Spent a few hours working on the car yesterday. Previously, I had sufficiently completed the batter relocation so that the car ran but did not have time to modify the electric power steering wiring to move the 60 amp fuse to an independent run.

I referenced the video that @Ricky SE3P had done. Instead of using the ANL fuse he he used, I decided to go for a 60 amp MEGA style fuse. That style fuse is more common in marine, motorsports and OEM applications according to the googles and ais... Either style should work really.

Bought a Blue Sea Systems Mega 7721 fuse block and 2 Littelfuse 60 amp fuses.


Installed it here following Ricky's idea. Zip tied the EPS power wire to the wiring loom to keep it out of the way.


Re-used the stock wiring that goes between the battery, starter, fuse box. Trimmed it to fit. Trimmed the alternator wire too. Will eventually de-pin the blue/red wire and shorten that but didn't have a de-pinning tool. I still want to tie down the wire better alongside the block so it isn't flopping around but I'll get to that with phase 3 of this project. Yes, there's still more to do...


Shortened the EPS ground wire.


Shortened the engine to chassis ground wire too



My battery is dead again so I couldn't test this. Hopefully, I didn't screw up anywhere. Give me some feedback if I messed up or have any suggestions for improvement.

Phase 3 of this is:

1. Wire up a manual "Battery Disconnect" aka Kill Switch for NASA and SCCA racing. It currently has an electric kill switch which the tech inspector did not like. It needed to be rewired anyway given the battery relocation.
2. Re-route and shorten the power cable from the battery to the starter. I'm thinking of using a bulkhead connector where the wire will pass through the body but I would somehow need to drill a 1.25" hole in order to install that. We'll see.
3. Potentially ditch the Braille battery and get a LIFEPO4 lithium ion battery like the NOCO. If I get that, I will likely place it in the passenger footwell since it is so light.

I need to learn how to wire up the battery disconnect. There are a couple of threads on here that I read but couldn't really understand. It seemed like you had to wire the alternator to the battery disconnect switch.
I would also like to keep some power going to the ECU so that it is not loosing long/short term fuel trims. I read something about this but didn't fully understand it... Sigh...

Lots to learn... Share your knowledge if you have it. Thanks.

 

I have been summoned? (tagged)

I have ideas that could work, you can PM me your number or hit me up on IG to chat the ideas more easily. Im not extremely familiar with how you ran all your wiring as i have only glossed over that in this thread... but you can quickly get me up to speed and i will see if theres anything I could provide as helpful and functional.

 

Thanks, Rick. I think I figured out the battery wiring with some input from Golden Rotor Racing on the FB group. He had been running a 4 pole battery disconnect switch wired to the BR/R alternator wire. Over time, that killed the alternator. He switched to a wire on the Ignition relay in the fuse box. That is the approach that I'll probably take.



In other news, work was slow so I took a break and did a thing...

I needed to get to the junk in my trunk. However, battery is dead and out of the car now. Yeah, I can use the key but would get annoying during race weekends. So I took apart the rear trunk latch mechanism and replaced it with some cabled wire making it a manually activated latch. I must have saved a few ounces from this.

I also removed the cable and latch from the fuel filler since it broke. Will likely make a similar cable for the fuel door.





I also experimented cutting a bit more out of the driver rear door with my trusty angle grinder and some cutting wheels. Yeah, I was bored... This was a miserable job. Despite using an N95 mask, I found aluminum dust in my nostrils afterwards. Definitely not healthy! Use a respirator if you attempt this!


Just ordered a kill switch and now trying to decide what to do about a battery. I emailed Braille to check on warranty. We'll see what they say. An antigravity would be great but they are rather pricey and I don't want to spend that much at the moment.

Slow progress but some progress is better than no progress...

 

I use the large NOCO lithium battery. I also am going to pick up a TYCOOL brand lithium battery on amazon to try out, a couple people I know use them and like them. Granted not a renesis powered rx8, but the rotax engine requires a lot of umph to start as it also spins the transmission. I figure if they can stand the heat and vibration of a jet ski during racing, a race car should be cake.

 

Rotax eh, I used to race a kart with a Rotax engine.

Braille emailed me back regarding the warranty. They are sending me a new battery so the battery decision is done for now. Hopefully, I can keep this second battery alive longer. The warranty person has been very easy to work with. Great customer service.

 

Not quite THAT level of rotax, lol. It does feel like it has the torque of a kart engine off boost. Eventually I'll be allowed to make a thread about it.

 

I received the Battery Disconnect / Kill Switch on Friday so thought I'd try and get it installed over the weekend. The key word there was "try"... I failed...

