Lordofdark176

i'll be wiring in cruise control to my 95 civic dx, have everything i need (all connectors and everything).

what gauge wire do i need? i know the blue tach wire is slightly bigger, do i need a separate gauge for that wire itself?

how much wire do you guys think i'll need? think 100 feet will do it? let me know thanks! going to go to radioshack later today and pick the wire up.

deschlong

iTrader: (8)

Your best bet would be to pull all the original wiring out of a salvage vehicle. It's actually not that hard - plus you get all the correct wiring colours! Be prepared to spend about 2 hours and ~10$ at the yard, but well worth it, in my opinion, and cheaper than buying a bunch of different coloured rolls of wire.

Barring that, 16ga will be fine for the whole thing, or 18ga for the smaller stuff, if you want.

Check my sig for a full DIY link. There's also a link that honda.lioness provided in one of the responses to her own DIY.

redrocket

If I knew beforehand how much work is involved, I never would have done it. The biggest thing I walked away with, is anger at Honda for omitting a wire here, 2 wires there, just to save 3 cents. They should have used the same g-damn harnesses and gas pedal in all models, so CC could be added as a dealer option. I'm still pissed about the missing "hot" wire in the trunk for the trunk light.

Maybe a universal aftermarket kit makes more sense on this car.

deschlong

iTrader: (8)

Oh, that anger will subside as you cruise around with your new minty fresh option that you installed yourself. It was a long, hot and sweaty day for me, but I learned a lot about my car and what I could do with it.

You're right, of course, about the "dealer option" idea - that would've been great.

Aftermarket stuff pretty much bites I think.

redrocket

If i ever get it working, i'll enjoy it. I finally got it all wired in today, then took it for a test drive, and .... no dice. I went thru the service manual troubleshooting list & checked every pin for input & output, except for VSS. I didnt feel like jacking it up & spinning the wheel, but i did verify continuity on my wire splice, and the speedometer still works, so i assume the CC is getting the VSS correctly.

Only other thing i didn't do was the Red wire (Dash Brightness Control) on the cluster, but i doubt that would prevent CC from turning on (red wire is not even on the CC circuit diagram -- only on the gauge diagram). Also, i dont have a mounting bracket, so the CC isnt bolted down.

I have a known-good CC in my EX that i can try, or i can test my 2 junkyard boxes (MT and AT) in the EX.

Was just a real pisser to triple-check everything, and still no-go.


Back to my anger at Honda... the first upgrade i wanted to do was to add a tach. I told a Honda dismantler what i wanted & he said "Ohhhh, Nooooo, you gotta change out all the wire harnesses. It's almost impossible." I believed him & dropped it. 5 yrs later my dash is open for whatever reason & I decide to check out the cluster wires since it's open & i have the manual. Imagine my surprise....

Now, why would Honda cheap us out on a few CC wires in the various harnesses (not to mention the Trunk Light wire), but then give us the Tach wire for the cluster??? They dont sell upgrade clusters They are just inconsistent. The only benefit i can see, for us, is there might be more thefts of LX & EX if there was a market to do easy upgrades to DXes, but no way in hell was that Honda's motivation.


update: I jacked the wheel up & spun it, to verify VSS signal to the CC, and it is good (pulses 0v to 5v)

Lordofdark176

just wanted to give you guys an update.

got it all wired in a few weeks ago, it all works flawlessly. i took my time and did a wire or 2 a day, i've had no problems so far

i tucked the computer away behind the carpet kick panel area on the driver side, i just threw it in there, can't see it :lol:


i'm glad i took the time to do the project, learned a ton about wiring. i honestly thought it was fun. its just a really good feeling knowing i did it myself.


now my 3 hour drive when i go off to college in a month hopefully won't be so bad!

deschlong

iTrader: (8)

Hey, congrats.

And to redrocket: What was ultimately the source of the wiring problem you had? Have you resolved it? Re: your post on the 28th of May.

Lordofdark176

i don't think i had any problems haha.

btw you writeup helped a lot for reference!

deschlong

iTrader: (8)

^^ Thanks! Sorry ... I was confused between your posts and the ones by redrocket (due to same avatar)

Lordofdark176

haha its cool. thanks again!