.
I decided it might be nice to have the 3 MadDad gauges (boost, oil psi, egt) on one connector, so I ordered a bunch of supplies. An extra bonus when making my own harness is that I get to choose the colors. I have some pretty strong red/green colorblindness (thanks, Grandpa!), so I usually need a buddy/color spotter to do any work on wiring harnesses. In fact, I've even employed my 2 yr old for the role on occasion. I went with red/black/white/yellow/blue/gray. Beautiful.
I first put the gauges in their spot to measure the length needed for the mini-harness.
There's a nice cover for these, so the install should look pretty nice if I don't mess it up.
The connectors for the gauges are tiny molex style that you more typically see in PC builds, but with the guidance of my wiring guru, RYEPhil, I was able to track down new pins for the connectors. If you can see (I really need a macro lens for this type of work, sorry), the original wires are badly chewed up from the Scotchlok connectors used to hack it into the car originally, so instead of cutting and splicing as I might have in the past, I used new pins and all new Spec55 colorblind-friendly wire.
Chewed up original wires:
New pins:
New pin crimped onto new wire:
New pin/wire (yellow) in original connector with 3 left to go:
The connector to the wiring in the car needs 7 wires (power, ground, headlight-on-signal-for-dimming, boost signal, oil pressure signal, EGT thermocouple plus, EGT thermocouple minus), and I was free to choose any connector on earth. Which is actually a bit overwhelming.
The super hotness would be a Deutsch Autosport connector, but that would be over $100 for one 8-pin connector. I don't have what it takes to spend that on a connector. But Americans need dreams, right?
I went with a DTM (also Deutsch) 8-pin connector. It's pretty well regarded in the motorsports community. My only issue with it, once it arrived, is that it's gigantic. Oh well.
Here's the first wire crimped and installed:
I pulled out my wire labeler again. Love that thing.
And then I finished up the rest of the connector.
And then I did it twice more for the other gauge connectors:
And then I plugged them into the gauges:
Aaaaand then I did a 3-1 splice on the power, ground, and headlight-on-signal wires. I used heatshrink waterproof crimp butt connectors for that:
With those done, I was able to finish up the DTM connector:
And then organize the wires. Yay!
I thought I was done but RYEPhil says they need to be concentric twisted and DR25 heatshrinked. At the risk of disappointing my guru, I might just send it like this.
Shame.
Thanks for reading!
damen
Next Saabaru Post: Gauge Wiring, Part II
Previous Saabaru Post: Weight+ Dash + Gauges + Charcoal
All the Saabaru Posts: Saabaru Flooded Race Car
