mk85
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| posted on 10/11/14 at 11:05 AM |
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loom wire help
Well its getting close to the start of wiring the car. I plan to use the CBS Fuse board as it is neater and makes things easyer for me. But am
confused on the sizes and specs of wire i need and keep finding conflicting info on the net. Any help or step by step guides about thanks
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Stot
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| posted on 10/11/14 at 11:26 AM |
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The fuse box from CBS comes with a sheet telling you what guages of wire to use for which circuits.
Cheers
Stot
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The Black Flash
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| posted on 10/11/14 at 11:37 AM |
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Really, you need to work out the max load (i.e. number of Amps) on each circuit and spec the wire appropriately. You want thinwall automotive
cable.
For most of your lighting, instruments, circuits etc you will be fine with the normal 11A / 0.5mm2 stuff, but heavy things like your main switched
supply, fuel pump, horns, radiator fans, you'll need something larger. And for the main cables to the battery, started and from the alternator
you'll want something properly heavy. There are special types of cable for this.
I ran into problems using a pre-made loom which I then merilly hacked about and assumed it'd be up to spec. I and ended up overheating the main
relay and supply cable - it actually and scorched the wire insulation, and melted the main relay case, which fortunately just caused everything to
stop working. Then I had to do a load of re-wiring. So don't assume!
I'd also recommend using a couple of busbars to create your main supply nodes - makes everything a damn site easier, not to mention neater.
Somewhere like http://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/ is a good place to see what's available. (no affiliation)
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rodgling
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| posted on 10/11/14 at 12:12 PM |
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If you want to know how to do it properly, this is a good read, although probably more than you wanted to know:
https://www.rbracing-rsr.com/wiring_ecu.html
The Spec 55 wire they mention is pretty good, it's a lot smaller than regular wire so can give you a nice compact loom, and is more robust and
heat-tolerant. I use this to work out wire gauge:
http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm
but remember wires will overheat much more easily when bundled into a loom so allow some margin.
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