Hatemy7

Well just like the title says.

I just recently picked up an s13 coupe ( still KA and 4 lug )

But I do plan on going KA-T on it very soon ( till it blows and I go 1jz )

but just looking at a few threads, just seeing what every body recommends me doing.

Thanks

brndck

We recommend you doing research through existing threads instead of making new threads about material that has already been covered thoroughly.

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UnknownGuy

^ what he said, but just a little tip before you try attempting it.
1. Study Factory wiring diagram.
2. Get your soldering skills up to pare
3. Pick up a Voltmeter/ Ohmmeter.
4. Use the search button to the best of your ability.

Hope this helps

Hatemy7

Thanks bro. I greatly appreciate it

awgdawg

Never solder a wiring harness. I forget exactly why but I think it has something to do with the solder melting during use. While fixing the wiring on my car the guy at the local auto electric place said to never ever solder, use connectors. I trust him as he did a lot for Chrysler back in the day. Also the dudes at wiring specialties never solder connections. just my .02

brndck

this is absolute bullshit.

solder, then shrinkwrap.

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awgdawg

idk man Im gonna side with the professionals on this I mean itll definitely work but if the guys at wiring specialties put "never soldered" on the description on one of their products, it must mean something.

UnknownGuy

2nd that. Not saying I'm a wiring master, but I can tell you when I do wiring I grab a solderi ng iron.

UnknownGuy

Your right wiring specialties never solder they're wire harness, because they build the harness from scratch.

Koob

The reason they reiterate that there is no solder is because, it is all entirely new stuff with no joints soldered together. Not to say soldering is bad but that it isnt necessary for their harnesses.

soldering and using a adhesive lined heatshrink tube is probably the most solid and secure joint possible.
though too much solder on a joint makes it brittle and prone to future failure in a high vibration environment.

anything important is worth soldering rather than using butt connectors for best connection.

cchondro

NEVER EVER EVER use butt connectors on a harness

That is the dumbest crap ever

If you want to disconnect something go buy a legit plug and wire your harness through that

All New Harness>soldered harness>set car on fire>butt connector harness

Another thing when you wire,
Please I mean please for the love of god solder, shrink wrap, and loom
Electrical tape when needed, use electrical zipties.
Keep things as neat and tidy as possible
Label if you want

When it comes to modifying and wiring I hate nothing more than jumping in and finding spider web/ spaghetti wiring.

Good luck and research
(Never do a lot at what time, you could mess something up and don't know what you need to go back and fix. A 10-20 min job can turn into hours of testing)

59bhp

The reason not to use solder in a system with high vibration is because the solder work hardens and will eventually fail (after becoming hard and brittle),

whether a car comes under the catogory of high vibrations is another matter.

Hatemy7

Ok sorry for bringing this up. But I think my Search skills on zilvia sucks donkey dick because ive looked for HOW TO WIRE TUCK etc and I cant find shit.

can someone help me out with that. thanks

awgdawg

its not much but something to go off of. sorry for posting from other threads

ultimate wire tuck guide : 240sx General Discussion

Hatemy7

No worries bro. I greatly appreciate it!

zachvirus

thats a good general reference on the HOW TO part. but other methods like which we used was to run the lower harness and engine harness, by drilling a hole the size of where the factory harness would be, on the inner area of the trans tunnel by the slave cylinder, it gives it a MUCH cleaner presentation than the factory location

my .02

ShadowMan

So under this theory of a high vibration catagory, soldered joints will fail, but crimped butt connectors won't? That makes absolute zero sense with even the smallest amount of common sense applied. You must not have a lot of experience in this matter, and therefore should stop spreading this ill informed opinion that lacks fact based information to others.
Everything in moderation man. As long as your soldered joint doesn't look like an arts and crafts project from preschool covered in boogers, and only the neccesary amount of solder is used the joint will be fine. You should still be able to see the individual wires, just covered in solder if you do it right, but if all you see is a smooth blob of solder then you have used to much and sure it will probably give you problems some time down the road or maybe not. Who knows. Also, I don't see passenger cars as being in a high vibration catagory and eventually, everything fails....then you fix it again.

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mechanicalmoron

Vibration does NOT work-harden, unless you're frequently bending the wire enough to pass it's yield point, and if you have it set up so you're doing that you really suck at wiring. Passing to the engine, or passing through doors, are the only places there should be ANY wear to your harness.

Even so, solder is very ductile, and thus not prone to work harden.

And, the wires are mounted, with some flex, to the body - which would be destroyed long before transferring that much movement to the wires.

