Cascade Crew

QwkTrip · Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:15 pm Post subject:

I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to run wiring into the car from the fuel tank without a water leak or creating new holes in the firewall. I've come up with something pretty darn slick. Smile

I removed the original Weather-Pack connector from firewall. It is useless to me with the small pump wiring. I tried to load the connector with 12 gage wire but the connector has a solid molded housing that is impenetrable. All the wiring for fuel tank needs to pass through to interior with no water leaks AND stay low profile under the carpet. I simply cannot find an electrical connector on the market that can do the job. I have no choice but to use some type of grommet.

This is what I came up with. It consists of a sheet metal plate that I made to cover the hole, the original wire cover plate on the interior side, and a 90 degree drain tube.

The drain tube has a flange that will seal to the inside of the plate. I will dope it with sealant to make sure it stays sealed and put a zip tie on the outside to keep it pulled up tight to the metal plate. The tube is barely large enough to pull all the wires through. It is a really snug fit.

The tube will point downward on the outside of the car so no water can get in. It is so long that water can't track up the wires into the car. And because it points down it will create a drip loop with the harness. Original cover plate will be installed inside the car just like stock. I am letting paint dry right now so I will post pictures of the finished product later (wires and all).

I found a clean place to create a chassis ground for the pump. This is beside the rear seat, behind the plastic side panel. It is next to where all the wiring follows the stock routing so very easy to access, and ground will stay clean inside the car.

I essentially disassembled the entire Racetronix harness and putting it back together to suit me. The pump relay is mounted in engine bay next to where my new under hood fuse center will be located. I used one of the original weld nuts on the firewall. I will probably not use the Racetronix alternator connection and in-line fuse, but rather use an existing pump circuit built into my new fuse center.

QwkTrip · Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 9:35 am Post subject:

Finished product. Thumbs up

I will confess that I did not do this myself. I dropped it off at a welding shop and they did it real quick. I did paint it though! Laughing

Installed on car. Completely eliminated the interference to AC box by moving the coil from under the AC box to above the AC box. Plenty of reach left in the spark plug wire.

Just a reminder what was done for anybody else that wants to do this.

QwkTrip · Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 8:08 pm Post subject:

Remember when I said the K-member will never come down again? Poo on that. I had no choice but to take it down again today. I simply could not lay brake lines with the engine in the way. But boy, was it worth it! I am VERY pleased with the results. Perfect brake line routing across to passenger side. And that old steel line is waaaay easier to work with than the stainless line in the back.

I still need to do the driver side but that shouldn't be nearly as difficult. Problem is the lines are way too long for the routing I took so I have to shorten it up. Not such an easy task when the entire thing is covered in the spring wrap... Going to have to figure that one out.

QwkTrip · Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2015 4:38 pm Post subject:

Kind of seems anticlimactic to post just one picture but it pretty much sums up all my efforts this weekend. There was a lot more work to lay those brake lines then what appears on the surface. Lines straightened, bent, shortened, and flared on both sides, and K-member in and out of the car several times.

Never mind the uprights to master cylinder. Those are not done and I will take care of that later.

QwkTrip · Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:46 pm Post subject:

I abandoned the stock brake lines and just made new lines everywhere. It's going to look a heck of a lot nicer and avoid having extra fittings and adapters. Trying to reclaim the stock lines just wasn't working. I had the bulk brake line anyway so it just soaks up a lot of time doing it.

The coils of brake tube were wound so tight that I had to buy a tube straightener in order to work with the stuff. The straightener was $240 but I will say it does work really well. Good news is I have finally figured out a technique to make any shape brake line on first try nearly every time. I will post a picture when I'm done. But I still get mixed results even with a fancy hydraulic flaring tool. Inverted double flare turn out perfect every time, but the metric bubble flare is hit and miss. I'm going to be rather upset if I get any leaks because I don't have enough line in any of the runs to redo anything. I would have to build the lines over again.

One little issue I ran in to is the spring wrap won't slip over a bent line because of the stretching that occurs when you bend the line (widens out on the sides of the bend). I have figured out a work around though. If I install the spring wrap first, and then bend the line in the next larger slot then I get perfect bends and the tube looks mandrel bent. The bends are literally better than trying to bend bare tube. And the spring wrap slides freely on the line after the bend. Just a trick to keep in mind if you ever have to bend brake line.

QwkTrip · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 10:19 pm Post subject:

Brake lines! Cool

iansane · Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2015 3:41 pm Post subject:

Those are some good looking lines.

QwkTrip · Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2015 7:26 pm Post subject:

Oh man, you don't know how nice it is to hear somebody say that! That job was a PAIN IN THE BUTT and there is a large pile of scraps.

Now I'm trying to work with 3/8" stainless tube for fuel line and that is 10x more difficult. Very hard material. I haven't successfully made a GM quick connect fitting yet even with the hydraulic tool. I'm giving up on quick connects and ordering a set of dies for AN flare. That ought to work.

