Wiring Archives - Page 11 of 16

Torque Converter

June 30, 2016/in Wiring /by admin

We just got a great question from a customer. He has his 1972 Chevy truck wired with our 20-Circuit Harness Kit. He has a LS3 engine using the GM ECU to control the engine. The ECU is also managing the torque converter lock-up. Additionally, he has an aftermarket cruise control system. Both the torque converter and the cruise control system need a +12 volt signal when you step on the brake pedal. Our customer wanted to know the easiest way to get this.

One of the advantages of our Infinitybox system is how we connect to your switches. Our inputs are very low-current and just require a ground signal to turn on an input. This means that you can run very light-gauge wires to your switches. It also means, that there is no high-current at the switch, which is safer. Since there is no power at the switch, some guys get confused on how to get 12-volt outputs for things like their torque converter and cruise control systems. This is much easier than it looks.

The ECU or a separate transmission controller is going to control the lock-up solenoid in the torque converter. In higher gears or at specific speeds, the torque converter locks up to improve fuel economy. The ECU or the transmission controller needs a signal to know when you have stepped on the brake so that it will disengage this lock up.

The same thing needs to happen for the cruise control. The cruise control system needs to know when you have stepped on the brake pedal so that it can disengage.

Remember that there is no battery power at the brake pedal switch. You could splice off of the brake pedal output on the rear POWERCELL to get this 12-volt signal for the torque converter and cruise control systems. However, you’d have to run a wire from the back of the car all the way to the front. That goes against one of the basic benefits of our system.

The easiest way to get a +12 volt signal to the torque converter and cruise control systems is to use one of the OPEN outputs on the front POWERCELL. In most systems, output 8 is OPEN. This is the dark-green wire on the output A harness. An OPEN output means that there is no specific function assigned to it. These can be used generically as auxiliary outputs. Connect the OPEN output wire to the ECU and the cruise control systems. Follow their respective wiring diagrams to know where to make these connections.

Take the MASTERCELL input and connect it to the brake pedal switch in the same way that you have wired your brake pedal input. You can have multiple MASTERCELL input wires connected together to one switch. Follow your configuration sheet to get the right MASTERCELL input wire color. In the case of output 8 on the front POWERCELL, this is input 8 which is the blue wire with the light-blue stripe on the MASTERCELL A harness.

When you step on your brake pedal, the MASTERCELL will see two inputs ground together: one for the brake lights and one for the OPEN output on the front POWERCELL. The brake lights will turn on in the back of the car. You will also get +12 volts on the OPEN output on the front POWERCELL. This will send a signal to unlock the torque converter and to disengage the cruise control. When you take your foot off of the brake pedal. the MASTERCELL sees the two inputs turn off. It will send the command to the rear POWERCELL to turn off the brake lights and a command to the front POWERCELL to turn off the OPEN output.

The torque converter and cruise control systems will get their brake pedal signal from the local POWERCELL in the front of the car. This keeps the total amount of wire running through the car to a minimum.

Please contact our team with questions on this post or on any other topics related to wiring your car with our Infinitybox system. Click on this link to get connected to a member of our technical support team.

High-Beam Switch

June 29, 2016/1 Comment/in Wiring /by admin

We have the turn-signal switches, horn switch and 4-way switch wired to the IDIDIT steering column in this 1967 wiring project. Our next step is to wire the high-beam switch.

You have several options to wire your high-beam switch. The high-beams work just like any other output in the Infinitybox system. There is a dedicated output on the front POWERCELL that is for the high-beams. This output gets wired to both of the high-beam bulbs in the front of the car. The other side of the bulbs connects to ground.

The MASTERCELL connects to the high-beam switch. When the MASTERCELL input is grounded though the switch, the MASTERCELL sends a command to the front POWERCELL to turn on the high-beams. Your high-beam switch can be a toggle switch on the dash, a motion on the turn signal stalk or even a push button on the floor.

In the case of this 1967 Mustang install, the customer chose to use our Alternating Headlight Toggle Option that is built into the 20-Circuit Kit. Here’s how this works. You connect the Alternating Headlight Toggle input in the MASTERCELL harness to one contact on a momentary button. You ground the other side of the button. When you press the button, you connect the MASTERCELL input to ground.

If you press and hold the momentary button with the headlights off, the MASTERCELL will tell the front POWERCELL to turn on the high-beams. The high-beams will stay on as long as your finger is holding the button. When you release the button, the high-beams will turn off. You would use this as your flash-to-pass button.

