A No-Stress Way to Tackle Wiring for Your Race Car

Step 1:

Instead of modifying the stock harness or creating a new system from scratch, we chose an easy alternative. The Bare Bonz Race kit from Ron Francis Wiring comes with just about everything it takes to wire up a race car.

Step 2:

Our car’s original wiring harness featured hasty additions and troublesome crimp-on connectors. No wonder the car didn’t always function properly.

Step 3:

Our old junction block was a mess, with various hot wires attached to an old transmission mount fixed to the firewall. Over the years, additions to this rat’s nest only made the situation worse. We were ready to replace it entirely.

Step 4:

The heart of the Bare Bonz Race kit is this wiring panel that includes three relays and eight fused circuits. We decided to use the relays to run our two electric fuel pumps and a thermostatically controlled cooling fan.

Step 5:

Rather than retain our 60-year-old ignition switch and generic starter button-the suspected cause of our starting issues-we added a proper ignition/starter switch. Ron Francis Wiring offers several options, most costing somewhere between $25 and $50.

Step 6:

Before mounting the wiring panel, we checked all of our connections.

Step 7:

Now we needed to install that panel. We built a mounting plate for it that attaches to the dash bar, placing it low and out of the weather. To access it, we can just pop open the original glove box door.

Step 8:

The fun part: removing the nasty wiring snarl that had been serving as our car’s nervous system. Before removing the wires, we traced and marked them.

Step 9:

We replaced our mismatched switches with fresh ones from Ron Francis Wiring. These are available with different ring colors; we chose red to match our interior. Since our car doesn’t run any night races, we skipped hooking up the lights on our AutoMeter gauges, making this job even easier.

Step 10:

Our new junction block, which feeds power to all of our engine accessories, also came from the Ron Francis Wiring catalog. This terminal seemed like a classier, more reliable solution than our old transmission mount. Budget less than $40 for one.

Step 11:

The supplied wire is color-coded and labeled, facilitating the installation as well as future troubleshooting.

Step 12:

Now we could start running wires for the various circuits, including the starter, ignition, brake lights, gauges, fuel pumps and electric fan.

Step 13:

One last thing: We rewired our kill switch so the alternator will no longer keep the car running when the switch is thrown.

Step 14:

We drew up our own wiring diagram. We’ll keep it with the car’s papers so that it’s always trackside.