How to clean up engine bay wiring

[cmattb25]

I wanna clean it up and make her look a lot less cluttered, any ideas, pics, write ups would be much appreciated!

[cmattb25]

^^^Why yes Matt, I can help you out with this. Hahaha. So this write up is How-to clean up your engine bay and get rid of your EGR system. Mainly for guys running intake manifolds. So here you go...

1. To get the wire harness over the intake manifold tucked - the manifold has gotta come out. In order to do this you will need...
A. Ratchet
B. Sockets
a. 8mm
b. 10mm
c. 12mm
d. 14mm
C. Extensions( as many different lengths as you can get)
D. Needle-nose pliers/ pliers in general( needle-nose seem to work better for me)
E. Picks
F.(optional but useful) Magnet Retriever


So get to it. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to pull it(cussing and screaming in the end) and mark things accordingly if you have a hard time remembering. A neat little trick that was shown to me by Sean is to disconnect the front CPS and then crank the car over and when it dies, you no longer have fuel in the lines. This wasn't an option for me because my valve cover is off but a nifty trick nonetheless.

It's easiest to pull the stuff on top first and get it out of the way. That's the strut tower brace, harness/ fuel lines, injectors, Upper IC pipe, throttle cable and all that jazz. The picks are used to pull the little metal clips out of the connectors that go to the injectors and a couple other random plugs. Use caution: they will fly off if you don't have a good hold on em. Magnet will help or make sure you hook em good.

Then you gotta get to the vacuum lines under the manifold and the coolant lines and get em disconnected. There are a ton of em so mark them if you need. Stock vacuum lines are color-coded for re-assembly. We won't be needing them anymore after this but if you aren't going EGR delete - keep track.

You will also have a bracket that connects to the alternator and it will have to come out too the way I did it, as well as the oil dipstick is bolted up to the manifold.

Next, get to the manifold bolts. There will be six(12mm)bolts, 2(14mm)nuts and a bigger(14mm) bolt on the driver's side of the manifold. Then the 2(14mm)bolts on the bracket under the manifold. This is where the magnet again helps immensly. After they are out, they are almost impossible to grab good. Or if you have magnetic sockets - good for you, but go to hell, I don't! The 2 on bottom suck! They are referred to as "Bitch" bolts in my house. I will remove this bracket this time not to be returning just in case I ever have to do this again. I soaked them in WD-40 and let them sit before I attempted to remove them. You have little leverage with them and they are tough.

I put some bolts back where I got them from so it's easier for me to remember where they came from. I also used one of the strut tower bolts to plug a coolant line so I didn't have anti-freeze all over the floor. Also, once you take all these things off - cover the holes. We don't want anything getting in there. Plug the UICP, and cover the holes in the head.

I may have forgotten some things as I am writing this from memory and will add anything if you guys remind me. But in the end it will look much like this...













So let's get the manifold prepped and ready for re-installation. If you are not going EGR delete then these things will not apply to you.

I took off the EGR valve



Then replace it with the block-off plate. When doing this make sure you check the way the gasket is placed when you put the plate on. The bolts should be torqued to 15 ft/lbs. Remember you are tightening them into aluminum. It can strip easily.







Cleaned off all the unnecessary lines and capped the nipples.







Little bit of side info in case you are on the fence about deleting your emissions equipment(for off-road use only, we know that right...) this is what my intake runners look like on the inside after 4k miles since the port job....



This is what the EGR port looked like...





Alright, so now let's get the engine bay ready for the re-install. I pulled out the big bracket that goes under the manifold, you don't have to. I was tired of trying to maneuver around it and don't really see the need for it. So out it went. This is what you will have after you remove the vacuum lines and solenoid and bracket...



So let's get everything cleaned up and secure. A few well placed zip-ties and here we go...



So at this point this is what you should have laying in the discard pile....



