Simple wiring question for those who have done it. (RB26)

[Nameless EJ6]

For those who have done the wiring, is it easier to do while the engine is placed in the car? If so, I'll wait, but I wanted to get a head start..

This is my first wiring job on a Nissan. I have the harness's from both engines sitting in my room ready to be worked with.

Here is a picture of the harnesses from the RB26..

[Slo_240sx]

Both harnesses should be plugged in on the motor and the motor should then be dropped in. Its a royal PITA to get all the wiring done while in the car. After you have placed the motor in you'll have to feed the wiring harness through the firewall which is again a PITA and from there its cake. Just wire your white plug to the bay harness and the white plug to the interior plug. Good luck bro! Reply if anything goes wrong and you need help. Emailed [email protected] if you need my number.-Alex

[gawdzilla]

i've done it and tested most of my harness before putting it through the firewall. no where near the engine or the engine bay. i would DEFINITELY recommend you do it before the motor goes in. here's a summary of what i did, and it has worked out pretty good for me so far.

1) do all of the soldering, merging, heat shrinking, etc. outside of the car. this takes a lot of time. studying the pinouts of both cars, burning yourself with solder, etc etc. get an entire working harness together away from the car at a comfortable working spot. trust me, you dont want to be breaking your back under the dash trying to solder, or reaching into the engine bay doing it. i would say there are about 50 soldering connections you need to make, including repairing busted plugs, extending wires, etc. dont bother relooming or prettying up the harness quite yet.

2) once you feel comfortable w/ the harness and it is complete, bench test it.

3) open the pass side door, plug up the F3 harness as if its in the car. let the main portion of the harness dangle out of the door onto the floor, and give it power.

4) of course, using SAFE techniques and common sense (unplugging the battery whenever you do ANYTHING, draining the residual voltage by flipping on lights) test a few things, like spark, fuel, maf if possible, etc. this part was easier for me cuz i have pfc.

5) go back and fix errors. trust me something will be wrong or at least need tweaking.

6) make the harness pretty. loom it up, tape it, whatever you need to do to protect the wires from the elements.

7) feed it through the firewall from bay into the cabin. lay all of the harness thats supposed to be in the bay onto the windshield and out of the way

8) now drop engine in and start plugging things up.

i suppose its possible to plug everything onto the motor first, then do the feeding through the firewall. but i imagined the way i described above to be easier, since thats how you extract a motor. let me know if you have any questions about the wiring. its pretty fresh on my mind still cuz i finished it up very recently. i am doing late r32 rb26 into obd1 s14
Modified by gawdzilla at 9:44 PM 6/5/2005

[Phat_Optimo]

Definately install the lower harness before the engine goes in. I wired the efi harness up in the bay before the engine went it. Drop the engine in and plug everything up. Sounds easy right.....

[Nameless EJ6]

gawdzilla, thanks! Everyone else, thanks too!

I'll be honest, I haven't really looked at the wiring much at all. I have not familiarized myself with the plugs and their corresponding names (ie F3). I plan on doing this soon, I've just been busy with school lately.

Can someome please tell me if I'll need this portion of the interior harness?

[gawdzilla]

if i'm not mistaken, that IS the F3(larger one on the bottom). i think the one above it may be the F4(either cruise control or abs, i forget)?

if it came off the pass side door area near the KA ecu, then it is. get VERY familiar with that plug. it should go back into the body as you found it. i never removed that plug. work with the female side of the F3. basically, all your inputs to the RB ECU (ign, start signal, etc.) as well as outputs (tach, water temp, etc.) will be going through that plug. you want to MERGE the female end of the F3 (not the piece you're holding but what plugs into that) into your RB harness. plug the male end of the F3 (what you're holding) back into the car. hopefully you haven't shredded it and it can be replaced into the car. if its cut up, you'll need to figure out how to get it back in properly. like i said, i left that in the car the whole time. you don't solder anything to what you're holding. just the plugs that go into it.

map out the pinouts, and where they need to go on the RB harness. also note that the 95 240sx factory manual pinout of F3 in the appendix is WRONG.

[Nameless EJ6]

The portion I'm holding came from the RB harness..

Hopefully none of the stuff I need has been cut off..

[Imissmyturbo]

Why don't you search!!!

j/k lolHere is the way I did the wiring. I put the motor in the car with the upper + lower R33 engine harness on. For the lower harness. I took the stock lower KA harness and cut the conectors off of it. I then cut the conectors off the R33 body side (near the fuse block) of the harness and tracing each wire out I made kind of an adaptor harness so it's plug + play. I could of cut the R33 engine harness conectors off and then put the KA conectors on but I wanted to keep it clean and reversable if something were to happen to the motor.

Now the upper harness I need to extend the MAF and O2 wires, which I am sure you will have to do as well. It's easier to figure it out with the intake piping intack rather then guessing with it out of the car. The large connector inside the car under the passanger dash was cut from the R33 and also from the Ka engine harness. I made another plug + play harness out of these two. Now when it comes to what I did with all the wires I couldn't tell you since it's been over a year since I have done the swap. Anyways I am sure you know to use soilder + shrink turbing. Write down what you are doing for it get's confusing trying to remeber everything up your head.

[gawdzilla]

The portion I'm holding came from the RB harness..

Hopefully none of the stuff I need has been cut off..

if thats from the Skyline, then my guess is thats the F3 equivalent in the Skyline body. i wouldnt worry about it.

[Nameless EJ6]

Cool! gawdzilla, I may send you an email some time when I start cutting into this, if I run into any problems. I'm pretty good with wiring.. but since this is the first Nissan I've done I may have a couple questions. Nothing intensive though... I will be doing a writeup on the wiring to share with dedicated people.. as I don't really want to give info to just anyone. Next thing you know a magazine will use the info for the general public, I don't like that idea..

[Ramius83]

Also. Please make sure that you put the knock sensor wiring on FIRST before you throw the motor in. I forgot to put it on. I already have the engine bolted down and the transmission already on before I realized I forgot to install the knock sensor wiring harness. It took me about an hour alone trying to find all those plugs in behind and underneath the intake manifold.

[Nameless EJ6]

Yeah, that crossed my mind when I was taking it off.. gar.

[gawdzilla]

just figured out you're doing the swap into an s13. the whole "F3" thing applies only to s14. it is what the plug is called in the manual. the s13 has a set of (i think) 3 plugs for F3. just study up, shouldn't be too drastically different. i'd send you my spreadsheet of pinouts mapped out, but its only good for F3 s14 unfortunately..