wire supplier

[muibubbles]

not sure if this is the right section but i know you guys would be the best people to ask...

im rewiring my car and looking for wiring supplies..

im looking at delcity and terminal supply co.

anyone have any other places to get cheap wiring?

 

[Danglerb]

http://www.kayjayco.com/
www.waytekwire.com
http://www.eagleday.com/
http://www.bmotorsports.com

 

[diesel research]

http://shop.genuinedealz.com/

 

[Lump]

What car make/model/year are you working on? I have made my living in the specialty automotive world for 30+ years, and I know of several companies who manufacture OEM-correct wiring harnesses for vintage cars, and/or special wiring harnesses for custom use in hot rods, street machines, and race cars.

 

[DanCo]

I've used MIL spec wire in the past from www.pegasusautoracing.com.

 

[RLYoung]

Very happy Del City customer here.

 

[crewchief888]

painless has some nice stuff as well

 

[muibubbles]

What car make/model/year are you working on? I have made my living in the specialty automotive world for 30+ years, and I know of several companies who manufacture OEM-correct wiring harnesses for vintage cars, and/or special wiring harnesses for custom use in hot rods, street machines, and race cars.

oops, let me clarify, im not making my own harness, im redoing it, deleting unnecessary items/ extending connectors

 

[muibubbles]

curious, if you guys were to rewire your car and got a few spools of different gauge would u get all different colors?

i tend to like to keep anything i touch color coordinate for red, yellow, and black, everything else i like to use white... just curious what u guys do

 

[usdemt]

I use Waytek because its close and I get next day shipping via UPS even though its standard rate.

As far as colors I have probably 12-14 different colors for my most used (16 guage) and 2-5 of everything else. But then again I am a 12v installer.

 

[Lump]

I have several large spools of automotive gauge wires lying around, leftover from my hot rod years. What gauge do you want? How many colors, and how many feet?

 

[Danglerb]

I would always use the factory wire color and marking (stripes), otherwise troubleshooting down the line gets to be insanity.

TXL is what I like so far, Porsche used typical automotive wire of the 70/80's and the underhood temps of the 928 wreck the insulation after just a few years, so I am and so are a large number of other 928 owners looking for complete factory type wiring harnesses for the engine and fuel injection. Porsche only offers old stock of the same, very poor by modern standards, wire in their harnesses.

 

[muibubbles]

I have several large spools of automotive gauge wires lying around, leftover from my hot rod years. What gauge do you want? How many colors, and how many feet?

mostly 16 gauge some 14, 12, 10 and a little 8.... i was planning to get a spool of 100' for each just incase... i dont really know how much i need.. im basically taking my engine bay body harness and putting it in the interior... so heat shouldnt be an issue.. then im extending the connectors i need back to the engine bay... trying to clean it up a little

 

[afazz]

There are some good links posted above, Waytek has some nice prices.

I don't know how far you're looking to go, but I recently completed a "milspec" harness for my car. I used all black wire for maximum stealth, color-coded with little pieces of heat shrink at the end. Once the car was running I snipped them off. I have full wiring diagrams, and yes troubleshooting in the future will ****, but it's a show car.

If this is the type of wiring you're looking for, check out these:
www.p-r-s.com for general aerospace/racing wiring supplies
IS Motorsport has very good prices on the Raychem products
www.bmotorsports.com has some nice crimpers and a lot of OEM terminal pins
I used a local wire supplier for the wire. I used M16878/5 (Type EE) wire for most of my stuff, but the 22579/16 Tefzel is more popular and a little cheaper. This is the company I used. Pricing isn't great on small spools, but not too bad.
http://www.awcwire.com/Default.aspx

www.cableorganizer.com has some nice stuff
The small Rhino labelers ($100 or less) are handy. You can use them to make the fancy race-style labels, or I used them to label each wire since I used all black.

In the background here is one of my wiring diagrams. Very simple, and any electrical engineer or draftsman would laugh at it, but it makes sense to me. I consider this a requirement if you're making changes from the OEM harness.

Nichifu makes nice uninsulated crimp connectors, and the NH-1 crimper is under $70. I used this for a lot of splice joints, then insulated with glue-lined heat shrink. Some argue that soldering creates brittle wires and crimping is better. That's another argument, but if you agree check them out.
http://www.nichifu.com/

 

[LawnDart79]

I've used Del City on more than one occasion and I like them. They don't have everything, but they have pretty competitive prices.

