Tabres' Turbo Cobra - Winter Shenanigans

[Tabres]

Apologies up front for the really poor quality cell phone picture in this post but I didn't have my camera on hand while I was working so this will have to do.  

 

I got the chance to test fit the engine harness this afternoon while my wife was out shopping with her Mother.  All things considered I think it fits really well.  I have a few plugs to shorten up, but no major surgery to speak of.  In this photo most of it is just laying loose on the engine.  When everything is all tightly wrapped and covered in TechFlex the harness should virtually disappear.  If the car were black I doubt you would be able to notice it at all without really looking for it.

 

 

 

 

 

Granted the fuel hoses and intake tube, etc. aren't hooked up in the above pic but it's not bad in my opinion when you consider this was the before...

 

[copmagnet]

I think you could definitely make some money wrapping and selling harnesses.

[Lanter]

Looks really great Bryan. When are you going to test fit the Scott rod panels.?

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[RedTwilight]

Looks AWESOME!  

 

Now come do my Cobra!  LOL

[Tabres]

Aren't you relocating your battery as well?!?

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Sure am!  That's next on the list to complete.

 

 

I think you could definitely make some money wrapping and selling harnesses.

 

lol, thanks.  While I appreciate the compliment, unless they're a really, really good friend or relative.... a big no thanks on making them for others.  It takes so much time I'd have to price it out of the reach of most people just to make it worthwhile.  Plus I'd have to have the car at my disposal to really make it a tailor fit on all of the plugs.  I'll tell anyone that wants to know how I did mine, though.  That's the funny thing I've found about these wire tucks on 4V's over the years, particularly on the engine harnesses, some people really don't want to share.  And I don't understand that.  I find it a real shame for the sake of the community.  Especially when you can find anything and everything for doing it on a 5.0 car.

 

 

Looks really great Bryan. When are you going to test fit the Scott rod panels.?

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Thanks!  The Scott Rod panels is probably the last thing I'll mess with (even though they have one of the biggest visual payoffs and I'm very anxious to see them in).  I want to get all of the harnesses done and get the battery relocation done so I can get the car running for my own peace of mind.  I haven't changed much of anything on the wiring really but when you have this much stuff apart you always have that little nagging worry in the back of your head.  After that's completed I'm going to move on to the AN power-steering lines which I've settled on doing, have a few other little odds and ends to clean up, and after that I'll get onto the Scott Rod panels.  I did mess very briefly with one when I first took the car apart and couldn't get it in because it was hitting on a few things, the power-steering lines included so I'm hoping to have better luck when I have those out of the way and have more clearance.  Otherwise I think I'm going to have to take the panels apart, slide them in to place in two pieces, rivet them together and then to the car.

 

 

Looks AWESOME!  

 

Now come do my Cobra!  LOL

 

Thanks!  Appreciate the kind words!

[copmagnet]

I love the look. I may have to get a spare engine harness and try this out for myself. We shall see...

[Tabres]

I got all of the modifications and soldering done and got the harness all wrapped up.  Just need to cover it with TechFlex now and the engine harness will be all finished up...

 

[Lanter]

Looks so skimpy compared to the factory wrapped harness. Lol.

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[Tabres]

I went ahead and covered it with TechFlex this afternoon.  It took less time than I expected, maybe only about 3 hours.  I'm hoping to have a chance to get it on the car tomorrow.

 

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo before I started unwrapping and modifying it, so no before and after this time.

 

[copmagnet]

So am I seeing this correctly?

You didn't remove any wires from the engine harness, just rewrapped it?

[Tabres]

So am I seeing this correctly?

You didn't remove any wires from the engine harness, just rewrapped it?

 

I actually removed quite a few.  There were plugs for the EGR that were deleted, a plug for the knock sensor harness, a pair of plugs for the low coolant level sensor, I shortened up the cam position wire by probably 10 inches, I took probably 12 inches out of the wires that go to the plug that hooks up with the harness that runs the oil pressure sensor and the front oxygen sensors, removed the noise suppression filters, I had to add an inch of length to the IAC plug, removed the wire for the alternator and going to run that separately, took several inches out of the coolant temp sensor wire.... I think that's it.  

 

I know it looks like I didn't really do anything but there are changes all over the harness.  If I had remembered to take a before photo it would have been much more obvious.

[copmagnet]

Electrical stuff is my worst nightmare. And I so want to do this. Just saw a harness on Facebook for $80 and got tempted. I hate you right now.