Of more concern is the wire that you bent in order to tuck it, and that did NOT get soldered (and thus heated, and annealed, which repairs it's work-hardening).

R33E8

Haha the good old crimp vs solder argument.. If you guys want to find the truth, search through the methods the military and aerospace industry uses.

If you want a quick answer, proper crimp splices are better than solder splices. Just get a nice ratcheting crimper with interchangeable dies and some un-insulated butt splices and you will have an awesome harness..

Source: I used to build and I now design legit mil-spec harnesses (used in current and future jets, tanks, commercial planes, etc..)...

zurud

The thing is nobody sell good crimp connector like oem. They only sell crimp butt connector that get loose all the time for connecting and extending wires.

R33E8

Here you go sir!

19203-0384 - MOLEX - BUTT SPLICE, 22-18AWG, CRIMP | Newark

Something similar to that is what you should look for.. 100 crimps for just under $7 +shipping..

Regarding the crimp tool needed, look for something like this:



The second jaws from the left is the style you need for these uninsulated crimps. Once you have the wires crimped, shrink a piece of heatshrink over the splice and you are done!

Here is a crimp tool for $20:Amazon.com: S&G Tool Aid 18900 Professional Ratcheting Terminal Crimper: Automotive

Although this specific one comes with dies for insulated crimps, you can easily buy the dies for un-insulated crimps or just buy a ratcheting crimper that comes with it.
Here is a die that should fit:
Paladin Tools 2031 CrimpALL 1300/8000 Series Die For Non-Insulated Terminals And Lugs - Amazon.com


If you want to use insulated crimp splices, I would recommend this style over the ones you find at walmart:
320570 - TE CONNECTIVITY / AMP - TERMINAL, BUTT SPLICE, YELLOW | Newark

If you look closely, you will see that each end seems to have 2 parts. The entrance part is the insulation crimp to clamp onto the insulation as support and strain relief, while the part closer to the center is for the conductor.. If you check out the spec sheet on TE's website, you can also see the internal construction. Unlike the cheap walmart crimps, these TE crimps have ridges to help clamp onto the conductors to reduce the chance of them pulling out.. The only thing I have against these style of crimps is how bulky the harness becomes once you start using a lot of them.. And I don't trust them as much as the un-insulated crimps I posted earlier.. To crimp these, you'll need to use the crimps similar in style to the first ones from the left in the picture of the crimp tool above. There are a few different common styles of them and I can explain if you truly want to know the difference.

If you want to be a boss and use some really awesome crimps, you can check out these as well. M81824/1-1 - TE CONNECTIVITY / RAYCHEM - TERMINAL, BUTT SPLICE, CRIMP, | Newark

These combine the strength (in my opinion) of the uninsulated crimp + the sealing capability typically found in solder sleeves. If you check out the data sheet you'll see that it actually comes with an uninsulated crimp plus the piece of heatshrink shown in the thumbnail. You use a normal uninsulated crimp tool to crimp it then slide the included heatshrink over the crimp and recover it. The two bands in the heatshrink are actually thermoplastic sealing rings. Once you apply heat, they melt and form around the wires to make a complete immersion proof seal. They are awesome for keeping things isolated if your wires will be submerged or exposed to the elements. You can accomplish similar results by using dual walled/adhesive lined heatshrink(aka M23053/4 spec heatshrink IIRC..), but it won't be clear...

thefro526

I'm going to preface this post by saying that I'm no wiring master or anything, but have a bit of experience with it.

As far as the solder vs. crimp thing, this is a topic debated among EE's to this day. In reality, as long as you're conscious of the loading that the connection could and/or will see, either method will work with proper planning.

If you ever have the chance to go through an OEM harness in a 'safe' environment (as in, you don't need the harness to be in the car to get to work or something the following day) I suggest you go through it and look at how some of the stuff is done, it's actually really, really cool.

There are a handful of connections in the OEM Harness that are both Crimped AND Soldered, for some interesting reasons. When splitting a single wire into multiple runs, let's say something like taking a single 10Ga wire and splitting it into two or three, a crimp makes physically holding the wires together so much easier, and is also going to bare a significant portion of the physical load. From there, adding solder to the crimp is going to ensure that you have proper conductivity between the wires, but isn't actually going to see much of the loading that the 'joint' may see. The solder also has the added benefit of acting like a 'glue' - think of what would happen to the wires in the crimp over time, after a while, the crimp could loosen leading to some sketchy connections.