QwkTrip · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 5:05 pm Post subject:

That stainless fuel line is harder than hell to bend. The average person does not have the strength to do it. But I am above average and just broke my bender. The tube has won.

QwkTrip · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 5:23 pm Post subject:

Actually.... I see it only broke the index stop on the handle. I have another chance to break it again!

QwkTrip · Posted: Mon May 18, 2015 7:02 pm Post subject:

Gave up on the stainless and went for more of the nickel copper. That didn't go smooth either. It is actually too soft for 3/8" size and goes out of round when you straighten it. Figured out some tricks to work with it and got some rear lines built.

Waaaaay too much time and money went in to making these two lines. Rolling Eyes

But at least I am happy with the end result. Return line is above, and feed line is on bottom.

And this is all it amounts to. Simple and neat. The hard line provides good support for the fuel filter bracket so it does not wobble. That was really the goal here. I will be running hard line to the front too, but that should be easy. Wink

Parallel runs held in place by original fuel line brackets. Quick connect fittings up by the fuel tank where hose will attach. The small line is the rear brake line that I still need to finish up.

QwkTrip · Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2015 1:29 pm Post subject:

I got an itch to work on the Firebird so I stayed up late last night tinkering on it. Happy with my progress too!

I finished the fuel lines and it is all sealed and ready to pressurize. I finished up all the hard line on brakes system too. The only thing left on brakes is to get some soft lines on the rear axle that actually fit. I think I am going to custom order some lines because nothing I have bought seems to work well enough.

QwkTrip · Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 5:18 am Post subject:

I finally resigned to the fact I have to work on wiring again because there isn't much else left to do besides that. Gosh, I hate that job! It took a day to figure out where I left off and what I was doing at the time. After that I've been cruising along bit by bit each night. Smile

I hit another milestone. I finally made a connection to my underhood fuse center and it is now tied to the car chassis. Made up a harness section for radiator fans so I'm glad to get that monkey off my back. And I made a connector pigtail that has all the fuse & relay connections for engine harness. I also decided to hack up the Holley harness even further by removing the relay for injectors, coils, and fuel pump. All that will be handled by my underhood power center. Holley put that relay in a stupid location anyway and it wasn't even water proof and had no mounting provisions.

And talk about stupid! I couldn't believe how the original radiator fan wiring was laid out. Instead of going directly to the front of the car on the driver side, it went from driver side firewall --> around the back of the engine --> to the front of the car --> then back the same route where a ground was located behind the engine. And the two 12 ga. fan grounds merged together into a single 12 ga. wire part way back in the harness. Confused

I changed all that. Laughing

Now it goes over the driver side fender directly to radiator and has dual grounds next to the radiator support.

QwkTrip · Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2015 6:33 pm Post subject:

Cleaned up the wiring for HVAC, starter motor, roll stop, and part of fuel pump. Still avoiding engine harness. Laughing

QwkTrip · Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 8:17 pm Post subject:

I tackled the engine harness and I am pretty happy with my progress this weekend. I surveyed what I was dealing with to refresh my memory, finished running circuits, and tidied things up quite a lot. I had a bunch of odd lengths at the ECM so I shortened and lengthened most the wires to a matched set. I changed a couple minor things because I have better ideas now then I had before. I don't think the people at Holley would recognize the harness if they saw it because I have customized it quite a bit.

Next step is to put the intake manifold and harness back in the car to determine final positioning of some things, tape it, loom it, and make all connections to the under hood power center and the interior.

I literally have 3 alternatives to running fuel pump, (1) Racetronix relay; (2) Underhood power center relay; and (3) Holley relay. I'm not using the Holley relay but I think I will let the Holley ECM run a relay (my own relay) so that I have flexibility in the future to use a PWM fuel pump. That's about the only advantage I can see to letting the Holley ECM operate the fuel pump.

QwkTrip · Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 6:40 pm Post subject:

chevymad · Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 7:08 pm Post subject:

I'm waiting for you to decide to throw this all away and install the ecoboost....

QwkTrip · Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 8:02 pm Post subject:

Okay, even I have to admit that was really funny.

QwkTrip · Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 10:09 pm Post subject:

Okay, I ran through the whole box and I might have over reacted a bit. I'll take back 50% of what I said. Everything checked out except for two relays. They wired the field terminals backwards. They use a relay with a resistor flyback suppression so it makes no difference with the part they use. But I can never use a relay with diode suppression or the diode with short out first time. I have to decide if this annoys me enough to want to tear apart the module to swap terminals. The other three relays are wired correct.

The good news is with all this investigation I am now certain my strategy for relay control using Holley ECM should work. No more guessing about that.

QwkTrip · Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 5:05 pm Post subject:

I have a finished engine harness!!!!

Rock on!