Going to rewire Brutus!!

Picked up a remanufactured steering box and wasn't overly thrilled how it looked. Parts of the steering box looked to have rust on and they just spray painted over it. So I had it glass beaded, and painted with the same chassis paint that I used on the frame. Looks good now, so I did the pittman arm, nut and washer too.

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Seeing as how I'm changing the color scheme under the hood and opting to go black with all my lines and fittings. I figured I have to do something about my blue wires, so we re-loomed them with black shielding and heat shrinked the ends.

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Then we completed all my existing fuel lines, oil lines, and vacuum line for my vacuum brakes.

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Spectacular!

I hate my modified wire harness. And it gets worse every year. As I continue to add more and more crap, I try to label stuff under the dash and some of it was labeled so long ago, that I forget what the labels mean!

I dream of doing this one day. If I could, I would rip it all out! every damned wire in the car! Headlights, dash, factory fuse panel, everything!!!!

My wire set-up is super neat and tidy, but that's how I loom, rout, and present it. The connections are good also. But the existing unused portions are still hiding in the mix. And then there's all the redundancy and multiple wires of the same color with different functions.
 
My intake is finally complete. Can't tell you how much time we put into this. Last night we pulled the cap on the fuel pressure regulator, drilled and taped it for a #3 Racetronix fitting so we can run teflon lines in place of the rubber windshield washer lines I used to run. There will be a couple Racetronix bulk head fittings that will have to drill my fire wall for (ie: boost guage, map sensor and oil pressure). Also cleaned and painted my IAC and put that back on to. I brought my intake into work to show my ol man so I put it in our viewing booth and snapped a couple shots now that it is complete. Time to start assembling my motor this week....

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My intake is finally complete. Can't tell you how much time we put into this. Last night we pulled the cap on the fuel pressure regulator, drilled and taped it for a #3 Racetronix fitting so we can run teflon lines in place of the rubber windshield washer lines I used to run. There will be a couple Racetronix bulk head fittings that will have to drill my fire wall for (ie: boost guage, map sensor and oil pressure). Also cleaned and painted my IAC and put that back on to. I brought my intake into work to show my ol man so I put it in our viewing booth and snapped a couple shots now that it is complete. Time to start assembling my motor this week....




Mike that is art work incredible job!
 
Mike that is art work incredible job!

Thx. I would love to take credit for it, but it was Jack @ Racetronix coming up with all these idea's for my intake. Having every possible fitting and line in house just made things that much sweeter. I feel like kicking my old high school trophies off of the wallunit at home and putting this in it's place. lol. I'm photo bombing the shit out of this...
 
This weekend was the time to put some more attention to Brutus. First thing I wanted to do is to start reassembling my motor and add all the additional stuff back to my shortblock. But before I went that route, I wanted to mask off my front cover and shoot it with the same paint I used on my intake. Front cover just looked old when I rested my intake down on the block. So time to pull out the painters tape and a exacto blade and start masking.

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After letting that dry over night I peeled off the tape and started the assembly

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Getting back to the engine compartment I had bought a good condition inner fender for the passenger side so I can replace the one I screwed up many years ago running a fender dump through it. So I power washed it then lightly sanded it down, sprayed it with brake cleaner and wiped it down. Shot it with some trim paint, and it came out great.

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Sold my old AMS500 boost controller and opted for a Leash boost controller/bump box, and that came in last week. One more piece to the puzzle.

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Then I got back in the lab and we started pinning the engine side of the harness. A lot more complicated then it looks. But all the spaghetti is gone, and this is all that is needed to run the engine.

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Your attention to detail is excellent. lots of cars go fast, lots of cars look clean. But its very rare that a car goes that fast and looks that clean. Thanks so much for taking the time to post up your progress.
 
Dropped the engine back in again for more mock ups. I have to drill 2 holes at the back of the intake for oil and vacuum bulk head fittings.

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Then mounted my new steering box on the car to mock up my new Racetronix reservoir. Going to get rid of the factory rubber lines and replace that with some teflon.

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Pulled the cover off the car and finally completed the engine compartment. If anyone is considering stripping the paint from their engine compartment. There is a tin called "Paint Strippa". Use a brush to apply it to what ever you want stripped. In 5 min, wipe it off with a rag. Strips it right to bare metal without the scraping and sanding. I used that on my firewall and the upper rad support, then repainted that. The finishing touch was to bring my AC delete plate back to life with some Mothers polish and a high speed drill. Finally, everything is done. I would estimate at least 20 hours in this engine compartment over the last 2 months, but the finished product was worth it.

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Last night we had the opportunity to put our focus on completing this wiring harness for the car. I think we both underestimated the time this would take to assemble this. We have met countless times after hours to get this done. Last night felt like a huge sense of relief seeing it all together. What has to happen at this point is to do some checks for continuity from end to end to double check everything is pined to where it needs to be. Once that is done, the mechanical stuff of installing the motor, tranny and harness is something I can do in my sleep. So here is a before and after shot.

Before

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After
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The extra harness added here the one that connects to the fuse panel from inside the engine compartment under your windshield wiper motor. A great majority of this will be hidden inside the inner fender.

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Had a opportunity to put some work in this weekend on the car. Now that we have checked the wiring harness, I took it home and started the install. First thing was to start on the interior of the car and map out how I want this installed. Everything fit perfectly with nothing bunched up. Funny how every pin in this connector got used up. Thought I would have some spares.

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This is with the connector installed in the car to the firewall beside my 2 bulkhead fittings for oil and vacuum.

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Then put the new custom harness on the engine. All lines to the sensors run under the intake to it's designated spots.

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With that done, I added all the other pieces to the motor to complete everything on the engine side. All the blue and red Russel fittings and braided lines gone, and all new Racetronix black fittings and teflon lines added in its place. Very stoked to say the least at how this turned out.

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Do you have that distributor cap part #? What plug wires are those? Looks like it's coming together nice.
 
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Sold my old AMS500 boost controller and opted for a Leash boost controller/bump box, and that came in last week. One more piece to the puzzle.



Then I got back in the lab and we started pinning the engine side of the harness. A lot more complicated then it looks. But all the spaghetti is gone, and this is all that is needed to run the engine.


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If I didn't get such a killer deal on my ams 500v2 I definitely would have went with the boostleash w the bump box awesome setup you have going
 
I now have everything needed to get Brutus back on the road. Since my car was down near the end of last year, I put my TH400, driveshaft, HR tranny mount, and PTC converter in my Dad's Buick so I can run it at the track. Seeing as how it works so well in his car, we left it in his car and sold all of his stuff to get a killer TH400 from Lonnie, PTC converter from Dusty, custom made driveshaft, and new HR tranny mount. Finally I see light at the end of the tunnel.

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