Build Thread Want To Blow 5 Years And $50k On A Foxbody? Step By Step Instructions Inside!

[RacEoHolic330]

I got a good start on getting the Holley wired up.

First order of business was getting the crank trigger installed. Look at that beautiful custom pulley!


Then I made up a shielded harness for the crank and cam sensors. The harness is made up of a ground, power, and two signal wires along with a bare drain wire. Those were all twisted together and then I wrapped copper shielding tap around all the wires. The copper tape has a conductive adhesive so it bonds to the drain wire. That drain wire gets connected at the ECU end only.


Here's the ECU mounted on a piece of painted sheet metal. Now I have a ton of extra space where all the other electronics used to be. I guess I have a place to store chairs for car shows now!


I got the majority of the wiring done minus the injectors, IAT, and ECT sensor. I stripped all the loom off the original harness and started to figure out the best way to route everything.


I didn't have to tear the harness apart at all. I do need to extend the injector harness though. Holley made that way short compared to the other parts of the harness. The IAT and ECT will also get extened and spliced into the GM connectors. I made up the end for the ignition harness and pluged that in. I routed the wideband through the hole in the transmission tunnel. You can see where the connectors will meet each other right in front of the shifter. I was glad I didn't have to extend that wiring at all. The roll of wires in the passenger footwell area is for the extra inputs and outputs. I will probably leave those there. It's an easy spot to get to without having to rip the carpet out of the car. You can also see the vacuum line for the MAP sensor. I'm just going to cut a hole in the carpet under the passenger seat and leave the sensor there.

The TPS needed a new connector, so I decided to cut the stock plug off and put a weatherpack connector on the end.


For the IAC solenoid on the throttle body, I had to wire that into an output for the ECU, despite the harness already having it's own IAC plug. That wiring was designed for a GM stepper motor IAC. The Ford IAC is known to be better, so I preferred to keep it. I just won't use the plug in the original harness. I also ran 2 wires from the stock VSS back to the ECU along with a set of wires from the ECU to the dash. The Holley has the ability to interface with an external traction control unit, so I may take advantage of that down the road. I figured it would be a good idea to pre-wire for it now. I also wired in the datalogging outputs from my PLX oil pressure gauge and Fuelab electronic regulator. I will just need to set them up as cusom sensors in the software, but it will be nice to be able to log that information.

I'm just waiting on some 18ga wiring to show up so I can extend the injector harness. Once that is done, I should be ready to power up the unit and start checking things.

 

[RacEoHolic330]

As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to get a VSS output to the ECU. The only problem was that the Holley HP can only read a square wave 0-5V signal. The output from the stock VSS is a sine wave. So, enter the signal conditioner.


This little guy will take that nasty sine way and convert it to a nice square wave that the ECU can use. I found a nifty little box online that was the perfect size for it. I drilled a hole through the one cover for the wires.


I soldered on the necessary wires to the board. It needed it's own 12V and ground source in addition to the two VSS inputs and a single output. After I took this picture, I slid a few pieces of large heat shrink over the whole board to insulate the entire thing.


Fits great in the box, which will sit right next to the ECU.


In other news, I finally got the tires put back on my wheels. Adjusting them to 6.75" of backspacing for the 18x9" wheels worked perfect. They fit great.






That is with almost all the camber available. There is about 1/4" of clearance to the upper subframe mount. I'm fine with that because the wheel moves towards the fender as the suspension compresses. I'll need to adjust the ride height as I add weight back to the car. It's sitting a bit low for my taste at the moment.

True Forged was great during the whole process. It did take a while to get the wheels back, but they were done right. They really are a stand up company. You certainly get what you pay for.

I also got the doors from the painter. I'll work one getting them mounted this week.

 

[RangerJoe]

Man, this car looks better every time I see it. Good choice on the wheels Scott!

Joe

 

[MikeH686]

Scott you should come to my house and redo my wiring in my car haha looks good though friend. Makes me want to dismantle my fenders and re work my harness to make it look a little better

 

[89oem]

those mach 5's look great!

 

[90lxcoupe]

Those wheels definitely look awesome. Would you want to sell me one of those vehicle speed sensors? Do you think they are sensitive enough that you could activate the 2 step through it and the 2 step would shut off as soon as the car moved?

 

[RacEoHolic330]

Thanks guys. I'm really happy with the wheel choice too. They really set the car off.

@90lxcoupe, you can get the conditioner board here:
http://www.jbperf.com/dual_VR/v2_1.html

You'll need the stock VSS sensor in the transmission as well. I don't see why it wouldn't work with a 2 step. Guys are using the VSS input for trans brake setups. The sensor will start making voltage as soon as the car moves and the resolution of the sensor should be adequate enough for it to generate a pulse in less than a foot of movement.

 

[90lxcoupe]

I had a brain fart there for a second, i will probably be able to activate the 2 step off of the hall effect sensor i am putting on my transmission yoke. I dont think my TKO has any kind of electronic speed sensor that would be of any use.

 

[RacEoHolic330]

My TKO 500 has both the stock VSS on the driver side as well as a speed sensor (magnetic) on the passenger side. I'm using that one for my autometer speedo.

 

[GroverDill]

cute wheels.

 

[RacEoHolic330]

They're adorable, aren't they?