If you press and release the momentary button with the headlights on, the MASTERCELL will tell the front POWERCELL to toggle between the headlights and high-beams. It will turn the headlights off then turn the high-beams on. If you press and release the momentary button again, the MASTERCELL will tell the front POWERCELL to turn the high-beams off and turn on the headlights. This is a very simple and cool feature.

Our customer chose the Tilt Lever Momentary Switch 510168 option with their steering column. This gives them a momentary button at the end of the turn-signal stalk. This is a perfect way to control your high-beams. Pressing the button with the headlights off gets you flash-to-pass. Pressing and releasing the button with the headlights on, will control your high-beams.

IDIDIT has some very specific instructions for installing this Tilt Lever Momentary Switch to the column. You can link to these instructions at this link. The grey wire going to the momentary switch will connect to the Alternating Headlight Toggle input going to the MASTERCELL. In our configuration, this is the green-red wire on the MASTERCELL A harness. That is input 22. Please refer to your configuration sheet since different configurations may have different wire assignments.

IDIDIT makes some good points in their instructions about grounding the tilt lever. Be sure to follow their instructions carefully for installing this option.

Please contact us with questions about wiring your high-beam switch to our Infinitybox MASTERCELL. Click this link to get in contact with a member of our technical support team.

Steering Column

June 29, 2016/in Wiring /by admin

Let’s get to the steering column wiring. This is the next installment the process of wiring our 20-Circuit Kit into a 1967 Mustang. One of our customers sent us a great series of pictures showing their process of wiring their car. It’s time to talk about turn-signal switches, horn switches and 4-way switches.

Our customer is using a steering column kit from IDIDIT. The one they chose is for the 1967 to 1969 Mustang. It is a tilt-style column designed for the shifter on the floor. They choose the option to have the GM steering column connector on the harness. This column also has the Tilt Lever Momentary Switch 510168 option. We are going to use that to control the high-beams and will discuss that in the next blog post. It also has the ignition key built into it. We’ll talk about wiring that in future posts too.

The steering column in the car does a few obvious things. It holds the steering wheel and lets you turn the car. It also holds the switches for the turn-signals, the horn and the 4-way flasher. All of those switches will wire to the inputs on your MASTERCELL. The MASTERCELL will send commands to the different POWERCELLs in the car to turn lights on and off plus sound the horn. Wiring the switches to the MASTERCELL is really easy. There is a diagram on our website that shows how to do this. You can see it here.

Image of wiring diagram showing how to connect MASTERCELL inputs to a GM-Style Steering Column Connector

Note that most steering column manufacturers use the GM-style turn-signal switch. These have been used in cars for years with very few changes. Companies like IDIDIT and Flaming River use this exact same column switch. The diagram above will work for any of these columns.

The wires colors for the steering column connector are shown on the left side of the wiring diagram above. We also show the details of the connector. Almost all of the wires in the column connector need to connect to MASTERCELL input wires. The two that are unused are the yellow and green wires on the column connector. Check the configuration sheet that came with your kit. You want to match the wire function to the wires on the right of the diagram, not necessarily the wire color. Wire colors may vary from different kits. Always use your configuration sheet for the right wire colors.

The black wire on the column connector needs to connect to your MASTERCELL horn input wire. In our configuration this is the blue wire with the yellow tracer on the A input harness. This is input number 9.

The light blue wire on the column connector needs to connect to your MASTERCELL input for the left turn signal. We’re using the inputs for mechanical steering column. In our configuration this is the yellow wire with the black tracer on the A input harness. This is input 11.

The dark blue wire on the column connector needs to connect to your MASTERCELL input for the right turn signal. We’re using the inputs for mechanical steering column. In our configuration this is the yellow wire with the red tracer on the A input harness. This is input 12.

The brown wire on the column connector needs to connect to your MASTERCELL input for the 4-way slashers. In our configuration this is the yellow wire with the blue tracer on the A input harness. This is input 13.

Lastly, the purple and white wires on the column connector needs to be connected to ground. You can use the black wires in the MASTERCELL harness as a ground reference. Otherwise, you can connect these wires to the chassis at the column.

One more comment, you need to properly ground the column to the chassis. Otherwise, you will have problems with your horn switch. In most cases, the column will ground to the frame of the car through its mounts but you will not get a good ground if you have the column shaft painted or powder coated. The same is true if you have a fiberglass body. Run a ground wire from a stationary point on the column to the frame of the car. Make sure that you have a metal-to-metal connection between your ground wire and the points where they connect to the column and the chassis.

