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George. Take good 3m electrical tape and wrap harness every 6-8" to hold it together. Once that is done and the harness is roughed in pretty well wrap the whole thing in the tessa tape and be done. Personally i hate the split loom mentioned above.
Dude, chill the **** out. You posted shoddy wiring and got shat on for posting shoddy wiring, as is the norm around here for badly done jobs.
Chill the **** out? You came into MY thread to talk **** with nothing constrictive to add till this post. Im not just gotta let myself get stomped on for nothing.
The fact that you people just sit on the sidelines and laugh is not helpful and fucked up. I'm on this forum to learn, not for that. Im OK with making mistakes and being wrong. Im human, and i'm young, it's gonna happen. My issue here is that all of your responses to me making a "mistake" is to immediately **** on me. What the **** is this? 5th grade? Grow up.
Every single post I made following the main update had gotten neg-cats. How is this worthy of that: "Awesome post. Thank you. I actually just ordered Tesa tape 51036 earlier today. I was told it doesn't leave residue. So thats cool. When you say split loom, do you mean you only wrap the tape every 5-6 inches?"
Or this: "Ohhh ok. I've used that stuff when I did all the wiring the first time around (pre-cage). I believe the factory used some cloth tape for the factory dash wiring and it was very sticky and gross. Hopefully I have good luck with it."
My recommendation for those ring terminals is to pull the plastic piece off, ensure a good crimp, then use glue lined heat shrink to secure the connection. That'll take the vibration strain off the crimp joint. Plus, it looks 1000x better.
Yup I have some on the way.
Originally Posted by matrussell122
George. Take good 3m electrical tape and wrap harness every 6-8" to hold it together. Once that is done and the harness is roughed in pretty well wrap the whole thing in the tessa tape and be done. Personally i hate the split loom mentioned above.
Why electrical tape and not just use tesa tape for everything?
For tape, spend the money on either 3M super 33 or super 88. Heat rating, insulation, flexibility, adhesive properties... it's designed for what you're trying to do.
Chill the **** out? You came into MY thread to talk **** with nothing constrictive to add till this post. Im not just gotta let myself get stomped on for nothing.
I literally never talked **** or "stomped on" you. YOU posted gripeing about getting neg cats. I just said they were probably valid. I never said a single damm thing about your wiring, good or bad, till you decided that I was the reason for all your woes and decided to try and take it out on me instead of a known, established member. Check YOUR self, re-read the posts and yell at those that actually made fun of you if you feel it's needed, accept both the good and the bad criticism, grow up, learn, and move on. I don't see what your age has to do with anything despite the fact you keep tossing it out there, from what I've seen on here and IG you probably have a year or two on me and I'd bet there are dozens of members on here in their early 20's.
Originally Posted by George Jorge
The fact that you people just sit on the sidelines and laugh is not helpful and fucked up. I'm on this forum to learn, not for that. Im OK with making mistakes and being wrong. Im human, and i'm young, it's gonna happen. My issue here is that all of your responses to me making a "mistake" is to immediately **** on me. What the **** is this? 5th grade? Grow up.
How long have you been on MT.net? This is normal. What did you expect?
I can't speak for your later posts getting neg cats, dunno what's up with that. But yes, those original posts with the bad wiring were neg cat worthy.
Also this is the internet. Discard and ignore the noise, pay attention to the signals.
Originally Posted by George Jorge
**** you.
no u
I'll stop cluttering your thread now. You wana bitch at the wrong party some more for things they didn't do, or if you want wiring advice, shoot me a PM and we can hash it out over angry emails like real men.
Last edited by Wingman703; 07-10-2020 at 03:36 PM.
Okay hold up. I was generalizing. Hence the plural tense. Not specifically directed at you. But yeah, you are part of the problem when you add nothing to a thread. Either inform people/help or gtfo.
My issue is that you guys say, "OH LOOK AT THAT IDIOT, WHAT A STUPID IDIOT THATS GROSS HAHA EWWWWW" and (generally) don't actually point out why/what is bad. Okay, I added more "failure points". I also said I thought about this in the original post. But the fact that I used double crimp ratcheting pliers for each crimp made me pretty fricking confident that a failure would not occur. It looks gross, yes, I also said this in the original post. Would it have worked perfectly fine? Yes. Is it the professional way to do things? No. Am I a pro? No. Is it worth it to me to spend hundreds of hours ripping out my wiring harness and starting over on a club level car? No.
In hindsight, the "quick disconnect" idea is pretty stupid. Its just not likely a failure will occur. So let's just eliminate the possibility of a failure all together while also cleaning up the wiring as a result. Cool. Fixed.
IF there was a failure due to a crimp, my car would not burn down in flames, I would just loose power to a gauge/accessory. Why this is such a massive issue is kinda beyond me.
Regarding my age, totally relevant. I personally know very few teenagers building cars to this extent. But thats not the entire point. The point is that with age comes experience (generally). And with experience comes knowledge.