 

[RacEoHolic330]

So, I spent the majority of the weekend working on the car and all I have to show for it are two doors, mounted to the car, with windows that go up and down when I push a button. I won't bother posting a picture of that. Just go out to your car, open the door, and operate your power windows. That's what my car does now.

Putting the guts back in the doors was a true pain in the ass. It's quite time consuming. I also didn't realize that Ford grounded both of the doors wiring to the driver side door near the window motor. I plugged in the switches, installed the fuse in the fuse panel, pushed the down button, and a whole lot of nothing happened. I had voltage at the plug inside the car, but nothing in the door. Turns out that because I had my door brackets powder coated, I guess there was no ground path from the doors to the chassis. The simple solution was just to run a separate ground wire to the door. That seems like a crappy way to provide ground to the power windows and door locks. Amazing the little ways Ford tried to save money.

 

[84Ttop]

^^ That was a very anti climatic update...

Still can't get over how great those wheels look!

 

[RacEoHolic330]

Thanks Nick. I'm super happy with the wheels. I don't regret spending that kind of dough on them at all.

I was on vacation the past few days, so not much updates on the car. I did manage to get the doors aligned. What a PITA that was! The passenger door closes like a dream. The drivers door is still pretty tight though. I may need to align the striker a little better. I'm going to let the doors sit closed for a bit and let the new weatherstripping flatten out some more.

Next up will be shooting some exterior paint on the rest of the exterior trim and mirrors. I also need to align the suspension and set the bumpsteer for the front and rear. I've been dreading doing that, but it needs to be done.

 

[kbscobravert]

I have been following this build from Corral to here and finally registered just so I can post. I am happy to see another Holley EFI user. Ecspecially one doing some of the same stuff I want to do. Like: VSS input and knock sensor. Not even on the Holley forum is there a lot of info on them.

I am running the Dominator EFI for the amount of fluid/air temps I want to monitor. All of my system is standing by at the house ready to start an install.

What GM knock sensor did you use? Got a link to buy?

I see you are running crank sensor. Whose is that? It looks just like the Cherry GS100102 sensor that Danny C. recommends. I bought two of them from DigiKey yesterday (2-just in case I have to diag a problem)

Would you care to build me one of these? Paypal standing by

Why not feed your Autometer speedo with a signal from the ECU?

So, enter the signal conditioner.
This little guy will take that nasty sine way and convert it to a nice square wave that the ECU can use. Fits great in the box, which will sit right next to the ECU.

 

[RacEoHolic330]

Cool man. I think I recognize your name from Corral.

The crank trigger kit is from MSD and the hall effect sensor is a Holley unit. That damn sensor was $100.

I got the GM sensors off eBay. They are OEM and recommended by holley. I prefer using OEM sensors opposed to aftermarket ones. I'll dig up the eBay link for you.

The speedo is fed directly from the trans. I had it fed that way before I installed the Holley. Also, the HP only recognizes 0-5v speed inputs, unlike the Dominator which can also accept a sine wave input. The autometer speedo needs a standard VR sine wave, so I couldn't feed it from the HP if I wanted to. Even if it would work, I don't want to tie up an output for something like that.

 

[kbscobravert]

The Cherry GS100102 looks awfully a lot like the holley one. And at a third of the price too. I bought two shipped for around $105.

Well, if the Dominator will take either input, I am good then. Not having to wire up another adapter is a bonus. Looks like I can branch my signal from the VSS and feed the ECU and the Autometer speedo.

I found the knock sensor that Danny C is using that he recommends if you can't find the link.

Cool man. I think I recognize your name from Corral.

The crank trigger kit is from MSD and the hall effect sensor is a Holley unit. That damn sensor was $100.

I got the GM sensors off eBay. They are OEM and recommended by holley. I prefer using OEM sensors opposed to aftermarket ones. I'll dig up the eBay link for you.

The speedo is fed directly from the trans. I had it fed that way before I installed the Holley. Also, the HP only recognizes 0-5v speed inputs, unlike the Dominator which can also accept a sine wave input. The autometer speedo needs a standard VR sine wave, so I couldn't feed it from the HP if I wanted to. Even if it would work, I don't want to tie up an output for something like that.

 

[RacEoHolic330]

I'll have to check the Cherry sensor out as a spare. I have to see how long it is though. My turbo drain limits me on how long the sensor can be. The Holley unit is the perfect length.

I'm going to try to get some updated pictures posted soon. The hatch glass was installed yesterday. It's looking more and more like an actual car now.

 

[RacEoHolic330]

Some pictures as promised. Nothing special here, but it's something to look at.

Doors mounted and aligned. Still need to get the mirrors on and two more pieces of trim.




I tightened down the rear bumper and made some brackets for the bottom portion to keep it from flopping around on the highway. There are three. One in the middle that attaches to the fuel pump bracket and two more on each side that attach to the crash bumper bracket.


Hatch and glass are on. I still need to restore the glass trim pieces and get them on. I also need to give my tint guy a call sooner than later.




I also made an oops and dropped the passenger side taillight. It chipped off the outside corner of the plastic. I did a small operation on it by filling in the missing broken piece and painting it with trim paint. Another part was glued back on. Can't even tell that anything happened to it!

 

[TOOLOW91]

Flawless . I have no other words for this bad boy !