You can splice the MASTERCELL input wires directly to the wires on the steering column connector. Alternately, IDIDIT sells a connector kit with the terminals included to crimp onto the MASTERCELL input wires. Using this connector makes it very easy to maintain and service your column in the future.

That’s about it for wiring the turn-signal switches, the 4-way switch and the horn switch. This connection to your MASTERCELL is simple and easy. You can download a PDF copy of the MASTERCELL input wiring diagram by clicking this link.

You can contact a member of our team with questions by clicking this link and filling out our contact form. Stay tuned for more updates on the wiring of this 1967 Mustang.

Headlight Switch

June 28, 2016/in Wiring /by admin

It’s time to wire in the headlight switch in our customer’s 1967 Mustang. They are installing our 20-Circuit Kit in the car. In previous posts, we blogged about wiring the headlights and parking lights to the outputs on the POWERCELLs in the car. You can read about that process at this link.

Remember that there is no direct connection between your switches and the things that you are switching. In this case, there is no direct connection between the headlight switch and the headlight bulbs in the front of the car. The headlight switch connects to the MASTERCELL. The headlight bulbs connect to the POWERCELL. The MASTERCELL and POWERCELLs are connected with our CAN data cable. When you turn on the headlight switch, the MASTERCELL sees the switch turn on. It sends a command to the POWERCELL in the front of the car and commands it to turn the output on that powers the headlight bulbs. The same thing happens when you turn on your parking lights. The MASTERCELL sees the parking light switch turn on. It sends a command to the POWERCELLs in the front and rear of the car. Each of these POWERCELLs turn on parking light outputs locally in the car.

Our customer started with the original headlight switch that came with the car. After some checking and testing of the switch, they figured out that the switch was bad. Something inside the switch failed.

Picture showing how to use a multimeter to check continuity between terminals on a headlight switch

They wanted to keep the traditional pull-type headlight switch in the car so they picked up a replacement switch made by Standard Motor Products. This what the switch looks like.

Picture of a headlight switch manufactured by Standard Motor Products

This is a multi-function switch. It controls the parking and headlights in the car. You get the parking lights when you pull the switch to the first detent. You get both the parking lights and headlights when you pull the switch to the second position.

This is a very common switch, used in lots of different cars. We created a specific wiring diagram showing how to wire your MASTERCELL inputs to the terminals on the switch. This picture shows you the diagram.

Picture of a wiring diagram for a typical headlight switch

You can download a PDF of this diagram by clicking this link.

The first thing that we did was to check the configuration sheet for this system. You can get more details on the configuration sheet for your system by clicking this link. The MASTERCELL inputs for the headlights and parking lights are going to connect to the switch. The headlight input is the white wire with the green tracer. The parking light input is the blue wire with the black tracer. Both of these inputs are on the MASTERCELL input harness. You also need three ground connections to this switch. Two of the terminals need to be grounded and the switch housing needs to be connected to ground. You can use the black wires that came in the MASTERCELL input harness as grounds for this switch. One of the MASTERCELL ground wires can handle the ground for the entire switch. Just jumper that black wire between the different terminals on the switch and the case.

Follow the diagram to see which terminals on the headlight switch connect to the headlight and parking light input wires on the MASTERCELL. This is pretty simple.

Once you have the input wires connected and the grounds connected, you have wired the inputs for the headlights and parking lights. When you pull the switch to the first position, the switch connects the parking light input wire to ground. This sends the signal to the MASTERCELL to control the lights through the front and rear POWERCELLs. When you pull the switch to the second position, the switch connects the headlight input to ground. This triggers the MASTERCELL to control the headlights from the front POWERCELL. When the switch is in the headlight position, the switch also keeps the parking light input connected to ground.

Once you have the headlight and parking light inputs wired, you can also use this switch to control and dim your dash lights. This specific switch has a rheostat built in to dim dash lights. In most cases, you are powering your dash lights off of your parking light output. See this blog post for more details. You will have power to your dash lights when the parking lights or headlights are on from this switch.

This switch has a rheostat built in to dim the dash lights. A rheostat is a variable resistor. Turning the knob, increases or decreases the resistance in series with the dash lights. This lets more or less current flow to the dash lights, which will dim or brighten them. Please note that the dimming effect may not be as significant when using LED dash lights.

You can wire the dash light feed though the rheostat on the headlight switch. See the wiring diagram above for the details of which terminals need to connect to the wires. Please note that there is a metal jumper that must be cut to do this. If you do not remove this metal jumper, you will damage your MASTERCELL inputs and potentially void the warranty.

That’s it. This one post covers wiring your parking light input, your headlight and your dash lights. Please click this link to contact our team with any questions about our Infinitybox system.