[Tabres]

I spent a few hours in the garage getting several loose ends all finished up this weekend.

 

My first task was to finalize some connections in the passenger fender, get all of the harnesses zip-tied up well.  Pretty simple task.  I also took the opportunity to shorten up and more cleanly run the vacuum lines to my blow-off valve fuel pressure regulator.  From there I started relocating my boost control solenoid.  The first photo below shows where it was originally bolted to the passenger fender skirt in the engine bay.  As you can see, when I started tucking everything the vacuum lines leading to the solenoid very quickly became and eyesore so I found a new home for it in the passenger fender where the fender meets the headlight panel and the bumper.  It worked really well.  The hole was already there so I didn't have to drill any additional holes in the vehicle, didn't have to modify any of the wiring, and only had to replace one of the vacuum lines with a longer one.  In the second photo you can't see the solenoid but can see the vacuum lines running to it, just above the turbo piping to the right of the blow-off valve.

 

 

 

 

I also rerouted the fuel pressure sensor wire.  It originally came into the fender from a different, very obvious location and now runs under the regulator into the headlight area and through the fender.  You really don't see it at all from the front of the vehicle anymore.  Just a quick picture to illustrate how it is run.  This also shows how I'll have to reroute the fuel return line when I go to install the Scott Rod panels.  I think I'll end up spinning the orientation of the 90* fitting and running the line down and into the fender through the sway-bar mount area.  It should simple to do and keep it clean and tucked out of sight nicely.

 

 

 

I also got around to getting the factory ground cable back on the car.  I chopped into two pieces to make it more managable to route.  The large wire runs from the sway-bar mount on the driver's side to where I mounted my fuse box and the horns are mounted.  The other smaller, two wire cable runs from that same fuse box/horn mount and plugs into the fuse box.  The routing is a lot shorter and nicer and I tested it out with an ohm meter after installation and should work fine.  The picture below just shows the cable in the two separate pieces and how much I removed from it.  In terms of additional grounding on the car, I also have a huge cable running from the driver's side sway-bar mount to the engine mount and will have a 0-gauge running from the battery in the trunk to the frame rail.  If I have enough left over cable I'm going to build an additional ground to run from the passenger's side sway-bar mount and will attach it to the engine block with one of the starter bolts.  It should be way more than enough ground with the car having full-length subframe connectors and a roll-bar.

 

 

 

I also spent a few minutes mocking up the alternator power wire routing and harness routing.  They'll run under the intake and then across the back of the engine into the driver's side fender.  I was going to start to work on extending the alternator harness that goes to the fuse box but found I was out of the correct size heat-shrink to lengthen the wires with.  After that I took a few minutes to pull the power-steering bottle bracket and will drop that off with my Moroso power steering bottle at the powedercoater's this week to be done in gloss black.

 

Here is how the bay sat when I quit for today.  It's getting there.  The only other thing left to come out of it/be tucked is the power-steering lines (which I spent a shit ton of time researching the correct fitting sizes for.  The 96-98 cars are completely different at the booster than the 99-04 diagram that is floating around online).  All in all it'll look nice but I think the paint is going to severely let it down, even after I get the Scott Rod panels in.  I'm going to do what I can rectify that but I haven't got the ambition to pull the engine and paint it properly this winter.  I think that'll be the project for next winter.

 

[copmagnet]

God I so want to pay you to fly to my house and do this for me. Lol

[Det_Riot]

Looking phenomenal Bryan! My buddy just moved to right outside Milwaukee so I'm going to HAVE to come see this once its done!

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[Tabres]

Looking phenomenal Bryan! My buddy just moved to right outside Milwaukee so I'm going to HAVE to come see this once its done!

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Thanks!  Likewise man, I'd love to see yours.  Milwaukee is only about a 3 hour drive from my place.

[Tabres]

This afternoon I ordered all of the component necessary to do the AN power-steering lines conversion.  I'm quite irritated at what Maximum Motorsports and Hydratech charged for shipping.  Effing $14 from both of them for UPS Ground to ship fittings that collectively probably weigh less than 1/4 of a pound.  Ridiculous...

 

After I get everything installed though I'll put out all of the information for the fittings and whatnot that I used.  As I mentioned previously, what is posted for the 99-04 cars (the 04 Mach 1 diagram) is not correct for 96-98 cars and I want to make sure everything I've used is correct before I go spouting out information.