It's also worth bringing up pinning and re-pinning connectors while we're on this topic, since this is hands down the 'right' way to do any sort of harness work. In a perfect world, instead of adding additional wire or removing it to do your tuck, you'd figure out how long the run is and remake it using new pins and wire. Then you know that you only have two connections in the system (one at either end - the pin/terminal) which is going to minimize the failure points, essentially keeping it the same as OEM.

Regardless of which connection method you use, one of the most important factors in the reliability of ANY wiring is strain relief. You never want the wire to be loaded at a connection, and you never want the wire to be pulled into a really tight radius. A lot of guys that do their own wire tucks at home seem to make this mistake at least once, and it's a pretty easy one to avoid. Look at any motion in the system when planning your wire routing, and be sure that there's some slack in the wire around that motion point so that the connector/wires/connections are never being pulled on.

The other thing to be conscious of is heat and how it can effect a connection, either soldered or crimped. Solder being quite obvious, if it gets hot enough, it'll melt. Odds are, you're going to have issues before the solder melts though, more often than not, insulation on 'standard' wire will melt well before solder actually does. Crimps are also susceptible to heat, but they're rarely thought of as being. Figure that as the crimp is heated, it will expand, which can cause it to loosen and fail. Personally, I've never seen a failure like this first hand, but it's something to be aware of. TLDR to the heat thing is to use properly rated wire or looming for the application and keep connections away from heat sources.

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sleepyS14se

this is not correct, i saw this and had to reply, SOLDERING IS the BEST method of doing things such as what the OP is attempting to do.

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mechanicalmoron

Good god, crimped shit, in a fucking airplane?

That has got to be one of the scariest thoughts I've ever had.

Crimped connectors will fail for metalurgical reasons, LONG before solder will. Crimped connectors will vibrate off, when solder will NOT. Crimped connectors can pull out, when solder can NOT.

If you are getting it hot enough to melt solder, you are getting it hot enough to soften crimp connectors. It's also hot enough that there will be no insulation, all your wires will be on FIRE, your engine bay PAINT will be on fire, everything will short. Your whole damn car could be on fire, before you need to worry about solder melting.

Solder has more surface area, and should make a better connection on those grounds, though I don't know how much resistance it has.... but it's used in precision electronics, it can't be THAT bad. Nevertheless, resistance, in some situations, MIGHT justify crimp connectors, I suppose. And maybe in some very specific locations, like right on a turbo, a crimp would make sense... is the insulation on that wire asbestos, or rubber? If rubber, solder is the better choice.

R33E8

I almost took you seriously until I saw your username. Good one lol..


Although I agree with a lot of what you are saying (especially regarding proper strain reliefs), I disagree with the practice of soldering crimped connections and the effect of heat on crimps. I'll start with my opinion of the effect of heat on crimps as it leads into my thoughts on soldering crimped wires. I'll try to keep it relatively short..

I don't think heat effects crimp splices as much as it does solder splices. The crimps I use are made out of copper alloys which I assume have a similar coefficient of thermal expansion as the copper wire. They should expand and contract at the same rate which reduces the possibility of the crimp loosening up. Solder has issues with cracking just due to thermal cycling. Here is a paper on it.
http://iweb.tms.org/PbF/PF-0704-3.pdf
They did some testing of certain solders within the range of the temperature our engine bays see (15*C-80*C) and have found defects that formed in less than 200 cycles.

Now if you add solder to the crimp, the difference in the coefficient of thermal expansion between the solder, crimp, and wire may be enough to slowly loosen the crimp over time. Since solder has a higher coefficient, it probably pries open the crimp overtime and accelerates the formation of cracks between the solder, wires, and crimp. This is just my theory since I haven't performed or observed any testing on this matter...


Just a note to those who think crimps are weak and easily pulled out: When performing a pull test on a proper crimp, the individual stands of the wire will literally snap before they are pulled out of the crimp. If you are pulling your crimp out by hand, chances are you are not crimping correctly or you don't have the correct tool. There are reference charts available that show how much force a crimp should hold per the wire gauge.

And soldering proper solder joints is no where near as easy as it seems which is why I don't recommend them to most people in most cases. I've seen solder joints from a respected harness maker on this forum that would probably get any harness company blacklisted within the industry for ever letting something that bad pass inspection. It wouldn't even pass class 1 WHMA-620 standards (the "it's ok if it eventually fails"/disposable toy grade class).

If you guys want to see what proper solder and crimp splices look like, check out material from NASA workmanship standards. They have a really great website showing what's acceptable and what's not but I can't seem to find it at the moment..