Switch Terminals

June 28, 2016/in Wiring /by admin

We’re progressing through the different switches that need to get wired to the MASTERCELL in our customer’s 1967 Mustang. They are wiring their car with our 20-Circuit Kit. The last post covered the brake pedal switch, which is one of the easiest. In this post, we’re going to talk about how you figure out which switch terminals you need to connect to your MASTERCELL inputs.

Some switches are really easy, the brake pedal switch is an example. Others, we have created wiring diagrams for you to use. Our Resources section of our website has a long list of turn signal switches, ignition switches and headlight switches from different makes of car. You can find these under the Installation Guides section at this link.

There are some switches that are unique to a model year or are unique to a specific car. We may not have a wiring diagram assembled for your specific switch. It is usually pretty simple to figure out how to connect these switches to your MASTERCELL inputs. We’ll talk about the basics in this blog post.

Remember how a MASTERCELL input works. The MASTERCELL input gets triggered by getting connected to ground through the switch. In the case of the brake switch from our last post, that one was easy. One of the switch terminals connected to the MASTERCELL input. The other of the switch terminals connected to ground.

There are a few simple steps to follow to figure out which switch terminals you need to connect to for a new switch.

The first step is to find out where power came into the switch originally. Let’s use this switch as an example. One of our customers is wiring a 1972 Chevy truck with our 20-Circuit Kit. He sent us this picture of his ignition switch.

Picture of a typical Chevy truck ignition switch.

He didn’t know how to connect his MASTERCELL inputs to the switch terminals on the switch. If you look at the terminals on the switch, there are two labeled BAT. These are in the lower right corner of the picture. In most cases, BAT is where the battery originally connected to the switch. Ignition switches usually have two separate battery feeds: a dedicated one for the starter solenoid and one for the ignition feed.

You will also see that there is a terminal labeled IGN and one for SOL. At a first glance, you can assume that these are for the ignition power and starter solenoid feeds.

You are looking for terminals that have continuity between them when the switch is on. In the case of this ignition switch, you need to find the terminals that have continuity when the switch is in the run position for the ignition input. You also have to find the pair that have continuity in the start position for the starter input.

If you can, search the internet to see if you can find wiring diagrams for that specific switch. We’re always surprised to find that there is a forum or chat group for practically any type of car out there. Someone has worked on that switch before you and they have posted some wiring diagrams.

Once you have identified the terminals on the switch, get a multi-meter and check continuity between the terminals. If you don’t already have one, a good multi-meter is a powerful tool to have in the shop. The two most critical things that you have to measure would be voltage and resistance. Here is a simple meter that you can source from Waytek Wire. Here is an example of a meter from Del City.

Picture showing how to use a multimeter to check continuity between terminals on a headlight switch

To figure out our switch terminals, we want to measure continuity or resistance. If a circuit has continuity, it should have low resistance between the terminals. Low should be less than 1 Ohm. Look for the resistance setting on your meter. On most meters, this is represented by the Greek letter Omega that looks like this: Ω.

Represents electrical resistance

Some meters have an auto-range function that will internally adjust to select the right range to measure resistance. Others have a dial to select the range. You want to set the range of your resistance measurement to the lowest range. To measure resistance, it really doesn’t matter if you have the red or black leads from the meter touching the different terminals.

Touch the test leads from your meter to the terminals with the switch in the off position. You should measure very high resistance or no change in resistance. In the case of this 1972 Chevy ignition switch, we were measuring between each of the BAT terminals and the IGN terminal with the switch off. We repeated this by measuring between each of the BAT terminals and the SOL terminal. We measured a resistance in the mega-ohm range. Some meters will show this as “OL” or “overload”.

We then turned the switch to the ON position and measured between the BAT terminals and the IGN terminal. We found that we had about 0.4 Ohms of resistance between the inner BAT terminal and the IGN terminal when the switch was in the ON position. In the case of this switch, we will connect the MASTERCELL ignition input wire to the IGN terminal and connect one of the ground wires from the MASTERCELL input harness to the inner BAT terminal. When the switch is in the ON position, there is continuity between IGN and the inner BAT terminal. This will ground the MASTERCELL input, which will turn on the Ignition output on the POWERCELL.

We repeated this for the SOL terminal. We measured between SOL and both of the BAT terminals when the switch was in the START position. We found that the outer BAT terminal was connected to the SOL terminal in the start position. We will connect the MASTERCELL input wire for the starter to the SOL terminal and connect one of the MASTERCELL ground wires to the outer BAT terminal. When the key is in the START position, there is continuity between the SOL terminal and the outer BAT terminal. This will ground the MASTERCELL input for the starter, which will turn on the starter output on the POWERCELL.

