Extending the wiring harness

**makenzie71** · 07-06-2019 06:10 PM

I need to move my controls from the engine area to the driver's seat...convenient routing is approximately 15ft.

How would you go about doing it?

With my VFR buggy I ran two 14/4 cables from the engine area to the driver's seat for primary power and control functions and two CAT6E cables for clocks and indicators. The CAT6E stuff actually worked really well except the connections were obviously not weatherproof. I'm considering going this route again if I can find a way to properly weatherproof the connections.

I know the most straight forward way is just to get a spool of cable and make the required splices and stretch it out and that really is the way I'm leaning.

I'm interested in other potential solutions.

**K-fab** · 07-07-2019 01:39 PM

Living this presently (don’t know why the site won’t let me update my Mini-Raptor thread).
are you on MBN on Facebook or by chance follow me on Instagram (rwkosar)? Lots of pix of what I’m doing there...

Your best bet is to find a used motorcycle harness - the bigger and more complicated the bike the better (as in a Goldwing would be far better than a YZ250). You'll get more wire and connectors and there will be an array of wire colors.

Most of the harness will be 18 and 20 gauge (signal lines - not turn signals but things like activating relays and such, common leads, etc.) with 14 and 16 used to carry loads like lighting and some of the more heavily used power transfer - just copy what they've used for the same application in the system. It makes a neat, smaller bundle.

Here's a killer place for connectors: https://www.corsa-technic.com/catego...ategory_id=105 I've sent you directly to the OEM Yamaha (and probably all the Japanese mfg) style connectors. Search around on that site - you'll find everything you need to make a nice, waterproof, working harness.

**NinjaRaptor** · 07-07-2019 10:35 PM

I would go with the OEM connectors and similar gauge wiring. Keep in mind that when you extend the wiring harness, you will have additional voltage drop due to the additional length of the wiring harness and resistance of additional connectors. As long as you are not going to far, you should be ok. I would also follow the same color wiring as the OEM just to keep things simple when trouble shooting issues. I did mine for the Protodie single seater, worked fine. Make sure you get decent tools for crimping wire pins.

**makenzie71** · 07-08-2019 12:07 AM

I'm just going to do 15ft splices. It's the most economical and reliable way that I can see. I'd like to stick with the factory color coding but I don't think I'm going to be able to...there's 41 wires to splice in and I can't find many of the color codes. I'm probably going to get a spool of one color and just pay close attention and do the splices one at a time. I've also thought about the resistance issue...the wires are primarily 20g, I'll be running 18g to offset the additional length. The heavier circuits are going to be run through a separate 14/4 cable.