The engine came to life! It was an awesome sound!

Unfortunatley, the only way I got it to fire up, was to run a wire directly from the battery to the BATT terminal of the HEI.

The Renegade Kit Instructions say to cut all the wires located on the front side of the relay board and use the black with red tracer wire to energize the HEI.

I went a step further and actually removed the relay board with the original engine and EFI, then sold it all to a local VW guy.

Well, the black/red wire that was left and that I spliced into shows no voltage... key on or key off. Did I mess up? What's the best fix?

I see 2 black/red wires going into/out-of the relay board. I don't have the wiring diagram here with me, but I think 1 wire goes to the ignition coil and the other wire goes to the fuel pump (1971).

Please Help!

If you still have the 14 pin connector on the end of the main body harness, then look for the wire on pin 8.

or


turn key on and check with a vom for voltage on both black w/ red trace wires.

use that switched wire from the hareness to activate a relay, then run a 12g wire from the bat to the relay then to the hei. those pull alot of current.

The connectors and board were sold with the engine. The way I understood the instructions, I didn't think I would need the board or pin connectors any longer, and that I would just splice the black/red wire that was cut from the front side of the relay board.

The more I look at the relay board diagram, the more I think that I should have kept it and spliced into the board side of the black/red wire! Damn it!

Thanks.

Do you know which wire that switched wire might be?

The black/red wire appears to be dead.

Is there another wire that I can use?

Seriously? They actually tell you to just cut a whole wire loom and let it dangle there?

I'm going to have to take a closer look. I thought all the white wires went away with the relay board.

The oil pressure gauge is a mechanical unit with copper tubing and water temp gauge gets its power from an eighty amp Continuous Duty solenoid I installed (solenoid also runs a few other small draw items).

Yup. I'll have to scan the page and show you. It does say to cut the wires... does not say to remove relay board or which end of the cut black/red wire to splice to!

do you have a volt ohm meter? get one you will be a better person with it!

if not do you have a test light? if not you are a complete waiste of human flesh!

you will need to find with the volt meter or a test light a wire that has 12v on when the key is on the run position and goes to no valtage when the key is off, sorry i can not tell you which wire that is.


... learn to fish....

hummmmm!

is this run from a switched source [key in the run position]?

use that relay to run the coil.....

All right! The seach goes on! I've been using a test light... time to break out the ol' multi-meter and have at it!

turn the key on dummy

Gee, did I connect the battery before trying to figure this out?

take the blonde stripper wig off!

Any other suggestions?

The wire diagram pictured is a Renegade harness that is used in place of the relay board. If you don't want to use the relay board get one of these harness from Renegade. It will make things a lot easier, everything will work the way it is supposed to.

Jerry

Hmm, do you mean diagram pictured above by computer4kids?

Remove relay board. Renegade harness plugs directly into car harness left behind from removal of relay board. No cutting whatsover.

About how much $ or is it $$$?

$195 http://www.renegadehybrids.com/

Yes, that is the Renegade engine harness. I used one in my car. Plug it in,hook up the wires and drive away. If you do buy one be sure to tell them to send the diagram too.

Jerry

195$, for that cost I would just rip out the wires you need, and do a clean wiring job.

I am in the midst of cleaning up my wiring and I thought that would be a cool solution, but I would rather spend the time than the money.

The Renegade instructions are to modify the 914 engine harness to work with the V8. You still have to use the relay board. The Renegade engine harness plugs into the main car harness and the relay board is not used. It has one relay and that is all that is needed. They are not telling you to extend the wires from the car harness and toss the relay board and stock engine harness too.

Jerry

Well, after lots of figuring out (and going crossed-eyed looking at the wiring diagrams), I believe I found the fix!

One of the wires left from cutting the bundle in front of the relay board is a Black wire that comes directly from the #8 fuse... from the side that is energized by the ignition switch . I believe I can use that Black wire along with one of the always hot Red wires also cut from the bundle... connect them to a relay, then connect Terminal 87 of the relay to the HEI!

OR

Take that same Black wire, run an inline fuse, and connect it directly to the HEI!

Internal to the relay board, the Black wire energizes terminal 86 on the Fuel Injection Power Relay, terminal 86 of the Heater Blower Relay, directly energizes the ignition coil and energizes an eight amp fuse in the realy board that I believe goes to the rear window heater.

Wha'dya think?

Don't know much about the HEI and why one runs a relay to power it. If it needs 12V, then a direct connect I would say. The black wire is already fused with an 8 amp fuse at the fuse block.

If it's to run a fuel pump, then that's a different story. If the FP draws a lot of amps, a relay to activate it allows for a larger gauge wire to be used directly from the battery to power it.

Oh, I threw away the HEI and used a point style dizzy on my 8s. For multi-spark, they were only good to 3 or 4K before they wimped out.

I wired one of my sixes through the /4 relay board, matching wire function of a 4 cylinder engine harness to a six cylinder engine harness. Understanding the function of each wire made it reasonably easy.

One six I'm working on, they cut the wires where you did. They are spliced, again, but follow function (but the original builder didn't hook up all that is necessary).

Anyway, a VOM is your friend. Use it and study wiring diagrams. It'll keep you off the street.

Oh, the other fuse on the relay board is 25 amp and used for the fuel pump circuit.

Thanks for the reply. I think you're right about the relay... might be overkill.

If I looked at the fuse block part of the diagram correctly, the black wire connects at the block at the point just before power passes through the fuse (on its way to power things like the windshield wipers and cig lighter), therefore, I don't think the black wire is fused. On the pre-fuse end of the block, there are 2 wires connected, one from the ignition switch, which I believe energizes the fuse and circuit, and the black wire that goes to the relay board and energizes the above mentioned relays etc...

If the relay way is overkill, then maybe running the black wire directly to the BATT terminal on the HEI is better. If I go this route, I believe a fuse must be placed between the fuse block and the HEI. Any idea on what amperage fuse and gauge wire would suffice?

12g wire for the hei and not an 8' long wire, keep it short. you want max voltage to the hei coil to make it the high energy ignition it' supposed to be.

read this to learn how to tune the hei, using this info will put to rest all the claims that the hei is junk or doesn't work well on a hp motor.

http://www.73-87.com/7387garage/drivetrain/hei.htm