Painless + FiTech + HEI Distrubutor + Single Wire Alternator.. Sanity check...

Almost finished with my cabling, feeling a bit out on the thin ice... so wanted to ask for a sanity check so that i dont blow up my bronco in a few weeks time...

Ive included color and cable code below so this should be fairly straight forward to understand how i have wired things so far... Cables not mentioned below have not been wired to the parts mentioned... So consider them left out for now.

Im effectively struggling to find the wire diagram setup that matches my install as i have:
- Fitech Go EFI 4
- HEI Distributor
- Single Wire Alternator

Solenoid
Left Side: Battery + and Maxi Fuse using the stub of #916
S: Red/Blue #919 only. (957 not in use)
I: Brown #970 (i belive i can use this for the BAT on the HEI Distri ?)
Right Side: Starter

Maxi Fuse:
Left side: Black #916 from Solenoid Left Side
Right Side: Black #916 + Red #960 (as i high 65amp+ alternator)

Single Wire Alternator..
Red #960 AND Black/Yellow #915
Separate ground directly to frame.

The rest of the alternator cables (yellow, green, black/red 901 ground etc) i have not used... Have i forgotten something here?


HEI Distributor
I dont have a seperate coil, its all integrated in my HEI Distributor as i understand.. So in addition of the 3 cables running from the body of the HEI distributor to the top and connects to B+, GRD and C-.. I need to connect two cables.. The TACH comes directly from FiTech (blue cable) and then the BAT cable.. What cable should i use from my painless? currently i plan to use the brown cable #970 Coil "+" to Starter Sol "I" Would that work? Is this ideal?

FiTech
Im cabling constant power from the battery on the main power cable to the unit, but what about the thin white cable (on/off switched) Can i use the Red/Green #920 Coil "+" ? It needs to be Key On and Crank on.. Im not sure how i am supposed to figure that out in the painless manual, is there an overview im missing?

Otherwise the Blue cable runs to the TACH on the HEI Distributor, and the remaining cables yellow, violet, green are not in use?

Best regards, cable guy...

Solenoid
brown #970 is not needed

HEI
use the red/green #920 wire provided in the harness for coil power. Brown #970, when connected to the I terminal of the start solenoid/relay will only have power during start up. This is ony used on vehicles with a ballast resistor; HEI's do not require a resistor.

FiTech
use the choke wire #954 white/black to power the Fitech system.

eric0o1 said:

Solenoid
brown #970 is not needed

HEI
use the red/green #920 wire provided in the harness for coil power. Brown #970, when connected to the I terminal of the start solenoid/relay will only have power during start up. This is ony used on vehicles with a ballast resistor; HEI's do not require a resistor.

FiTech
use the choke wire #954 white/black to power the Fitech system.

Click to expand...

Awesome, much appreciated


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

krdale said:

Solenoid
Maxi Fuse:
Left side: Black #916 from Solenoid Left Side
Right Side: Black #916 + Red #960 (as i high 65amp+ alternator)

Click to expand...

krdale said:

Single Wire Alternator..
Red #960 AND Black/Yellow #915

Click to expand...

For accuracy, just how many amps is this alternator capable of putting out?
Reason I ask is that most 1-wire alternators are at least 130a rated (that I have seen at least) and many are upward of 200a and even more. So we need to know.
But in lieu of that info, you should probably just go big when it comes to the charge wire.

And to be clear, the Maxi-Fuse and holder that come with the Painless kit are for powering the electrical system from the battery, and have nothing to do with the charging system. Only the bigger Mega-Fuse (or newer Midi if Painless has changed to that more compact system) with a fuse rating of at least 30a higher than the rated output of the alternator is used for charging.

The Black wire and Maxi-Fuse (60-80 amp rated fuse?) are connected to the left side of the solenoid/relay, and a much larger gauge wire/cable is connected to the left side of the starter relay through the Mega Fuse from the alternator. Typically a 6ga battery cable is used.

So let us know what rating your alternator has.

krdale said:

Separate ground directly to frame.

Click to expand...

Separate ground from the alternator? How is the frame grounded then? Do you have at least an equal sized wire/cable from the battery to the frame? Or at least from the battery to engine, then engine to frame? Gotta' tie it to the battery at least semi-directly or it's not up to it's full potential.

krdale said:

The rest of the alternator cables (yellow, green, black/red 901 ground etc) i have not used... Have i forgotten something here?

Click to expand...

Depending on the type of "1-wire" alternator, you're in good shape.
If it's just an internally regulated alternator, such as a Ford 3G then you still need the Green w/red wire to excite the regulator. If it's truly a 1-wire, then correct, you don't need any of them.

krdale said:

HEI Distributor
I dont have a seperate coil, its all integrated in my HEI Distributor as i understand..

Click to expand...

Correct. It's a separate component that can be changed when needed, but it works as an integral part of the cap.

krdale said:

So in addition of the 3 cables running from the body of the HEI distributor to the top and connects to B+, GRD and C-.. I need to connect two cables.. The TACH comes directly from FiTech (blue cable) and then the BAT cable.. What cable should i use from my painless? currently i plan to use the brown cable #970 Coil "+" to Starter Sol "I" Would that work? Is this ideal?

Click to expand...

No, not ideal at all I don't think. Without it being connected in some way to the standard ignition wiring, you won't get a voltage signal through the Brown wire except when the starter is spinning.
There are so many wires that are already powered by the key that you should be able to find a dedicated circuit already.
Anything for the ignition should be powered in both RUN and START. While many are this way according to Eric, I think his suggestion of the Red w/green wire (already slated for the ignition system) is the best.
In a pinch, any of the Green /red wires would work too, but keeping the Red w/green for use with the ignition would make troubleshooting things later much easier.

krdale said:

FiTech
I'm cabling constant power from the battery on the main power cable to the unit, but what about the thin white cable (on/off switched)? Can i use the Red/Green #920 Coil "+" ? It needs to be Key On and Crank on.. Im not sure how i am supposed to figure that out in the painless manual, is there an overview im missing?

Click to expand...

That should work, but if you use it just for the ignition and don't want to splice another wire to it, any of the Green w/reds should have the same function.
I believe that in a recent thread Eric said that most of the wires are hot in both RUN and START, but for sure the Green w/red and Red w/green are, because that's how Ford did it and the stock ignition switch works that way.

krdale said:

Otherwise the Blue cable runs to the TACH on the HEI Distributor, and the remaining cables yellow, violet, green are not in use?

Click to expand...

There have been several recent threads discussing FiTech and HEI distributors. Not sure if they were all positive or all negative, or somewhere in-between, but someone should know if that Blue FiTech tach wire will get a signal it understands from the distributor.

Good luck!

Paul