I have purchased an 18 circuit Southern Rod harness, and I am maybe a month of work away to install it. Yet the harness is not very FC friendly per say. I am willing to spend some money because it's worth it, and let you modify it and equip it with weather plugs etc, and most importantly match the FC wiring (sort of plug and play).
Note: The FC harness is completely removed. Only the ends to specif parts are left such as the lights, window motors, wipers, etc.
There is going to be only basic functions in the car, nothing extreme like AC, computers, or whatnot. Only basics. I can provide a detail list. I am not in a rush.. You can even experiment with it.
I know there is a few people here that want to replace their harness and have been looking at options such as Painless, Southern Rods, etc; therefore, if it's worth it to you, I am very interested in doing this. Maybe it will motivate others as well.
Looking forward to your response.
Great question, and I have a somewhat long-winded response that I've given literally hundreds of times, whenever this comes up. I started installing Painless-style harnesses in 2006... they seem attractive ~ they're cheap and the manufacturers want you to think they're plug-and-play. I was making engine harnesses and figured people need help doing this, and it's better than the factory stuff most of the time.
They're not. Far from it. If you wire it in yourself, you hit a price/performance point akin to buying a used Kia... sure, it's cheap, but what you really have is a cheap plastic fusebox, not nearly enough relays to run a modern car/engine safely, no switching (still using OEM, 20yo switches), and no help if something goes wrong. The fuseboxes look and fit like crap inside the car. If you pay someone like me to do it, you're literally paying for a polished turd... I can loom it and make a great looking installation, but it's still literally the cheapest fusebox and wire money can buy, with a non-intelligent circuit design.
Three or four years ago, I started making complete replacement chassis harnesses, custom, taking control of the specification, design, manufacture, installation and support of the electrical system.
My idea was to use the highest quality, aviation/military-grade parts around, with the most intelligent circuit designs for the particular application, and then manufacture a harness that not only looked like a million bucks, but would perform reliably season-after-season. This was mostly for race teams, with very specific needs, but I started looking at price/performance points for my most common applications (Nissan 240's, FC's, etc)... turns out:
- It doesn't actually take any longer to make a custom harness than to properly install a pre-made, Painless-style generic harness
- The materials I use aren't considerably more expensive than the Painless-style harnesses my customers were coming to me with, if I'm willing to buy them in bulk and stock them
- The Painless-style generic fuseboxes don't work for modern cars! I was having to do so much customization and additions to do proper (read: SAFE) power distribution, I realized I'm barely using the supplied stuff
- I'm able to provide a custom switch panel, high-quality aerospace switches, fully-potted relays, fully sealed Deutsch mid-harness connectors, etc for a very small cost premium, that nets a HUGE reliability (and baller-status) gain
- At the end of the day... I'm doing my customers a disservice by installing the generic crap at a price point that compensates me for my time... so I refuse to do it
What I do offer is a Mil-spec tucked and loomed chassis harness service. Similar to a Painless-style, I do need certain plugs from your OEM chassis harness (tail lights, stock dash cluster, etc). I can wire into the stock switches and a tiny sealed fusebox with our relay block for a truly OEM-looking installation, or I can use push-to-reset circuit breakers and aerospace switches on a custom panel for full control at the driver's fingertips while strapped in. I use the highest quality 200*C double-wall tefzel wire with your choice of flame-retardant mesh sleeving or full heat shrink Raychem DR25-equiv loom, with 3M double-wall adhesive heat shrink over the ends. Perhaps best of all, I guarantee all our harnesses for life - if the harness stops performing as it should, send it to me or get me to the car, I'll fix it... this is easy to offer, since it's never happened.
There is a world of options when doing a custom chassis harness, since we're literally starting from scratch. I've done FC3S race cars, but no street cars (I haven't looked into the best way to keep all the factory creature comforts, for instance). I'm doing my FD now, and did the FD we took to SEMA a couple years ago, but most FD guys want to keep all the factory niceties, and it's labor intensive for me. Point is, I need to figure out where the certain options fall in terms of parts and labor for these cars, and I was going to set up a thread specifically for this, but here's the gist of it:
Chassis harnesses start at $1000 + materials, typically with a bottom around $1600. This typically buys you:
- Complete replacement chassis harness, starting with the removal of your stock wiring - ALL OF IT. Nothing will be left in your engine bay except wiring to the engine, lights, and fan(s). Nothing will be by your feet inside the car. Nothing runs from the dash back except for a tiny little loom carrying fuel pump, and rear lights
- Includes a simple switch panel (typically put it in the double-DIN spot) with push-to-reset circuit breakers or a marine fusebox, as well as our custom relay block loaded with fully-potted relays. We have one of the only relay blocks that's truly modular and mounts to a bulkhead in a way that allows the relays to be removable without touching anything else (the mounting or the wires).
- If you don't want a switch panel, we can wire in the factory switches to control everything. Save on materials, looks factory, but you're relying on 20yr old switches (this becomes the weak link of the new electrical system)
I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. Look for a new thread soon that will hopefully answer chassis harness questions, show pics of options, and outline pricing.
