My winter IX RS project cleanup

[neonglh]

This year was great Lana. I purchased the car in December 2009, built the car from the ground up with STM, and then had some excellent runs at the track. The car is put together very well, but I want to perfect a few little things I neglected over the year. This build thread will highlight those tasks. Things I have in mind are:

• Rewire the headlights to have complete, factory working high/low beams
• Wire my fans and electric water pump to key on, instead of a switch
• Wire my fuel pump to a toggle switch, for high and low settings
• Misc. cleanup around the car, inside and out
• If all goes to plan, extend wires and place the entire fuseblock behind the dash

I just started tearing down the front end tonight so that I could inspect the headlight wiring, and figure it all out, and I wanted to show how easy it is to work on this car!

I pulled the STM small battery and Buschur Racing battery tray out of the car with 3 bolts. I am such a fan of small batteries!

Next step to remove the front bumper is to remove (2) 10mm bolts, one in each wheel well:

After that, you simple pull the 2 pins on the fabricated radiator mount, and lift the entire bumper off. Yes that’s right, just 2 bolts, and 2 pins to remove the bumper:

Now with the bumper off, you can see how everything goes together on this car:

After that, it’s 2 bolts on each headlight, and they come right off.

And I know you all believe me, but yes, it is a stock IX turbo that we used to go 10.635 @ 128.70 on the first night running the car at the track :tup:

I am going to try to get my hands on a factory service manual to continue from here, but it looks like there isn’t too much wiring that goes forward from the fuse block. If you look here, you can see there is the headlights, the fan relay, and the electric water pump. I should be able to take the wires out of the loom, consolidate some grounds, and get this bundle under control!

I am debating on pulling the fenders off, so that I can get to the wiring better. I know the side markers have wiring under there, but I am not sure if there is also a loom that goes to the interior of the car, or if all of the wires go through the fire wall. It’s time to dig in. Wish me luck!

I will try to keep this thread as updated as possible, as I continue over the next few months.

–mark

[91MR2]

Cool stuff, looking forward to seeing your progress…

[neonglh]

I couldn’t get to sleep, so I went back out in the garage and started taking the electrical tape off of the wire harness. I found Medusa’s head, so now I need to trace these back (hopefully with a FSM), and find out what they are, so that I can get the high beams, as well as fog lights all working tip top:

When Brian wired up the headlights, one side is using the factory harness, and one side is hard wired. If anyone has a parts car, or would know how to get this headlight clip, could you please let me know. I need one:

It is the clip that is on the body side, that clips into the headlight. This clip contains the wires for the entire headlight assembly.

–mark

[celicagts]

Good stuff! i hope everything goes well, i wish i had the time and patience to do something like this lol

[neonglh]

Before work today, I snapped a few photos of my headlight. It seems that the RS model doesn’t have fog lights, or HID headlights, so that makes the wiring a lot easier. Here is a shot of the headlight. Notice how the fog light area is just solid plastic, there is no spot to even put a bulb:

I then looked at the rest of the wiring, and it seems like the 4 wires I currently have hooked up control the 3 bulbs there. Low beam, turn signal, and daytime running light? Can someone verify what bulbs the headlight has please:

My high beams aren’t currently wired up, so I will have to run the 2 wires to that bulb, and most likely wire in a plug there, but that is easy enough. Now, to find the colors I need.

–mark

[Geoff]

Is this thing purely a dedicated drag car?

[psphinx81]

looks good “marc” LOL i kid!

[neonglh]

@Geoff

Is this thing purely a dedicated drag car?

yes and no. That’s its main purpose, but I drive it on the street on weekends, as well as to work a few times in the Summer, and to car shows.

My goal for next year is to maintain ALL of the raw features it has now, and not slow it down one bit, but to make it a little bit more streetable. Probably a larger fuel cell, and maybe a full aluminum exhaust. I am not sure about those yet though.

@psphinx81

looks good “marc” LOL i kid!

Hah. Hey, can you do me a favor. Can you check your car, and let me know about the lights in the headlight. The low beams are on the outside of the headlight, and the amber light is the parking light, correct. What is the other bulb on the outside of the headlight, is that the turning signal? I wasn’t sure if the turning signal was on the headlight, or ONLY on the fender.

Thanks!

–mark

[psphinx81]

hmm thats a good question, im not entirely sure myself. i will have to take a look

---------- Post added at 11:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:58 AM ----------

Actually after looking at my Sig it clicked to me. That outside portion of the headlight is just a parking light, the turn signal is directly under it. I hope that makes sense lol, if not ill just take a pic and label everything

[neonglh]

If you go out to your garage, you could do one more thing for me

I need to find out the wire colors for the high beams. It should just be 2 wires, but as you can see in my photo, I have a bundle of like 15 wires, and not sure which 2 provide power to the high beams

---------- Post added at 10:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:06 AM ----------

@psphinx81

[/COLOR]Actually after looking at my Sig it clicked to me. That outside portion of the headlight is just a parking light, the turn signal is directly under it. I hope that makes sense lol, if not ill just take a pic and label everything

Nope, that makes sense!

[TrueBlue]

Where can one find and purchase this “factory service manual?” I want one too!