MT has always been a hostile environment, yes. But this is entirely different imo. I did not go out asking what coilovers I should buy. I didn't go ask how to turbo my car, etc. Mabe I need to spend more time sifting though build threads but I have not seen a vast amount of work related to wiring on here. Ive seen Passey's build and all of those other extremely involved builds. I don't want my car down for that long.
Let's assume I never posted on here about this work. Would I have left the wiring as you saw it? No. I actually gutted the factory dash harness and wrapped it all up in split loom, It was very well done, it looked almost factory I can dig it up and take a pic if you really want. I never said that I was done with the work you saw here.
Now, what wouldn't I have done? I didn't know that Tesa tape was a thing till now. But thats about it. Everything else would have been taken care of in some shape or form.
Im trying to build this car right, hence the parts. Im not trying to take any "shortcuts" in the work either. But I don't have unlimited time/money. If that was the case I wouldn't have a miata to begin with. Im just trying to strike a solid middle ground in some areas where I can.
Just going to throw this out here: I think it's good when people can post things that aren't super awesome and then be open to redoing it. So credit to George for not trying to hide stuff and actually making it better.
If everyone just posts things when they go well, nobody learns anything from experience trying thing the wrong way.
I will add my own : the colors on the insulation of the terminals are meaningful. If you have terminals that are remotely worth using, red is for 22-18awg, blue is for 16-14awg, and yellow is 12-10awg. This holds true for nylon insulated ("double crimp") and heat-shrink insulated terminals. There are some limited exceptions (certain fancy red "double-crimp" terminals are good for 22-16awg).
I agree that the most important thing is making sure that your input power wire is appropriately protected. If it's not protected by its own fuse, it should be. The number one rule for safety is to size the wire according to the rating of the fuse that feeds it. This is what ensures that simple faults become blown fuses rather than fires.
I agree that the most important thing is making sure that your input power wire is appropriately protected. If it's not protected by its own fuse, it should be. The number one rule for safety is to size the wire according to the rating of the fuse that feeds it. This is what ensures that simple faults become blown fuses rather than fires.
Thanks Albert. If every "output" is fused, wouldn't that negate the need for a fuse on the power feed wire? Or are you suggesting terminating power to the whole unit is ideal?
Thanks Albert. If every "output" is fused, wouldn't that negate the need for a fuse on the power feed wire? Or are you suggesting terminating power to the whole unit is ideal?
Think really hard about what happens when you have a short on the unfused wire feeding your fuse box.
Hint: Marshmallow.
I also want to point out that crimped joints don't always fail by the wires pulling out of the connector. They can also fail from the wire fatiguing and breaking at the joint. That's why you don't want 3 extra crimps even if you're sure the wire can't pull out.
New rule: If you're 19 and a half and have been building your car for 4 years you don't get to play the bUt I'm JuSt A tEeNaGeR card.
Turning wrenches and wiring are 2 very different things. The 4 years of wrenching has made me a pretty solid mechanic. But iv'e not had any wiring experience.
Originally Posted by SpartanSV
I also want to point out that crimped joints don't always fail by the wires pulling out of the connector. They can also fail from the wire fatiguing and breaking at the joint. That's why you don't want 3 extra crimps even if you're sure the wire can't pull out.
Hm. I didn't know that was a thing. That explains a lot. Thank you.
Just a bit of advice from someone who makes harnesses: organization and uniformity is key and will make your life easier down the line. Having stuff coming in from all around into an un-labeled and disorganized fuse box is asking for confusion and organizational issues down the road. Good harnesses are like trees, very easy to trace from the source to the eventual desired end point in a linear pattern. And that goes for physical tracing within the car not just tracing a wiring diagram.
Also, just have a bit of a think when you're deciding on connection methods. Notice how most OEM connections are connector pairs with a positive form of locking, with pins in a housing to ensure alignment and consistent connection. There's a reason for that. Are spade connectors and ring terminals like that in any way? No.
If done correctly, ring terminals are absolutely a great choice. For DIY wiring (obviously totally different from OEM), using ring terminals can cut failure points over using a connector at the fuse panel and a second connector immediately downstream.
The only risk is that they make it slightly easier to hook up the wrong thing to the wrong terminal. The cure for that is labeling and good routing. These wire labels match corresponding labels on the fusebox lid. Nothing is ever totally idiot-proof.
My original wiring attempts were pretty awful too and you get better with wiring experience and seeing how other people do theirs, including OEM wiring so take all valid criticisms and suggestions onboard and use them in future - it's FREE ADVICE!
Whoever did this has my respect, they've obviously done this before and took the time to label the wires and protect them properly:
I'm going to do this from now on with Narva connectors.
I never really got the idea of the plastic colour-coded bits on the Narva terminals, other than for wiring sizes, I normally mash the crap out of the plastic when crimping (would be better if you could slide them down the wire, crimp the terminal, then slide them back over top and heat-shrink them onto the connector).
Ripping them off, labelling the wire like this and cladding with clear heatshrink is brilliant!