Wiring - does it ever end?

Doing the preliminary wiring on the car before I put the engine in was the right thing to do.  However getting side tracked for 2 months before finishing it was for sure a mistake!  I ended up spending a couple of nights chasing wires trying to figure out what was not done and second guessing myself on if things were done right.

The good news in that is I found a mistake.  Or two… ah..., OK or three already! Turns out when you are tired and 25% color blind Black / Blue wires are easy to confuse with Blue / Black wires.  Hey you try it which is which here?

 

I also discovered a little A/C issue that tripped me up for a couple of hours.  The pressure sensor in the Camaro had 3 wires from the computer and apparently uses some logic to watch the system.  The Miata pressure sensor is a simple 2 wire switch that turns the compressor off if the pressure is too low.

Nope the Camaro sensor won't just thread on the Miata pipe or this would be easy! 

While I let that problem percolate in my mind I dug into the anti-theft system from the Camaro to figure out how to wire up the body computer to make just that circuit work right.  In the old days it was easy to defeat the anti-theft by just wiring in the right resistor, but now the system uses a data pulse that is much more difficult to replicate.  The body computer will do it but it also did a ton of other stuff in the Camaro that the Miata dosn't need.   

 After several days of consideration I decided the answer to both problems is another 75 bucks over budget to have the computer reprogramed. They will take out the anti-theft and computer control of the A/C. There is no reason for the computer to bump the idle when the compressor comes on when you have 400 ft lbs of torque anyway!  They will also remove the evap and gas tank pressure stuff and set the speedo to the right gear ratio.

 

The down side to this is I had to rewire the A/C system to a stand alone system by adding a relay and rewireing the fans.  No biggie but still the hours of wiring work keep piling up!!

With the computer on the way to Missouri I dug into another little project I have been planning for months. Miatas have terrible factory gauges. Both the oil pressure and temp gauges are actually idiot lights that look like a gauge. The other problem is there is no place on the dash to put good gauges in. 

A lot of people take out the center 2 A/C vents and put them there but I really want A/C to work right.  The center of the dash is too far from eyesight for critical gauges anyway.

So in my usual mode of thinking rather than sleeping I came up with this idea using $8 ebay gauge pods and a couple hunks of 3/4" x 1" aluminum angle. 

This is the dash around the instrument panel with little pieces of angle cut into it.

 

The 3/4" leg is out and the 1" leg is stacked behind the plastic. I didn't know it at the time but stacking them so the longer one is in the upper postion was a mistake. You'll see why below. 

A bit of my favorite urethane to hold the aluminum angle in place.

And the pods.
Like so!
Sweet right?

See how the lower one is right up against the A/C panel?  If I had stacked the aluminum pieces the other way or just made the lower prong longer I would have had room to move it forward from the A/C panel. 20/20 hindsight! 
 

At the other end of the gauges I have the temp sensor in that you saw before

and here is where the oil pressure line leads too.  

I tried to find somewhere under the car on the frame to put the remote oil filter but this was the only decent place I could find for it.

The other sensor in the housing is for the factory gauge and I will probably put a strobe light or buzzer on it too.  

 

It felt like I spent a ton of time going in circles on wiring this week but I did get enough done to call it a good week. Now that the oil and cooling systems are sealed up with just a little work on the power steering I could dump oil and water in it and turn the key... Mwahaha!! :-)

Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth and worship Him with gladness!