I hear you on the aftermarket approach to EFI retrofit wiring... they usually take the easy install path rather than the best function path. And usually they are right as that is what most people seem to want.

You can help that 60A problem out quite a bit by pulling out some of the larger loads. For example you can power the fuel pump from a seperate feed/circuit to it's relay. That may have offloaded 10A right there depending on what you are running for fuel pump. If that harness is powering electric fans by all means pull those suckers out too. Next candidate would be a wide band O2 controller if it is part of the setup. You do this for a few circuits and you can carve that 60A down fairly nicely.

What I am going to ultimately do is add a seperate power feed from my power distribution box on a suitable master fuse. This will feed a sub-panel with about 10g (have not determined exactly...) with seperate fused circuits for ECM, wide band, fuel pump. TBD is exact relay implementation... probably one just for ECM and might share one for fuel pump and wide band. The ECM relay will likely be controlled from the ignition expansion port in the factory fuse block.

 

I was not talking about the quality of the products but rather safety (fire) and issues of the electronics getting cross talk problems on their voltage supply lines.
You can try but you might have issues with the ECM screwing up "mysteriously" and then recovering. It then gets very difficult to find the problem.
Ron

 

I think they're referring to the main 60A fusing. If it were me, I'd do the 60A fusing AND separate each one of the 5 or 6 circuits. I'm guessing how it's laid out, there's a main wire that then uses a junction somewhere in the wrap to tie together all of those 5 or 6 circuits....correct?

A fuse box works the same, there's a main fusible link after the horn relay before the fuse box, then each circuit is protected individually.

The relays are not poor quality....

 

when we burn our own car down all we can do is kick ourselfs and start over.....when some one else burns your car down, all we can do is kick ourselfs. i have to agree with BIKERON, you are going to have problems.now is the time to prevent them. please reconsider your options.

 

I think this will give you a lot of problems...

Ron

 

What will? The relay from wiringproducts? Are they poor quality?

If I was reworking the engine harness myself, I would have opted to keep the power wires split up into individual circuits rather than grouping them together. There's no question that protecting each circuit to 10-25A (whatever is appropriate for each circuit) is much better protection than just protecting the whole batch to 60A. I understand that 60A is enough to fry the smaller wires that are intended to be protected to 10-25A each, and if I was starting over, I'd probably opt to modify the harness myself rather than having it done by someone else.

 

Thanks for the link to wiringproducts website. I picked up a 60A relay and relay socket, along with a 60A inline fuse holder.

Thanks

 

You might consider a starter solenoid instead of a relay for switching continuous and heavy duty loads. You could also use a fusible link numerically 4 smaller than the 60A wire gauge you're using to fuse this circuit instead of a fuse, OR one of those resettable circuit breakers like this:
!
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High Amperage Circuit Breaker

$35.95
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Amperage
50 Amp (CB-HCBP-50)
80 Amp (CB-HCBP-80)
100 Amp (CB-HCBP-100)
135 Amp (CB-HCBP-135)
150 Amp (CB-HCBP-150)

High Amperage Circuit Breakers High amperage type 3 circuit breaker. Manual reset of circuit after a short circuit condition. Button on circuit breaker can act as a master disconnect for your circuits. Typically used in primary feed circuits in trucks, RV's, and marine applications. Also used in battery chargers and welding equipment. Splash and dust proof. Stud size is 1/4-28. Available in 50 amp, 80 amp, 100 amp, 135 amp, and 150 amp ratings.

but it's your choice.

For a fusible link, if you're running #6 gauge wire as your power feed, you need to use a #10 gauge fusible link within the first 6" of its power source connection(I'm guessing battery or junction block). With another size feed, just use the 4 number rule and you'll be good.

I like to order my stuff from www.wiringproducts.com , they have a great selection of stuff and awesome prices compared to an auto parts store. Not to mention some of the stuff you'd never be able to get at the parts store. The circuit breaker I posted is on their site....

 

60 amps ????? are you sure of this?

 

Thanks for the responses, guys. Yeah, it's really 60 amps. On the retrofit harness, they've joined 5 or 6 circuits that were previously supplied by multiple smaller fuses into one 60-amp circuit for ease of installation. The way it ends up, for the engine harness itself, you only have a battery (+) wire, a hot with ignition (and cranking) wire, and of course, ground wires. In addition, I'm also running circuits for cooling fans, A/C compressor clutch, cruise, fuel pump, and the diagnostic connector.

If you're interested, here's a link to the build thread I'm keeping up on LS1tech: http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/conversions-hybrids/1047484-kst8engineer-71-chevelle-ls1-t56-build-thread.html

 

Wouldn't you really need "hot" on "ignition" and while cranking?

There isn't any existing in-dash wiring that'll handle 60A on these cars. The relay & a 60A fuse is your best bet.