Just as a sanity check, we went back and measured resistance between the IGN terminal and the inner BAT terminal when the switch was in the START position. When the switch is in the START position, you must still have continuity between the IGN terminal and its ground connection so that the engine will start. The IGN terminal has continuity to its ground connection when the key is in the start position.

Figuring out how to wire your switch to your MASTERCELL inputs can be scary. We’ve built a large of list of different switches over the years but the steps above will help you to figure out any switch in your car. Click on this link to contact our team with questions.

Brake Switch

June 27, 2016/1 Comment/in Wiring /by admin

In previous posts, we talked about how to wire the brake lights to the rear POWERCELL in our customer’s 1967 Mustang. We’re going to talk about wiring the brake switch in this post. This is a very easy MASTERCELL switch input to wire. There are lots of different brake pedal switches out there. Here are a few examples from the Summit Racing website.

Hydraulic pressure brake switch

MOPAR-style brake switch

Automotive brake pedal switch

Picture of a lost-travel brake switch. Commonly found in Ford Mustangs.

This last brake switch is what our customer is using in the 1967 Mustang. All of these switches have 2 terminals on them. One will connect to the MASTERCELL input wire. The other will connect to ground. When the pedal is pressed, there is continuity between the MASTERCELL input wire and ground. Refer back to this illustration again.

Simple diagram showing how to wire a switch to the Infinitybox MASTERCELL

The brake pedal switch simply connects between the MASTERCELL input and ground.

Start by checking the configuration sheet that came with your kit. This link will take you to an earlier post in this series about the importance of your configuration sheet. This car is wired with separate brake light and turn signal outputs on the rear POWERCELL so we’re going to use the MASTERCELL input for Brake Lights with Multi-Filament Bulbs. This post will get you more information on the different turn-signal and brake light options.

We checked our configuration sheet. The MASTERCELL input for the brake switch for the configuration that we want is the Yellow-Green wire. This is input 15 on the MASTERCELL A connector. Remember that the MASTERCELL input wire needs to connect to one side of the switch. The other side of the switch needs to connect to ground. In the case of the brake switch, there is no polarity. You can connect the MASTERCELL input to either of the terminals on the switch.

In the case of the Mustang switch, you can purchase the mating connector and harness that plugs onto the back of the switch. This has the two wires that connect to the MASTERCELL input and ground. You can splice or solder these wires in any way as described in previous posts in this series.

For the ground connection, you have two options. You can make the ground connection directly to the chassis at the brake pedal. Make sure that this connection is made on the body, not on the brake pedal mechanism. You will not get good continuity to ground through the pedal linkage. Put a ring terminal on the ground wire to connect to the chassis. Make sure that you have a metal-to-metal connection for this ground. The junction should be free of dirt, grease, oil, rust, paint, powder coating or any other contaminant.

You also have the option to use any of the black wires in the MASTERCELL harness as your ground connection. There are 8 black, ground wires in the MASTERCELL A harness. All 8 of these wires are electrically the same. You can use any of them to be the ground connection for your brake switch.

Here’s how your brake light circuit will work when it is connected. When you step on the brake pedal, the contacts in the brake switch close. This connection takes the MASTERCELL brake input and connects it to ground. The MASTERCELL detects that the input has been grounded and sends a command to the POWERCELL in the rear of the car. The POWERCELL receives this signal and turns on the output for the brake lights. When you take your foot off of the brake pedal, the contacts in the brake switch open. This disconnects the MASTERCELL input from ground. The MASTERCELL sees this input turn off and sends a command to the rear POWERCELL. The rear POWERCELL gets this command and turns off the brake lights. It seems complicated, but it isn’t. All of this is automatically managed from within the Infinitybox system.

If you have questions about connecting your brake switch, you can click on this link to contact a member of our team. Keep watching our blog for more updates on wiring switches in our customer’s 1967 Mustang.

MASTERCELL mounted in 1967 Mustang wired with the Infinitybox System

Wiring Switches

June 27, 2016/8 Comments/in Wiring /by admin

It is time to get into the next phase of wiring this 1967 Mustang with our Infinitybox 20-Circuit Kit. We got the cells mounted, mounted the Mega fuses, wired primary power from the battery, ran the CAN cable and wired the outputs to the POWERCELLs. It’s time to start wiring switches to the MASTERCELL inputs.