Now it's time to tap the hole in the head. I bought a NPT 1/8" Stainless steel set screw to fill the hole once it's tapped. I got mine through Jegs. The tap will match. I got it at O'reillys. This is something I was nervous about. Not sure why. I went and answered the door, by the time I got back, Chris had it tapped. Now make sure that you clean the hole before you insert the plug. Not sure if it is supposed to be this way but my port did not go in straight. It was angled towards the driver's side. So if this is something you encounter, I had it too.



Then fill with the plug. Now you are all done with this and it is time to make like RuPaul and get tucking!

First, the plugs in the harness that you won't be using if you did the EGR Delete, let's keep them from getting moisture in em. So let's go ahead and cover them with electrical tape to keep them clean. Then bind em back with a zip-tie( if you don't wanna cut em for insurance. If you are into just getting rid of em, great).



So next, you will need to make some adjustments to the harness to get everything lined out with enough slack to make it fit. First, the split where the the harness goes to the Cam Positioning Sensors and where it branches to go over the injectors - needs some room. So you gotta split them. Get them separated and add a couple inches then seal it back up with tape and loom. After that, the injector plugs needed slack as well. So split em and peel the harness back. Give them each a little slack. I needed a little more because I use the plug and play adapters for my injectors. You gotta have a little bit of smaller loom to do it the way we did. I will add the size when I talk to Chris about the sizes he ordered(Thanks for the loom Chris, looks awesome). Peel off the plastic wrap around all the injector wires as shown. Then apply the new loom and tape at the base of the harness with electrical tape.



Then you can set the manifold back on and pull the wires through the space in between the runners and start you re-assembly of the manifold. This is a big step but once it's done, you will be left with something similar to this...

Tah-Dah!!!!



After that all you have to contend with is the wiring on the side of the engine. Super easy. Remove the hard line that goes from the BOV to the manifold and replace it with rubber line and tuck it away. You will need a little less than 3 feet to accomplish this. Other than that you will have the 2 wire harness extensions that plug into your Cam Positioning Sensors. These you can easily wrap under the cast parts that protrude from the engine and plug back in. That's all there is to it.

*Of note. If you removed the FPR Solenoid the pic shows how to re-route the vacuum lines. My boost gauge is tapped in here as well, hence the "T" in the line.

I was really happy with the way this turned out.

So next, you will need to jack up the back of the car and pull the Charcoal Canister out( big thanks to Drew for getting elbow deep in this one). It is located on the driver's side by the fuel tank, just behind the bumper. Remove that bad boy. It will come out looking like this....



Now you will see a white plastic venting piece. The way we did it was to take this piece and turn it 180 degrees. Then plug the bottom hole up. I used heater line at about 18" for the top port. You can use zip-ties or adjustable hose clamps to secure it. I used 2 zip-ties and will most likely go back and add hose clamps. Then what I did, since it won't really fit back in it's original hole this way was to take liquid gasket and a zip-tie to secure it.

Then with the other end of the heater hose - connect it to the other nipple going back towards the front of the car( sorry, I didn't snap a pic - I will add it later though) There will be a second nipple under the one you are connecting the hose to. You will need to plug it.

Then comes the fun part of flashing the computer to take these new modifications. I will let Chris fill this part in since he did that adjustment.

The end result...box full of crap.



Final weight reduction....



And there you go!

[Smevans]

Just skimmed through this and it looks like an awesome write up! Need to read through it fully tonight. I ordered my block off plate two weeks ago. Can't wait to do this.

Now just need to relocate that fuse box too!

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

[MitsuManny]

Subscribed!!!

Great write up

[Biggie]

Nice write up. I would like to note that the rubber plugs on the throttle tend to crack as they heat cycle causing leaks. There are some heat resistant covers you can buy. I'm pretty sure they're viton (think blue valve seals).

[cmattb25]

Ultamately I would like to remove them altogether. Maybe just grind em off and have a little weld put over the top of em for a more permanent solution.

[Rob]

Wow dude. Awesome write up!

[cmattb25]

Thanks, I have a little more editing to do but this is it in a nutshell.

[CornfedIXRS]

This is awesome Matt!! Great job bro!