So I have turned carbureted for a while now. I have extra wires hanging around. I don't like the way that looks and I want to make my engine bay as clean as possible. How should I go about this. Any tips and tricks to help would be gladly appreciated. I'm re-doing my entire engine bay and undercarriage and before I drop my new motor in, I would really like it to looks its best. Thanks in advance.

-Peter

If it is the FI harness and a 1.8 sent it to me LOL. Personally I would not cut wires off that are not part of the FI harness, I would roll them up tight, zip tie and tuck away. Some day down the road someone may want to go back to FI.

I would not cut off any wiring.

There shouldn't be that many extra wires. IIRC, you can remove the whole ECU (and related sensors) and the FI wiring harness separately and save for the next guy.

There is one "extra" white wire down by the distributor that needs to be insulated and tied back - it is 12v switched power that will short out if it contacts ground.

/4 0r /6 (conversion)? Guys don't want you to hack a good harness, but if already hacked I'd say go for it.

I had a harness that was already hacked, but my project was a '74 /6 conversion and I deleted the whole relay board.

There shouldn't really be any extra wires, the FI harness simply unpluggs from the relay board.

Show us a pic of your engine bay!

On my '73, the only extra wire is the one white wire off the ignition harness that I believe goes to the supplementary air valve. I'll just tape that one out of the way the same way the factory taped up fog light and intermittent wiper cables on cars without 'those options. On my car, they put a longish piece of heat shrink over the connectors and then looped the cables back and secured them to the harness with narrow electrical tape.

Since I had my harness apart for a complete overhaul, I also deleted the power and ground for the fuel pump and routed a new blk/rd wire from the 14-pin connector to the front trunk where the pump is relocated, and installed a new ground wire up front as well. So my wiring still matches the factory schematic, but with cleaner routing for the pump relocation. I have one other small mod planned for the alternator cable when I refurb that. That is to add a short brown ground pigtail from the alternator plug on the relay board that jumpers over to connect to the ground on the 4-prong FI connector as an even cleaner variant of Sir Andy's carbed fuel pump power tip. It will be easy to just clip that pigtail if the FI is ever restored.

PO doesn't say what year his car is. Do the later models with pollution control have additional wires that would be obsolete on a carbed engine? Some pics of the extra wires would be good. I agree with not hacking a harness if it isn't already hacked. Those things are worth $$

Here's a picture of the wires I was talking about. Originally it was a 1.7l and I still have the Ecu if anyone is interested. There is no plan of restoring the FI on this ride in the near future. Just bought a 2.0l and had completely built up to a 2375 by Fat Performance earlier this year. My plan right now is to completely clean up the engine bay and undercarriage of any unnecessary wires. Clean it all up a bit so it looks real nice before I put the motor and transmission back in.

Ps I'm also a perfectionist at times so if you have seen some real clean engine bay examples, I'd love to see.

Looks like your relay tray has been eliminated. Here’s a schematic (for a ‘73) of the wires that might help you determine which ones you need to keep (not many on a carbed car).
Click to view attachment

Without the *relay* board, where exactly are all your replays?
And your voltage regulator?

Here's what i did when i ran my 2056 with carbs:
http://www.914world.com/specs/SirAndyCarbFuelPumpRelay.php

Note that this retains the relay board with all the relays and the voltage regulator. This also allows to use the stock wiring to run the fuel pump.

I did not have to cut a single wire to do this ...

Well I have been running without a relay board for years now some old dude help me set up the carbs from the old FI. He was like you don't needs these, and yeah... looks like there's some other things I should know haha. Only thing with a relay was the starter. Besides that I had a fuel pump hooked up to the fuse box...

You really should have a relay, luckily being carb'd the fuel pump might be on the lower end of the amperage draw (my low pressure pump is rated at 2amp)

If you want to clean that up correctly you should put the relay board back in place. Maybe you can find someone that is parting out a 73 that will sell you the connectors for the relay board with some of the wire that you can splice back into place using solder and heat shrink. I cant tell from your photo if the connector is still there under that zip tied black square piece. The harness for the alternator is available new from sources here.

it's going to look much cleaner and work better with the relay board and proper harnesses replaced. I'm still having a hard time fathoming how it is working without. The black square piece with the zip tie is the 14-pin connector on the main harness, so at least that one can be salvaged with a little repair - and that's the hard one. Shouldn't be too tough to sort it out and have it looking spiffy.

Thanks for all the helpful tips. Appreciated.

because the old wiring was designed for a smaller load, and the old fuses, and fuse box are not really up to the task of running full load amps through them, I would suggest you learn about how to wire a relay properly to reduce the risk of melting wires.

Just because its been like that for a long time does not mean its right, or safe.

I think you should run a relay for the fuel pump at a minimum.
In the engine bay, the only other thing you need is switch power for the coil.
That could be run direct if you choose.

Your alternator will need a voltage regulator that was initially on the relay board, so I would be very curious where that went, or if someone replaced the alternator with a new version that may have a voltage regulator built in....maybe a Toyota or other smaller unit, but it won't be stock.

Aside from that, I don't know that you need the old school relay board.

Rich