 

[bronc3buster842001]

Ive used all these.

http://www.eficonnection.com/eficonnection/S10Wildside.aspx
http://terminalsupplyco.com/Default.aspx
http://order.waytekwire.com/cgi-bin...50+FUNCPARMS+WEBCMP(S0020):01+WEBID(S0020):01
http://delcity.net/
http://www.pcsconnectors.com/
http://www.bmotorsports.com/shop/

 

[muibubbles]

what does it mean to be "milspec"??? also how do u guys determine what kind of gauge wire it is? just by look? the only way i can tell is with a wire stripper....

 

[mrb]

i got a bunch of automotive wire (GXL i think) from anaheim wire one time. worked out well as i was able to get 100ft spools with custom striping to match oem colors, red/white, pink/black, etc

 

[mrb]

There are some good links posted above, Waytek has some nice prices.

I don't know how far you're looking to go, but I recently completed a "milspec" harness for my car. I used all black wire for maximum stealth, color-coded with little pieces of heat shrink at the end. Once the car was running I snipped them off. I have full wiring diagrams, and yes troubleshooting in the future will ****, but it's a show car.

If this is the type of wiring you're looking for, check out these:
www.p-r-s.com for general aerospace/racing wiring supplies
IS Motorsport has very good prices on the Raychem products
www.bmotorsports.com has some nice crimpers and a lot of OEM terminal pins
I used a local wire supplier for the wire. I used M16878/5 (Type EE) wire for most of my stuff, but the 22579/16 Tefzel is more popular and a little cheaper. This is the company I used. Pricing isn't great on small spools, but not too bad.
http://www.awcwire.com/Default.aspx

www.cableorganizer.com has some nice stuff
The small Rhino labelers ($100 or less) are handy. You can use them to make the fancy race-style labels, or I used them to label each wire since I used all black.

In the background here is one of my wiring diagrams. Very simple, and any electrical engineer or draftsman would laugh at it, but it makes sense to me. I consider this a requirement if you're making changes from the OEM harness.

Nichifu makes nice uninsulated crimp connectors, and the NH-1 crimper is under $70. I used this for a lot of splice joints, then insulated with glue-lined heat shrink. Some argue that soldering creates brittle wires and crimping is better. That's another argument, but if you agree check them out.
http://www.nichifu.com/

nice. ive got one of those dmc crimpers i use a connector with machined pins on 12ga wire. i still need to get the right turret for it though

 

[joemh22]

mrb, you can get used turrets and positioners at www.crimptools.com for a decent price.

 

[mrb]

mrb, you can get used turrets and positioners at www.crimptools.com for a decent price.

thanks. this particular turret is a Veam part and difficult to come by. i was going to make one but havent gotten to it yet

 

[Danglerb]

I bought this hydraulic crimper for $50 when it was on sale last year, but I don't feel that comfortable figuring out which crimps I should be using with which dies yet, and haven't had time to fool with it. Soon.

http://www.harborfreight.com/hydraulic-wire-crimping-tool-66150.html

 

[afazz]

what does it mean to be "milspec"??? also how do u guys determine what kind of gauge wire it is? just by look? the only way i can tell is with a wire stripper....

"Milspec" is slang in the motorsports wiring word for high quality wiring harnesses built from military aerospace (Milspec) components. There is no actual military specification for VW/Honda/Mazda wiring harnesses so there are no strict rules. But in general they're made of high grade wire - usually with Teflon, Tefzel, or Teflon/Kapton/Teflon insulation. Some use Raychem Spec55. Heat shrink insulation, usually Raychem DR-25 or similar, with glue sealed transitions and connectors. Circular environmentally sealed connectors are common, and there are plenty of special crimpers and strippers required. This is the stuff that serious race cars are wired with, the technology has trickled into the show car scene. I wasn't sure if that's what you were doing, but saw your RX7 link and figured it might be.

If this isn't what you planned on doing, it might be a little overkill. Actually totally overkill, this level is completely unnecessary for any car outside of professional motorsports. Unless you're totally insane :raises hand:

For wire sizing, I just copied the OEM gauge. If you want to go crazy it depends on the length, current draw, and temp rating of your wire, but again that's a little overkill.