[Psychorugby]

This afternoon I ordered all of the component necessary to do the AN power-steering lines conversion.  I'm quite irritated at what Maximum Motorsports and Hydratech charged for shipping.  Effing $14 from both of them for UPS Ground to ship fittings that collectively probably weigh less than 1/4 of a pound.  Ridiculous...

 

There's a guy on Corral that I order all my MM stuff through because not only is he cheaper, he doesn't charge shipping - jdsperformance.

[Tabres]

That's what I did for the vast majority of my suspension (most of it coming from TRBO VNM on SVTPerformance, just like my Hellion kit did).  Just didn't want to waste days and days waiting on several people to get back to me with quotes like I've put up with in the past.  Call it impatient I guess but the rest of the stuff was on the way and I just wanted to have everything in hand.

[copmagnet]

I don't know if you know, but you can call MM and tell them you refuse to pay those shipping prices and they will correct it.

I needed two banjo bolts, shipping was $21 or something.. Called em up and they charged me like $3 for shipping.

[Tabres]

I don't know if you know, but you can call MM and tell them you refuse to pay those shipping prices and they will correct it.

I needed two banjo bolts, shipping was $21 or something.. Called em up and they charged me like $3 for shipping.

 

I did not know that.  Thanks for the tip.  I'm going to give them a call after work.

[Tabres]

lol, ok, I called Maximum Motorsports, explained the situation and this is how it went...

 

 

 

MM: "So, this is actually within a dollar of what the actual cost for us to ship the item via UPS Ground is..."

 

Me: "Seriously?  I obviously don't know if you guys have a corporate account though UPS but to be honest I checked rates on the UPS corporate account I have access to and it's telling me it will cost $4.96."  (100% true, btw)

 

MM replies, "Wow... that must be a really good corporate account because ours is nowhere near that."

 

Me: "Admittedly, yeah, its through a really big fortune 500 company and I have no idea how the terms of these accounts vary..."

 

MM: "Yeah, we're not a fortune 500 company, sir..."

 

Me: "Yeah.... I fully understand that, like I said not knowing how UPS's corporate accounts vary it still seems unusual to me that your cost would be $10 more than I could ship it for using the same service..."

 

MM: "Well, we could send it by USPS if you'd like, though we don't do it often..."

 

Me: "Please do... Not trying to seem cheap but $14 is way too much to ship two small fittings in my opinion."

 

 

 

I'm inclined to believe that they use the base UPS ground rate and then perhaps add a dollar for their box, because what I roughly estimated on UPS.com for this shipment was $13.37.   Oh well...

[copmagnet]

That is ridiculous.

[Blackmage]

lol, ok, I called Maximum Motorsports, explained the situation and this is how it went...

 

 

 

MM: "So, this is actually within a dollar of what the actual cost for us to ship the item via UPS Ground is..."

 

Me: "Seriously?  I obviously don't know if you guys have a corporate account though UPS but to be honest I checked rates on the UPS corporate account I have access to and it's telling me it will cost $4.96."  (100% true, btw)

 

MM replies, "Wow... that must be a really good corporate account because ours is nowhere near that."

 

Me: "Admittedly, yeah, its through a really big fortune 500 company and I have no idea how the terms of these accounts vary..."

 

MM: "Yeah, we're not a fortune 500 company, sir..."

 

Me: "Yeah.... I fully understand that, like I said not knowing how UPS's corporate accounts vary it still seems unusual to me that your cost would be $10 more than I could ship it for using the same service..."

 

MM: "Well, we could send it by USPS if you'd like, though we don't do it often..."

 

Me: "Please do... Not trying to seem cheap but $14 is way too much to ship two small fittings in my opinion."

 

 

 

I'm inclined to believe that they use the base UPS ground rate and then perhaps add a dollar for their box, because what I roughly estimated on UPS.com for this shipment was $13.37.   Oh well...

whats the weight and from what zip to what zip, i can check to see what it would cost us to ship it.  We have an account for our dealerships which is honestly about the size they are with about 1/4 the amount of shipped items. lol

[95riosnake]

I also order any and all MM stuff through jdsperformance on corral, great seller and ships quick, always has the best prices too.

[Tabres]

I also order any and all MM stuff through jdsperformance on corral, great seller and ships quick, always has the best prices too.

