Finished soldering the last few wires this morning and....it purrs like a v12 should! Wow, what a job that was!
Now I just have to tuck them all back into looms and put the hood back on!

 

Good work ! Um...which wires are we celebrating ?

Cheers
DD

 

ALL the ones under the hood! I cut and replaced them all. I started with the injection harness, then just kept going!

 

OMG. what a nightmare.

 

You ain't kiddin! If you look at the 2nd pic I posted in the Off Topic section of H20's contest, you will see SOME of the mess I was dealing with.

 

 

And here is some of the wires I replaced:

 

well.... its certainly more colorful.

 

lol, yeah, it does look that way in the pic doesn't it? Terrible lighting in the garage and using my cell phone camera made it look that way. Doesn't matter though, once the wires are inside the looms you won't see them anyway.

 

AHA, looks fairly "normal" for age to me, and the number of people who try and get a V12 running sweet with that rubbish in there. Plain "old age" and a good job done.

You will do it all again in 20 years time.

I trust you had a beer or 2 or 3 at the end, if NOT, do so, you have definately earned it.

 

Nah, I gave up drinking years ago for health reasons (my wife threatened to kill me).
I still have work to do. A coolant leak which may be from a bad radiator cap not venting (hoses become rock hard during warm up) and I'd like to find a lower temp switch for the electric fan.
After that, it's on to the new paint job and replacing the convertible top!

 

It is all coming back to me now, did same thing last spring.
I used 2 injection harnesses from BMW i6 motors, quality of wires and heat shielding on those were amazing!

 

I made my own harness with high temp wires and soldered all the connections. I replaced the factory harness plug with a high quality water tight connector and then put everything into a loom.
The fuel injection harness was actually the easiest part!

 

Well done James - its a good feeling when you you accomplish the impossible like this. Why don't you have a look at some fire sleeve and run the loom through it no more heat issue.

I am glad you mentioned this - I was thinking about the doing the same thing the BMW harnesses are quite cheap and use good quality high temp wiring. And the connectors are the same.

 

I started thinking about the mods I've made and decided to make a list.
So far I've:
*Swapped engine from the original 83 to an 85. The 83 had blown head gaskets and unknown damage from heat, so I picked up a low mileage V12 from an 85 and just switched the intakes and externals.
*Removed A/C compressor, lines and cooler. I live in northern New England and it's a convertible. I'll only have it out on days when I can put the top down, so the A/C is kinda pointless.
*Removed air pump, idler pulley, airtubes, tapped and plugged air injection holes in intakes with allen screws.
*Removed cruise control bellows. (I prefer my foot on the pedal!)
*Removed Lucas alternator and replaced with higher AMP GM alt.
*Gutted the insides of the downpipes and hollowed out cat-converters.
*Removed factory mechanical fan and replaced with electric.
*Replaced fuel injection harness and most all of under-bonnet wiring.
*Upgraded ECU
*Replaced 15" wire wheels with Jaguar 16" mag rims and 235/60/16 tires.
I'd guess I've probably easily removed over 200 lbs of "stuff" with the above mentioned mods.

Next on the list is to remove factory fuel regulators and replace with single adjustable regulator with built in gauge.
Replace factory airboxes with cold air intake and low restriction air filters.
I've got a few other things on my list I plan to do as well.

 

Could you please xplain what you had to do to get the plug into the power resistor to fit? Was it a cut and join using the old plug? How did you know which wire went to which pin of the power resistor?

Obviously a question from someone who does not really understand these things!

Greg

 

Greg, the injector harness only has the connectors to each injector and a rectangular 8 pin connector where it plugs into the harness. I just followed the wires straight across, it was pretty easy.
I don't know if that clears it up or just stirred the mud?

 

glad you posted this. this is the way that engine shouldve come from the factory.

 

Let's find out!

I think that the injectors fire in 4 groups of three, so are the BMW versions wired the same?. If so, that would be 2 wires for each group = 8 in total?

If this is correct, then you just carefully ensure the new harness wires go into the same places as the old ones did on the power resistor?

Greg

 

True, there are 4 quadrants, however BMW wires go couple by couple into 4 sets of 3 couples. So in reality, you will not keep any of the BMW wiring sequence, but only the wires, heat shielding and connectors.