As the title states, I’m starting fresh with the electrical on my car, 98 integra gsr. I’m also installing a Holley terminator ecu, having the engine rebuilt and completely redoing the brake system. What I am struggling with is where to mount all my electrical components like the contactor I’m using for the main power control, terminal strips, and bus bars, etc. I’m using an Eaton ssVEC 31s-002-0 for relay control and fusing and came up with a way to mount it to the firewall in the same area where most people’s stock ecu’s wind up after chipping but I’m not totally satisfied with it. When I did my Camaro I was spoiled a bit because I had a nice huge flat hvac delete panel on the firewall where everything was mounted. Ideally I would like everything on a single aluminum (or I have some carbon sheet) plate on the firewall low enough to be accessible, inside the car, but the only thing I can come up with to make that happen are not favorable. The car is pretty well stripped down so there’s not a whole lot of stuff. The ecu mounting is taken care of and I’m really liking how it turned out. I also already have switch mounting taken care of. I was hoping maybe somebody had some pictures of their cars or maybe race cars from events that could help jog my imagination. I’m just not seeing a lot of options while I’m looking at the car. Ideas or pictures would be greatly appreciated.

 

Have you considered a PDM? They are becoming more approachable by the day, to the point where you really gotta consider how much you're going to spend on all of those relays, bus bars, fuseboxes, etc, along with all of the extra wire involved (and the cost of labor, even if it's your own time). PDM's are just straight awesome technology and simplify the car sooo much. There are models out there with enough channels to do everything you want on a typical car hovering just above $1k now. If I was starting fresh on wiring, this would be my absolute first step.

 

I’ve already got everything bought and schematics drawn up just having a hard time finding good spots to mount it all. These cars have basically no surface of any size that’s all on the same plane on the firewall, inside the car. Like I said, the huge flat hvac delete panel spoiled me when doing my Camaro. The eaton ssVEC is pretty small, 6”x6” maybe with I think 8 relays and 10 fuses(that’s 10 fuses independent of the relay circuits)There really isn’t going to be a whole lot of stuff in the car as far as wiring goes. It definitely won’t fit the bill of most peoples idea of a street car. Im thinking at this point I’m going to wind up tigging 4 studs to the firewall in a square to mount a plate to. Since all the studs will likely be different heights I’ll run nuts down to have the plate level then put the plate on then another nut on top to hold it down. Trying to keep all the components on the passenger side firewall inside the car. The row of led’s above the carbon panel is the Holley ecu, the leds are indicators of the status of the unit, figured it’d be nice to easily monitor the. So it’s mounted upside down to the bottom of the hvac controls. The circled area is where the Eaton unit wound up which is the thing with the arrow coming off it. Most of the control switches (carling contura rockers) will mount in the carbon panel below the ecu except the turn signal switch and high beam switch will be in a carbon panel to the left of the steering wheel in the spot that a hvac vent used to occupy.in case anybody wonders, the steering column is a chopped up factory one, turned out real nice actually. Don’t mind all the loose looking hardware, this was taken during the mock up phase. Yes the carpet is going back in as well as the center console

 

since I know how to post pics now, off topic, kinda, don’t ever have 2 project cars at a time this was prior to the integras tear down

 

I would pull out the passenger airbag and put everything inside the top of the dash. ECU and all.

 

ecu is staying where I’ve got it so I can see the diagnostic led’s. Passenger air bag is out, dash is gutted on the backside. I’ll have to look when I get home from work as I’m having a hard time recalling what exactly it looks like up there. Do you mean mount it to the dash it’s self or in the area of where the cabin filter isn located on the bottom side of the top of the firewall? I’ve been eyeing the area where the factory ecu was mounted too. Idk why Honda had to make all the factory mounting locations at different heights from each other. Just a 10”x10” flat spot of single wall sheet metal would be wonderful

 

Floorboard as you pointed out is the typical most desirable place for a car that may or may not see a passenger seat. Keeps the wires short and out of the way but also easily accessible - win/win.

You could tig some studs down there or you could use rivnuts and thread studs in, that way there’s no cutting/grinding/paint penalty to go back to a flat floor if you want.

 

Ah I like the rivnut idea, very nice, thanks for that