 

I hear you.  I've done that with all of my MM components in the past.  Impatience just got the best of me and wanted to try to get the items in my hands by next week when I've got some time off and would have a chance to work on it.

 

 

whats the weight and from what zip to what zip, i can check to see what it would cost us to ship it.  We have an account for our dealerships which is honestly about the size they are with about 1/4 the amount of shipped items. lol

 

Appreciate the offer but at this point I'm whatever about it.  I went back and checked what they charged me for USPS and it was like $5.xx so I'm ok with it.

[Tabres]

UPS dropped off almost all of my fittings for the AN power steering line conversion this afternoon.  Just waiting on the Maximum Motorsports fittings and I'll be set to start on them.  I don't know about you guys but I love me some AN fittings...

 

 

 

 

I got off of work early today for the holidays and had some time to work on the wiring for the alternator a little bit.  One of the things I decided to do was still utelize the stock power wire for the alternator.  Two benefits to this - I can still go back to stock if I ever want to, and the stock cable already has a fuse in it for me to take advantage of.  So I put a ring terminal on the XS Power 4-gauge wire I'm running back to the battery and bolted the two ring terminals together.  I tested out the connection and everything was good so I covered it with some heat shrink and wrapped it all up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From there I took everything out to the garage to do a final test fit on the car.  Everything went pretty well.  I had to do some grinding on my alternator bracket to be able to run the cable the way I want and I discovered I'm going to have to add a little more length to the alternator harness that runs to the fuse box than I originally thought but not a big deal.  These pics just show how everything is routed.  It's quite discrete with the fuel hoses in place, probably won't even see it once I get the intake tube and IAC hose back on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I had everything test fit I pulled it all back apart and took the opportunity to tap the holes in the cylinder heads that the lower intake bolts to.  When I took everything apart some of the bolts came out a little tougher than I would have liked.  Took me about an hour or so to tap them all because I'm so paranoid and go so slow but all of the bolts go in and out like butter now so I'm happy.

[Tabres]

I spent a little more time here and there this weekend on the car.  I finished up installing the engine harness for the last time and putting the intake and whatnot back together, but didn't bother to take a  picture.  From there I started working on routing the alternator and fuse box cables for the battery relocation.  I chose to run mine through the cabin of the car, under the carpet, along the factory wiring harness.  Naturally I had to find a way to get them in there from the engine bay/fender area.  First step was to get some of the interior out of the way so I could figure out how best to accomplish this.  So, the driver and passenger seat along with the rear seat bottom and some of the trim panels came out.

 

 

 

 

 

What I eventually discovered and settled on was if you take off the driver's side kick panel by the hood latch and dead pedal and unbolt and pull away the harness from that area, the cavity behind it is almost completely empty and you can access it by drilling holes in the fender.  You can then pull the wires through and route them up and over the electronics bolted to that area and route them down along the factory harness.  So, that's what I did.  I drilled a pilot hole in the fender and then a step drill bit made quick work of it.  Here I’m just test fitting one of the wires routing before inserting the grommets  (And yeah, the caliper needs some serious attention.  Might try to get them apart and powdercoated this winter).

 

 

 

 

 

Grommets went in…

 

 

 

 

 

At this point I got briefly side tracking making the fuse box cable and fastening the starter trigger wire to it so I could route them together.  It got covered with techflex after this.

 

 

 

 

 

Alternator and fuse box cable routed through the grommets and into the cabin.  I still need to drill an additional hole and install an additional grommet for the starter trigger wire.  In my enthusiasm to get tight fitting grommets I came home with one that wouldn’t allow the fuse box cable and starter wire through at the same time, so just need to drill one more small hole and pick up another grommet.

 

 

 

 

 

Just left the bundle of wires in the cabin when I quit last night.  Next step is to route these to the trunk, then run the starter wire back to the trunk, and then I’ll mount the battery box and figure out where to put the remote start solenoid and relay.  I should get my powdercoated powersteering bottle and bracket back in the next day or two so I’ll have those to install soon.

 

 

[Sleeperstang1994]

looks excellent. well laid out. I like where this whole wire tuck is going :)

[97CasperCobra]

Looks great man!!!

Time to upgrade those stick calipers [emoji6]

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[Tabres]

Looks great man!!!

Time to upgrade those stick calipers [emoji6]

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I wish.  I've been wanting larger brakes for years and am always on the lookout for a reasonably priced set of 00R's.  Last set I saw had fresh rotors and pads and the dude wanted $1,000 but the calipers needed a full rebuild.  Not going to pay that when I can spend ~$300 more and get a set of 14" 6 piston Wilwoods brand new...