Here’s a quick refresher. Our Infinitybox system is different than any other wiring harness on the market. Instead of having one central box full of fuses and relays with wire running everywhere in the car, our system is broken into smaller modules. Our POWERCELLs are mounted in the front and rear of the car. They contain the fuses and relays to turn your accessories on and off. The MASTERCELL connects to the switches. You mount the MASTERCELL under the dash and wire your switches to it. The MASTERCELL sends commands to the remote POWERCELLs through our CAN cable to control your lights, fans, fuel pump, horns, ignition, starter solenoids and other switched functions. This is going to be the first in a series of posts talking about wiring switches.

Remember that all of your switches will connect to your MASTERCELL. This includes switches for your ignition, starter, turn signals, brake lights, headlights, parking lights, high-beams, cooling fans, fuel pump, horn and anything else that you need to turn on and off in the car. There is no direct connection between your switch and the output. The MASTERCELL watches all of the switches. When it sees a switch turn on or off, it sends a packet of data through the CAN cable to the remote cells in the car. These cells could be POWERCELLs or inMOTION cells. The remote output cells are what control the current flowing to your switched loads.

The MASTERCELL needs a simple trigger signal from each switch. These triggers are a connection to ground. Each trigger takes a very small amount of current to send the signal to the MASTERCELL, less than 0.001-Amp. This picture shows a very simple switch wired to a MASTERCELL input.

Simple diagram showing how to wire a switch to the Infinitybox MASTERCELL

In this diagram, the MASTERCELL input wire connects to one terminal of the switch. The other side of the terminal needs to connect to ground. When the switch is on (closed) there is a path through the switch to ground. This is what triggers the input on the MASTERCELL. This picture shows using one of the ground wires that is included in the MASTERCELL input harness.

There are lots of advantages to using this kind of input when you are wiring a car. Ground switching the inputs means that you do not need to run a positive wire to each switch. The MASTERCELL input harnesses have ground wires that you can use for your switches. You can also use the chassis in the car as the ground reference for your switches. You just need a good metal-to-metal connection to ground.

Another advantage is that it takes a very small amount of current to turn on an input. This means that we can use a much smaller gauge of wire in the input harness. We use 22-AWG TXL wire on the inputs. This will reduce the bulk of harness behind your dash. It also means that there is no high-current behind your dash. All of the high-current control is at the POWERCELL. It is always the small signal current through the MASTERCELL input wire regardless of what is being switched at the POWERCELL. This means that you can use practically any switch to turn things on and off in your car. You can use the original switches that came with the car. You can use any aftermarket switch. There is very little current flowing through the switch.

Just a quick warning: The MASTERCELL inputs are designed to be switched to ground. You must not wire your switches so that battery voltage can be applied to a MASTERCELL input. Doing this may damage the circuitry inside the MASTERCELL and this will void the warranty. Contact us with questions if you are uncertain about how to properly connect something to a MASTERCELL input.

Remember that your configuration sheet is your road map to wiring your car with our Infinitybox system. Your configuration sheet will identify the wires by color for each of the switches in your car. You can click on this post to get a refresher on your configuration sheet.

Every kit comes with a MASTERCELL A input harness. This picture shows this harness.

MASTERCELL A Input Harness

All of your switches will connect to the wires on this harness. The B connector socket at the bottom of the MASTERCELL must have the input dummy plug installed to keep the cell sealed. This picture shows the MASTERCELL input dummy plug.

Sealing plug for MASTERCELL B Port

If you have a third POWERCELL as part of your system or if you have added inMOTION to your kit, you will get the MASTERCELL B harness. This picture shows this harness.

MASTERCELL B Input Harness

Your configuration sheet will show which harnesses have the inputs for your different switches. This picture shows which is the A & B input connector socket on your MASTERCELL.

Illustration of Infinitybox MASTERCELL labeling output connectors

In the case of this 1967 Mustang project, the MASTERCELL is mounted under the dash, to the left of the pedals. The input wires will run from the MASTERCELL to all of the switches. This is a great location for this because all of the wire runs will be short.

We will be going through wiring switches in much more detail over upcoming blog posts. Please keep watching our blog for updates. You can click on this link to contact a member of our team with any questions.

Inertia Switch

June 24, 2016/in Wiring /by admin

We just posted details on how to wire the fuel pump to our Infinitybox POWERCELL. That was a very simple part of the wiring process in this 1967 Mustang. We received a follow up question to this post about wiring a fuel inertia switch. We’ll give details in this post.

