I actually worked on the racecar wiring today and made a bit of headway.

Can someone remind me of any rules of thumb about which wire sizes to use when running certain amperages? Although most of the stock wiring was scrapped, I do have the factory wiring diagrams with the fuse amperages that the factory used and I will use them as a guide on most of my new circuits. I bought many colorful spools of many wire sizes but I need to have some rhyme and reason to sizing before I cut it all up into spaghetti.

 

Just run 4 awg to everything

Seriously, I have a chart at work, but it's geared more to the larger sizes/ amperages used in car stereo... I'll try to post it up here tomorow if someone else doesn't beat me to it.





Modified by Louie B. at 8:36 PM 1/6/2005

 

Bottom chart, rule of thumb only.

http://www.rbeelectronics.com/wtable.htm

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SJR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Bottom chart, rule of thumb only.

http://www.rbeelectronics.com/wtable.htm</TD></TR></TABLE>

Just what I was looking for. Looks like I am going to be overwired anyway as what I bought (potentially a lifetime supply and inheretance for my son at this rate)and what I need from the chart shows a big safety zone. With the CRX being only 12 1/2 feet long bumper to bumper and the wiring starting from the middle of the car, I doubt any wires will exceed 10 feet.

Thanks.

 

There was just a excellent write up on this in GRM a couple of issues ago. I think it was the one that used Action Figures in the pics. At work, so not sure exact one.

 

Lee-you will find that much of the wiring will be in the 14-16 gauge range. I prefer to build on the safe side of the values. You can find accurate data at the Belden Wire or Alpha Wire sites. (I think Belden still has a 800#). We wired the switch panel in the race car with 10-12 gauge depending on the circuit being controlled. The feed to that panel is 8 gauge to deal with a 50 Amp circuit. The AMB transponder does not require anything heavier than 16 gauge as it only draws a few milliams and no more than 1 Amp I believe (again overkill).

 

Thanks for the link. I have been making the wires for my kill switch this week and have been playing the game of matching the stock wire gauge or better. It looks like according to the chart I should be fine and could have gone a little smaller is some places.

If this kill switch works the first time I'll be amazed, heck, I'll be amazed if the car even fires up again

 

for what it's worth, my car cranked over after installing the kill switch. I haven't connected the spark plugs yet to see if it'll start. But you can be SURE that there will be a post on HT when the car does start...