Wire Tuck, How Do You Do It?
June 14, 2010 2 Comments
So many people (myself included) are always fascinated by a clean engine bay and most ask, how do you do it?
The best place would be to check out clubroadster.net as there are many guys that have successfully hidden a lot of gear and made their engine bay look dope. NA guys check this thread out. NB guys will find some use to that, but I figured I’d post my own rough (Really rough!) guide to how to clean your Roadsters bay up.
Once upon a time, My Roadster started off like below (this isn’t actually my car, this is HKS_Kansei’s NB8A)
I’ve always wanted a clean engine bay in my MX-5. Over the years things would slowly find themselves out of the bay, For instance, the Air-con stopped working so instead of fixing it, I got rid of it. I tried to get rid of as many things as I could, without taking the car off the road (As it’s my DD). I attempted to polish things here and there too for a nice shiny finish. It looked like this up until January this year.
Anyway, the car was off the road for quite a while, I was doing other things to it at the time and it was a snap decision to finally do a much-needed wire tuck. The Miata’s are pretty easy when it comes to tucking. For instance, the looms on the guards can, and will go through the holes that lead to inside the guard quite easily.
Anyway, after a lot of effort, the engine bay looks like this, and I am finally happy with it.
What was moved, hidden, or deleted?
-Ok, now all NB’s have air-con and power steering from factory, well they have been both removed.
-Theres a few relays where the PS resivour used to be, they have now been relocated under the passenger headlight.
-HID ballast’s are mounted under headlights.
-Emissions canister has been deleted, there was a breather line that the canister sat on, it runs all the way to the fuel filter, I removed it.
-Wiring looms on the guards have been relocated to inside the guard ( you can see this faintly on the passenger side).
-Washer bottle has been ditched for a NOPRO washer bottle, that sits in the cowl.
-Coolant overflow bottle has been deleted.
-A lot of solenoids that were connected to the emissions canister have been either deleted, or plugged and hidden.
-The wiring harness running over the intake plenum was relocated to run under the plenum, we took the plenum off to do this.
-The clutch line was redesigned, It is now a braided piece, and is hidden.
-The fuel lines were moved out of sights, and I fitted braided lines at the end of them.
-I used black vacuum hoses around the intake plenum, so they blend into the plenum and are harder to see.
-A lot of misc. things were painted black to help hide them, like brackets, the thermostat housing etc.
-Heaps of wires needed to be extended, but that is all, just mark the wires, measure the length that they now need to go, and extend with a soldering iron.
-Plan your attack before carrying it out, And take your time with it, Rushing things like extending the wiring will only lead to problems later on.
I did not run anything into the cabin, you can achieve clean look without needing to do this.
It all depends on how far you want to go though and long you are prepared to have your Roadster off the road. I am happy with my setup, Some might want to hide the fuse box and other things, which will require a stack of concentration and wire extending, I did not want to go through all this.
To get an idea, I’ve taken the liberty to find all the useful posts I made earlier in the year, whilst doing the wire tuck.
Stripping It Down
Not Much To It
Still Painting
Painting Continues
Back On Track
The Hard Yards
It’s Alive
I hope this little post inspires someone to “give it a go”, It’s not as hard as you think, It just takes a bit of time.
Have fun, and good luck!
RoadsterGarage.Net 