A lot of manufacturers, Ford especially, use an inertia switch to interrupt the power going to the electric fuel pump in case of an accident. These switches use an internal magnet and a ball bearing to close the circuit providing power to the fuel pump. If there is a large impact to the car from a collision, the force of the impact knocks the ball out of its location. This opens a set of contacts in the switch, which interrupts power going to the fuel pump. These switches can be sensitive. They may shut down the fuel pump if you get a flat tire or if you hit a large pot hole. A lot of us here remember the prank of pounding on the driver’s rear fender in a mid-1990’s Thunderbird or Mustang to kill the fuel pump and leave a guy stranded.

Picture of a fuel pump inertia switch

If there was an accident, this switch opens and cuts off power to the fuel pump. There is a reset button on the top of the switch. If the red plunger is up, that means that the switch tripped. If you press down on the plunger, it will reset the switch, letting the electric fuel pump operate again.

In some cars, these switches are in the rear near the fuel pump. In other cars, they are up front behind the dash. Wiring an inertia switch to your fuel pump powered by our 20-Circuit Kit is really easy.

You can purchase these switches from any on-line source. This link will take to you the popular Ford switch sold on Amazon. You can find the switches but you can’t always find any data or specifications on them.

Switches are only designed to carry a maximum amount of current. You always have to consider that when you choose a switch. That is true when you pick your inertia switch. These switches were designed to interrupt the feed going directly to the fuel pump. This means that the switch was designed to carry the current for that pump. In the case of this 1967 Mustang, we are installing a higher-performance pump that draws much more current that the original OEM pump.

To be safe, use the inertia switch to interrupt the MASTERCELL input wire for the fuel pump. Each of our inputs only require a very small amount of current to operate. The contacts in the inertia switch can easily handle the small amount of current from the MASTERCELL.

Under normal operation, the MASTERCELL input will be connected to a switch that turns on the input for the fuel pump. This could be a signal coming from an ECU, it can be from a separate fuel pump switch or it can be tied to the ignition switch. The inertia switch would be wired in series. If there were to be an accident, the input from the MASTERCELL would be interrupted by the open contacts in the inertia switch. This would cause the MASTERCELL to send the command to the POWERCELL to turn off the fuel pump output. Wiring the switch in with the MASTERCELL input ensures that you will never overload the contacts on the inertia switch.

Click this link to contact our team with questions or comments on this post.

Fuel Pump

June 23, 2016/1 Comment/in Wiring /by admin

Now it is time to wire the fuel pump to the POWERCELL in our 1967 Mustang project. This is the last major output that needs to be wired in. In our next series of posts, we will be talking about wiring the switches to the MASTERCELL.

There are lots of different kinds of electric fuel pumps for cars and trucks. Primarily, they fall into two categories: in-tank and in-line. These are pretty self-explanatory. In-tank fuel pumps are mounted in the fuel tank. In-line fuel pumps are installed somewhere in the fuel line running between the tank and the engine. Our customer is using an Aeromotive 325 Stealth In-Tank Pump for this project.

Aeromotive Stealth Fuel Pump

Just like everything else in your car, thoroughly read and understand the manual that came with your fuel pump before you start this part of the install. Remember that you are playing with Gasoline.

Wiring for the fuel pump is pretty simple. The fuel pump needs battery power and ground. The battery power is going to come from a POWERCELL output. The ground connection is going to be made locally to the chassis.

This Aeromotive pump has two wires: red and black. Black is ground and that is going to connect to the chassis. Remember how important good ground connections are. Make sure that you have a reliable metal-to-metal connection between your ground wire and the chassis.

The red wire is power. This is going to connect to a POWERCELL output. In most of our configurations, this power comes from output 10 on the rear POWERCELL. This is the tan wire on the A connector. The advantage of using our system to power the fuel pump is that the pump gets connected to the local POWERCELL. The fuse and relay for that pump are built into the POWERCELL. If you have a POWERCELL mounted in the rear of the car, the power wire going to the pump is very short.

We need to make a few comments about current draw. Take a good look at the manual or specifications for your fuel pump. You have 25-amps of steady-state current draw to work with on each POWERCELL output. Aeromotive publishes great graphs in their manuals that show current draw and fuel flow versus pressure. At the highest flow rate and highest pressure, this pump draws about 16-amps. This is well below the 25-amp capacity of a single POWERCELL output.

In some cases, you need to provide power to the fuel level sender in the tank. If yours needs to be powered, you can splice off the fuel pump output on the POWERCELL. It is a good time to wire sender power if needed while you’re wiring power to the pump.

That’s it for wiring the fuel pump output. We’ll talk about wiring the fuel pump trigger to the MASTERCELL in upcoming blog posts. Click on this link to contact us with questions or comments.

