EX-T

OK, so I have several gauges in my car (wideband, boost, volt, oil pressure, egt) and want to see what everyone else to when wiring the gauges to power and ground. There are wires EVERYWHERE inside my dash and it looks a mess.

What did you do to tidy up the wiring (where to wire the 12v to each gauge and grounds)?

TwoFaced

Are these all in one generalized location? If so where at?

lostforawhile

go to the yard and see if they will sell you a lot of the connector plugs in a car they are going to crush, I pay five bucks for 10 or 15, the abs system plugs on Hondas are good 12 pin locking connectors, then you solder and heat shrink all the ends and loom the wiring.

lostforawhile

you could also do it the way they do in aircraft,which is a million of those tiny wire ties holding the looms in the shape you want, easy to cut and modify wiring if needed,like I did on my center console.

EX-T

They're on the a pillar and cluster, so yeah in the same area.

EX-T

See! I Like the idea of the multi pin connector and just plug it in. Exactly an idea I might do!

Keep em coming h-t!!!

TwoFaced

Home made distribution block? Take a copper strip and drill holes into it, tap the holes for whatever screw size you want to use, and put eyelets on the end of all your wires and in the middle of the distro block put your bigger gauge source wire, then find someway to house it so things don't ground out. Then when you want to remove and work on things just unplug the source wire and pull the whole unit out. They make braided shielding with a split too now if you haven't messed with that it's GREAT stuff. That way wires can come out of the side of the shielding at multiple points.

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

Or buy the type they use for car audio.
http://www.google.com/search?q=distr...ient=firefox-a

EX-T

Where's the best place to hook up the 12v source? Right now I have a wire wrapped around the fuel pump fuse and don't really like it!

Is there some place else I can wire it up to?

TwoFaced

@grumblemarc, Yeah, I tried to find a small one but those all seem to be kinda bulky. I did a home-made fuse box this way when I was working on my friends 66 step-side chevy. I built harnesses for the hole thing from the ground up, and the fuse box was a project box from radio shack, a strip of copper, and about 10 in-line fuses fastened to the bottom. Worked out amazingly and was only about 2 in. x 6 in. so I imagine if you aren't using fuses and especially not 10 of them it would be smaller than the big audio distro boxes.

TwoFaced

Ahh...what year civic do you have? I don't know too much about 5th gens but 6th gens have auxillary output male studs on the top row of the fuse box.

EX-T

I actually found some that were 10 pin that are for smaller gauge wire. Just thought I'd fish peoples brains before buying one... Only like $10..

TwoFaced

If you don't mind, post a link of that smaller ones you've found. Maybe I just wasn't looking in the right place.

EX-T

Here's the 10 pin...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ATC-ATO-10-way-S...QQcmdZViewItem

EX-T

There's 6 and 8 pin ones too

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

Those are fuse panels/blocks. You'd have to have fuse in each place that you need to run wire for those to work.

With a distribution block you can run small gauge wire. Best part about it is that with small gauge wire you can run a few in each spot when you run out of empty ones.

EX-T

I have a 99 Si

EX-T

Yeah, that's cleaner than a bunch of spliced wires if only I could find a good 12v switched source...

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

I guess what I'm saying is the fuseblock idea still won't accomplish what you need it to. You would still have a ton of wires to contend with.

EX-T

I figured what I could donwith the wiring is combine everything in the a pillar and just hook it to one source by would have to jump up the fuse a little to compensate for the extra power...

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

You wanted to clean up the wiring. Your fuse block won't allow for that. The side mounted terminals are one to one-one input for one output-the same amount of wires on each side. With the distribution block you get one wire in and many wires out. Run one wire from the stock fuse box to the block.

TwoFaced

Look at your fuse box...right above the top row of fuses are a couple of outputs for 12v switched. If you need a picture I can take one of mine later to show you...I have my CarPC running off of them.

lostforawhile

the main thing is to lay out the wiring in such a way, thats it's neat, whether you use plastic spiral wrap, or wire ties, or split loom, it takes some planning is all. thats why I use the connectors, they are dirt cheap or free at the yard, and are high quality OEM type, once they are soldered properly and properly heat shrunk, it's no different then a factory harness, you just wrap them in such a way that the harness is neatly routed. if you are running gauges, you don't need a separate fuse, use the power wire for the power mirror circuit, or the ignition switched wire for the radio, they pull such a tiny amount of current, they aren't going to affect those circuits. one thing to worry about, be care hooking up illumination, most Hondas have a ground controlled dimmer, if you accidentally ground out the ground wire for anything illumination it will fry the module, most of the electronic gauges have a 12 volt illumination sense to automatically dim the display when they detect 12 volts, I believe the factory radio harness has a wire that goes to 12 volts when the lights are on, independent of the dimmer

98civdx

Have you thought about daisy chaining them?

1 power wire, 1 ground wire.

lostforawhile

exactly, not enough current pulled to need separate power wires, a lot of people run a ground at both ends of the run though, sometimes gauges do strange things that are solved by doing that. if they are on the drivers side pillar, the closest switched 12 volt source is to tap the power wire to the mirror switch