The plan was/is to install the switch on that panel welded to the roll cage just left of the steering wheel. Discovered the switch would interfere against the dashboard and gauge hood so had to clearance / cut some of the dash out and move the mounting hole down and to the left a bit to clear the gauge cluster. So, removed the dash to facilitate that. The dash on this car come out pretty easily and much differently than in the NA Miata. You basically pull off the top 3 panels and gauge cluster and unscrew it from the large metal dash bar in the pic below. Not hard but definitely time consuming.

Cage builders typically remove the dashboard when installing a cage but it doesn't seem like that was done on this car. Looks more like they used a hole saw to cut the holes and pass the downtubes through. While taking the dash out, I found a TPMS computer, the airbag computer, some BOSE stuff still hanging out under the dash. Those were removed. Took about 5lbs of stuff out from under the dash so far.

Also found lots of dust! The wife helped out vacuuming and removing the dust with a damp rag while I washed and scrubbed the dash to get it clean. My sinuses are killing me from all the dust that got kicked up...

This is where we stopped for the day. Didn't have enough energy to start on the kill switch wiring.

I still want to remove that black, furry sound deadening / heat insulation pad on the firewall but am blocked by the dash bar and hvac equipment. I doubt the dash bar can be removed with the cage in the way. Nevertheless, I'm going to unbolt it and see if I can get some clearance to get enough access to yank that pad out. The one in the Miata weighed 10 lbs so this is probably a similar weight.

Current plan is to keep the hvac system - or at least the heater box and blower motor in case this car does wind up in endurance racing - but plans change so...

 

After reading the rules for the various classes available for the RX8 in NASA, SCCA and endurance racing, decided to remove the HVAC stuff and get to that pad on the firewall I mentioned previously. My friends that race endurance informed that lots of people add defroster strips like on the rear window or a separate blower fan IF it rains. Doesn't rain much in Cali....

I could not remove the dash bar because the cage is in the way so getting the HVAC boxes out was a serious pita. While trying to carefully pull the hvac boxes out, they started cracking at which point I got destructive on them and pulled them out in pieces. TL;DR removed another 27.7 lbs of stuff. That pad I was referring to in the previous post - only 5-6 lbs. All the hvac boxes together were about 20 lbs as previously posted by others.


So much room for activities now...



With the dash out, I could finally trim it to fit the Kill Switch - which was the reason I pulled the dash... Scope creep is real... I also cut out the vents since they won't be used anymore. That'll save like 5 ounces since they are super light plastic... Here's the clarence-d dash


Next up - wire the kill switch and put humpty back together again.

 

I spent some time figuring out how and where to tie up the wiring harness now that the parts that it used to attach to for support are no longer present. Made a couple of L brackets and used zip ties to re-attach to the firewall. There are soooo many unused electrical connectors under the dash now - TPMS, HVAC, Keyless Entry, Airbag, Sunroof etc. I removed all of the controller boxes for those. I left the headlight leveling one connected though. If I had any electrical skill (and time) I might consider removing those wires but I got no skillz for that and will probably just screw it up.


The kill switch wiring is just about done.
Let's recap..
- The battery is relocated to the interior as previously mentioned.
- The kill switch is on the "down tube" to the left of the steering wheel.
- One run of the wiring needs to go from the battery to the kill switch then from the kill switch to the starter.
- Second run needs to go from the kill switch to either the alternator or the ignition. I chose the ignition. Seems like if you choose the alternator wire, you will need a resistor added somehow so that you don't burn out the alternator. There are some 6 post kill switches that support this.

In order to run the cable to the starter in the shortest path possible, I needed to drill a hole in the transmission tunnel. The pic below shows a good spot to place the hole where there is room under the trans tunnel for the wire to live.


I had wanted to use a "bulkhead connector" but difficult to do with the transmission in the way. There's no access to fasten the bulkhead connector. So I did the next best thing and covered the wiring in some and wrapped the section that passes through the metal in rubber hose to protect it. When/if the transmission comes out, I'll add the bulkhead connector. I also got some " " to attach the thick wiring to the car so it won't flop around.

Here's the battery cable loomed and clamped down.



The free replacement Braille battery arrived and I tested that the car still runs.

The final piece will be wiring up the ignition interrupt. Waiting on some parts to finish that up.

Since the wiring was all run, I was able to re-install the trimmed up dash. In retrospect, I trimmed a bit too much in a couple of spots but whatever, racecar.

 

I finished the battery disconnect / kill switch wiring with Keep Alive Memory. Will post some more details on that later. It was a challenge for a nervous, wiring neophyte like me but I figured it out with the help of some friends and, surprisingly, AI.

I also made some brackets to hold my lap timer in a visible spot. Fun bit of work.






Next up - corner balance and alignment