Picture of Infinitybox wiring diagram showing how to wire the Holley Terminator with the 20-Circuit Kit.

Holley Terminator EFI

June 23, 2016/1 Comment/in Wiring /by admin

Our Infinitybox system can power any ignition and fuel injection system out there. We recently received a request for a wiring diagram for the Holley Terminator EFI system. We’ve blogged before about the Dominator and given detailed instructions on how to wire that system with our 20-Circuit Kit. You can see that here. This post will cover how to connect to the Holley Terminator EFI system with our 20-Circuit Kit.

Holley ECU

Holley Terminator EFI System

This link will take you to more information on the Holley Terminator EFI system.

Our Infinitybox 20-Circuit Kit is going to provide the ignition power to the Holley ECU. It is also going to take the fuel pump trigger signal from their ECU and the cooling fan trigger. These two triggers will go to the MASTERCELL which will send signals to the POWERCELL in the front of the car for the cooling fan and the POWERCELL in rear of the car for the fuel pump. This eliminates the need to add external relays because they are switched from inside the POWERCELLs. This also eliminates the need to run high-current wiring from the Holley Terminator EFI system to the front and back of the car. Those signals are sent through our CAN cable.

Before we go any farther, it is very important that you completely read and fully understand the manual that came with your Holley Terminator EFI system. There are many different parts of properly installing this system, the wiring is just one step.

Once you have read and understand their manual, you must make all of the constant power and ground connections necessary for their system to work. There are multiple constant power feeds that must be wired directly to the battery and multiple ground connections. You must also wire in all of the other connections including the coil, tach, O2 sensors, etc. Their manual will cover these details.

As an overview, here are the points where your 20-Circuit Kit will connect to the Holley Terminator EFI system.

The ignition output on your POWERCELL will supply the key-on power to their system.
Their system will trigger the fuel pump output on your rear POWERCELL from the MASTERCELL.
Their system will trigger the cooling fan output on your front POWERCELL from the MASTERCELL.

This picture shows you the overview of the connections between your Infinitybox 20-Circuit Kit and the Holley Terminator EFI system.

Picture of Infinitybox wiring diagram showing how to wire the Holley Terminator with the 20-Circuit Kit.

You can download a PDF of this wiring diagram by clicking this link.

Let’s start with the key-on ignition power. Check your configuration sheet and find the ignition output wire. In most cases, this is the light-green wire on the front POWERCELL. System configurations may vary so check the configuration sheet that came with your kit. The POWERCELL ignition output wire is going to connect to the red wire with the white stripe in the Holley ECU harness.

Next, you need to connect the fuel pump trigger. In the ECU harness, there is a green fuel pump wire. This wire supplies 12-volts to drive a pump directly or to drive a relay coil. To connect this to the MASTERCELL input, you must convert this 12-volt signal to a ground signal. You can do this with one of our inVERT Mini’s. Alternately, you can use a relay to flip this 12-volt signal to a ground signal for the MASTERCELL. This link will take you to a diagram showing you how to use a relay if you don’t want to use an inVERT Mini.

Check the configuration sheet that came with your kit. Find the MASTERCELL input wire for your fuel-pump. In most cases this is input 19 which is the tan wire with the yellow stripe. Check your configuration sheet to confirm this as different systems may have different wire colors.

Lastly, you need to wire the cooling fan trigger from the Holley Terminator EFI system to your MASTERCELL. Check your configuration sheet for the color of this wire. In most systems it is the blue wire with the yellow tracer.

There are additional outputs on the Holley harness. The gray wire with the black stripe is the cooling fan trigger. This is a ground-switched signal so you do not need to flip it to connect it to the MASTERCELL. However, we do recommend using a diode to eliminate the chance of surges coming into the MASTERCELL inputs from the ECU. A 1N4001 diode will do the job. You can get these from any electronics source. Please note that the orientation of the diode is very important. The stripe on the diode should be on the ECU side of the connection, facing away from the MASTERCELL.

That’s it. When you turn the key, the front POWERCELL is going to apply battery power to the ignition input on the Holley Terminator EFI system. When the Terminator wants the fuel pump to turn on, it will send a signal to the MASTERCELL, which will control the fuel pump through the rear POWERCELL. When the Terminator wants to turn the cooling fan on, it will send a signal to the MASTERCELL. The MASTERCELL will tell the front POWERCELL to turn on the cooling fan.

If you have questions about wiring diagram or wiring anything else with our Infinitybox system, click on this link to contact a member of our team.