Need help with car electrics

[Jonny Hotnuts]

I have a car with a motorcycle motor used for landspeed racing @ the Bonneville salt flats.

I have 4 motors for the car and they are surrounded by cages that fit into rails in the bottom of the engine bay. This allows me to remove 6 easy to reach bolts, remove the drive chain, the throttle cable and pull the motor out in about 45 minutes. Because we swap motors between the big bore and the turbo motors yearly (or we may blow a motor and need to do a swap) it is important to be able to do quick changes.

My problem is that I added 8' to the dash run cable (15 pins) to reach the front of the car. I cut off the original plug and soldered and shrink-tubed each wire. This means that now I have to remove the entire harness and pull it to the side to pull the motor and re-attach about 30+ plugs because there is no pulling that plug through a maze of tunnels (it could be done but it would take a few hours each way).

What I am looking for is a 15 pin male-female connector that (I think that all the wires are 14-16 gauge).

I checked mouser but that place is a sea and I dont have a boat.

Any suggestions for a 15 pin plug that has pins that I can terminate and use similar to a factory style plug.

(funny thing is that I worked for a company that made wiring harness for Ford cars back in the day, you would think I wouldnt have a problem finding one!)

Thanks for any suggestions
-JH

Pic of car in question

[john blackburn]

Would a bulkhead connector like this but with more pins be of use?

http://www.tycoelectronics.com/about...ews.asp?id=902

Firewall is the US equivalent of bulkhead I think. You could give each engine its own harness and terminate the car harness with bulkhead connectors so you would just have to unplug one and plug the replacement in.

What engine are you using and how fast are you getting from it? I bet it feels terrifying being so low down at speed.

John

[Jonny Hotnuts]

What engine are you using and how fast are you getting from it? I bet it feels terrifying being so low down at speed.

Motors are Suzuki Hayabusa

the NA-No2 motor is a 1507cc (248 RWHP on race gas, 350+ with No2)

The turbo motor 1300cc can make 650 RWHP but we will de-tune the motor to around 4-4.5 next year.


You have to stage in licenses to advance to the next speed stage. The SCTA does this to prevent some kid from jumping in grandpas AA blown fuel streamliner and going 400 mph. We were running on our C license and could not exceed 175. We (my pop and I running on 2 separate records) both shut off at 171 and 176. We are now licensed to run to 200.....but after the record runs the engine displacement is checked and the motor was running lean. Because we had set the records so much higher then they currently were there was no point in chancing a 30K$ motor (the current fuel pump is maxed out).

I am confident the car would have run 185-190mph on the long.

As far as being scary.....you dont know how fast your going because there is nothing around to judge your speed from.
It WAS scary last year because the thing handled like a billiard ball bouncing off rails....this year it was like an arrow.


Will look at the bulkhead connector.....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oI5jFgYHQw

[star882]

Could you just use several molex-style connectors to get enough pins and color code them?

[BWRX]

If you want some of the best connectors look for Deutsch. They aren't cheap though.

[star882]

I just remembered that ATX extension cables are commonly available from computer stores and have 20 or 24 pins per connector. Just leave the extras unused or parallel them to increase current capacity.

[dangus]

Maybe the classic Jones style connectors would work. They're much more rugged than Molex, but not weather (or oil) -proof.

Veam makes some military/aerospace style circular connectors that come in various sizes. Properly, though, you need the correct crimping tool and pin-insertion tools to use 'em. And they're expensive. But the shells do have a roller detent thing so they stay put.

How about the Cannon MS series? You can solder to the pins, the shells screw down to lock them in place, and there's holes for safety-wiring them if necessary. Not as expensive as the Veams.

Cannon Connectors

[GK]

These are my favourites for harsh environments. The last ~15 pin pair I bought was something like $200 though.

http://www.mil-spec.com.au/connectors.php