Car’s looking great. If psphinx’s setup is different (from VIII to IX), I can pull the light out tonight when I get back in my garage.

[neonglh]

The wiring for the headlights should be the same from VIII to IX.

I found a FSM online, just searching for it on google, but it’s not the easiest one to read that I’ve used.

---------- Post added at 10:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:28 AM ----------

I just worked out the wiring for the electric water pump and fan with Dan. It’s great having friends that are really good at electrical, I would have forgot the need for 2 diodes!

Just a reminder, my fan and water pump are both hard wired to the battery, and currently hooked up to a breakers under the steering column. When I get in the car, I have to remember to reach down and turn it on, or else my car would not circulate any coolant. Here is the new plan sketched out, on paper

With this new system, I will have the fan and pump come on automatically with key on, and then I would have the option to also run the cooling system with a switch, so that I could cool the car down in-between runs at the track, without having to leave the car running. The diodes are needed so that I don’t charge the rest of the ignition system when I flip the switch to override the fans. This should be very easy to wire up, and I can use a lot of my existing system!

–mark

[psphinx81]

@TrueBlue

Where can one find and purchase this “factory service manual?” I want one too!

Car’s looking great. If psphinx’s setup is different (from VIII to IX), I can pull the light out tonight when I get back in my garage.

i have the entire manual on my computer in PDF files

[LUKE_L]

:tup: to you for tackling this on your own. If you can get a manual/electronic schematic (like psphinx) that would help out in more ways than one. I’m sure you can find something online or on an Evo forum.

Nice little setup you have planned.

Good luck with everything.

[neonglh]

I actually got the IX FSM, and I am looking through it here at work. I have the headlight high beams all planned out, I just need to find the wire color for the drivers side high beam, and I should be all set. It has 2 wires, a power to turn it on, and a ground. The ground I can share with the low beam, which is already on the unit, so I just need to run that one wire to the headlight, and then I am going to run that same wire over to the passenger side (along the bundle of wires going to the low beams and such), and hook it up over there too. That should be very simple and functional.

I can then do some 4 wire quick disconnects at each headlight, and make it pretty slick.

So, Paul, when you can, definitely let me know the wire colors for that high beam on your car (as long as you don’t’ have HIDs!!).

–mark

[psphinx81]

i do have HID’s lol, the car came from factory with them! low beams that is, high beams are not.

[juicedz4]

Let me know what connectors you need Mark. I may not have them in stock with the right nubmer of contacts, but we can always order one up.

Dan

[neonglh]

@psphinx81

i do have HID’s lol, the car came from factory with them! low beams that is, high beams are not.

Well, that is good, because I only need the high beam one, so we are still set!

[neonglh]

Another good night of figuring stuff out. First, let’s look at the passenger wheel well:

All of these wires can go, they are completely useless for me. After checking, and double checking the factory service manual, they are for the a/c and abs systems (which the RS model never came with), as well as the airbag sensors, which I no longer have. The only 2 wires I need on this side are for the side marker on the fender, and the rest can be pulled through the grommet, into the car, and de-pinned from their source!

Then, on the drivers side, I am making more sense of the headlight wires:

I have to confirm with a multimeter, but I am 95% sure that the red wire above with the blue stripe and grey dots is the LH high beam wire, and the yellow wire is the RH turn signal wire. If this is true, I can route them into my current wire harness for the headlights, and they will be 100% functional!

After figuring that out, I started to work on the fuse block. I want to pull the bottom off, so that I can remove the wires that I no longer need, instead of just having them cut and hanging in the loom:

With the fuse block and wires easier to get too, I can start making sense of that pile of wires. Here is what I have to work with:

I fully understand how the headlights are wired now, and I like it, it’s simple. The low beams, ground, and hazard lights from the drivers side of the car are tapped into, and run over to the passenger side of the car. From the factory, the separate lights are on separate wires, but since they both come on at the same time, it’s fine to do it this way. I will probably clean up how it’s done, but it’s done right:

It’s pretty obvious that I am in the learning phase of the project right now, but it’s all coming together pretty good. I hope that tracing the cut wires back to their source, and removing them from their connectors goes as easy as I think it will. Since the car already ran for a year with no problems (with the wires cut), I am 100% confident that it will be OK to remove the wires all together. Less to get in the way, easier to work on, less of a chance of things shorting out :tup:

[neonglh]

HUGE progress tonight. My main focus was on the front engine harness (RH). This is the harness that goes through a grommet in the passenger wheel well, and goes up to the engine bay to run the following things:

fender marker light
passenger side crash sensor
passenger side front ABS sensor
a dummy port for A/C testing
A/C dual pressure switch

The RS never came with ABS or A/C, and I no longer have airbags, so all of this wiring other than the marker light on the fender could go! I pulled out the plug from inside the car, removed all of the tape and loom to get it under control, cut the wires back (soon to depin once I get the tool), and taped it back up. Here is what I have now!

All of this wire was removed from the harness (which was already cut, just not all the way, it was kept in the wheel well:

So, things are really starting to clean up. Next on the list is the front engine harness (LH), which controls the headlights and the other fender marker light, and hopefully that is it! I will find out soon enough.

And just as a perspective, from just one of the harnesses in the car, I already have removed this much junk. Imagine how much nicer it will be when it’s all done!