[blwnbyu]

Brian.. quick question since you're doing a wire tuck. I have a connector in the alternator harness that I cannot figure out what it goes to. It's one of three cables in the harness that connects to the fuse box..

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[Blackmage]

Brian.. quick question since you're doing a wire tuck. I have a connector in the alternator harness that I cannot figure out what it goes to. It's one of three cables in the harness that connects to the fuse box..

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i thought that hooked to a couple ground cables...  could be wrong tho.

[Tabres]

i thought that hooked to a couple ground cables...  could be wrong tho.

 

You're correct.  It connects to the double black wire ground cable that is spliced into the main ground off of the battery.

[deceptive gt]

I am going to start working on my wiring harnesses for both cars after I come back from vacation. My new job just got my a $1k tool kit and I work in electronics. So, time to put my new tools to work at home. Lol

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[blwnbyu]

thanks guys. The wire I was looking for was still attached to the underside of the fuse box. I have no idea how I looked for it for a half hour and could not find it lol

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[Tabres]

I had an opportunity to get a little bit more done on the car lately.  Started off by routing the fuse box and alternator wires from the cabin into the trunk.  They follow the factory harness along under the back seat and then up over the driver's wheel well and around the back edge of the trunk.

 

From there I decided to work on mounting the battery box, which meant the fuel tank had to come out.  Wasn't too bad of a job to do on my own but it was a little heavier than I remembered with my pump assembly hanging off of it and the limited gas in the tank.  Once that was out of the way I set the battery box in the trunk and worked out where I wanted it to sit.  Two holes later, and a lot of fiddling with getting the threaded rods fastened down on either side of the trunk floor, the job was done.

 

 

 

 

At this point I needed to start getting some of the wiring done for the relay.  Earlier I had purchased some 10 guage fuse holders and with where I planned to mount the relay in relation to my remote start solenoid, the fuse holders wound up being about the perfect length for all of the wires, so it was a quick matter of just crimping on some terminals.  One wire for ground, one for power, one for input from the original starter signal wire, one wire for output to fire the solenoid.

 

 

 

Once that was finished up I took everything off of the work bench and out to the garage and chose to first mount the 150amp circuit breakers for my alternator and fuse box cables.  The back panel of the trunk, inside the spare tire well seemed to be a good position for them.  They're out of the way but still very simple to access should I need to reset them.  They're fastened with self-tapping sheet metal screws.

 

 

 

 

Next I set to work on mounting the remote start solenoid so I could build the cables between the circuit breakers and the solenoid.  I chose to fasten the solenoid again in the spare tire well area (something to note, I don't actually carry the spare in the car but it does appear that it will still fit.  I intend to try it at some point after everything is completed).  Like the breakers, the solenoid is fastened with sheet metal screws.  At that point it was just trimming and makes cables and attaching the relay in the same area and running the wires between it and the solenoid.  I also drilled the battery box and built the positive cable between the battery and the remote start solenoid.

 

 

 

 

 

All that is really left to do is to build the ground cable and run that, and build and run the power cable from the remote start solenoid to the starter, along with the signal wire for the starter from the solenoid.  And get the tank back in the car.  After that, fingers crossed, the car should fire up.  So not a ton left to do, but probably a good few hours worth of work.  Hopefully I'll have it running next weekend if all goes well.  Would be nice to have it done as I've got some house projects that I need to spend some time on.

[Tabres]

The remote start solenoid is a safety precaution. Setup this way the main power wire to the starter is hot only when cranking and not full time.

It in a sense still uses the factory ignition switch. I extended the stock trigger wire from the fuse box which runs to the relay, which powers the remote solenoid and a wire from the solenoid triggers the starter.

[Lanter]

Man everything looks great. Super nice work. You happen to have a wiring diagram you're following or one written up? I'd love to rewire mine when I take it to track events after all the bugs are worked out. This seems like a great layout

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[blwnbyu]

The remote start solenoid is a safety precaution. Setup this way the main power wire to the starter is hot only when cranking and not full time.

It in a sense still uses the factory ignition switch. I extended the stock trigger wire from the fuse box which runs to the relay, which powers the remote solenoid and a wire from the solenoid triggers the starter.

Definitely best way to do it. I'm running the same setup

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