Headlight wiring - Circuit 1/5

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Major System Category: ISIS Wiring
Task: Wire up head lights
Parts: Kit wiring
Power Cell: 1
Circuit: 5 - WHITE
Master cell: WHITE/GREEN
Prerequisite Tasks: Head lights new to mounted
Additional Costs: N/A
Time Requirement: 2 hours
Date Started: October 20, 2012
Date Completed: March 30, 2013

The GTM comes with Phillips H9 HID bulbs for both the high and low beams. The first thing the needs to be done is build the KET connectors. These fit into the plugs that fit the H9 bulbs. I looked up this YouTube video that shows how to put everything together.

Now that I am beginning to rough in the wiring, I realize I need to get serious about grounding points on the frame. I also need to think strategically about where to run wires and how long those runs need to be. Finally, I need to seriously start figuring out where I am going to mount my power cells. I have staked out space for the master cell and one power cell to live under the dash on the passenger side; I need to find space for 3 power cells under the hood; one more power cell in the engine bay. And I may need one more power cell.

I ran wires over the front grille opening in wire loom to connect the headlights  and fog lights together.

One modification is to relocate and SHRINK the washer fluid container. I think I can put this on the passenger side since I eliminated the coolant overflow tank because I am going with Crash's header tank. My intention is to mount one power cell in place of the standard washer tank location. This is above the battery on the driver's side.

When I started this post, I didn't even have the power cells. Since that point in time, have all power cells mounted and deployed. I mounted power cells #1, #3 and #4 on the center aluminum panel. The mega fuses are on the other side.

Since the high beams and low beams run on separate circuits, I am running lines from the passenger side to the driver side to connect both circuits. This line is mounted in the lip of the hood above the grille opening.I ran the feed wires from Power cell #1 along the driver side inner wheel well to the driver side head light then over to the passenger side.Ground go to terminal blocks mounted on the inner wheel wells. these will be sealed with Automotive Goop.

The power cells are mounted facing forward. The one thing I did run into was interference from the hood louvers. The Vraptor ones are bigger and deeper, so I had to cut a notch to ensure I didn't end up rubbing a wire. I also shortened the data bus cable.

Update: One thing that did happen as I worked on the front end of the car was that the connectors for the headlights did not hold together very well. I ended up ordering prewired pigtails from Auto Lumination. Ultimately, I ended up with 1 master cell, 4 power cells and one motion cell. I'm sure I could find room to mount one additional cell if I had to, but space is pretty tight.

Steering Column Wiring - signals, lights and horn

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Major System Category: ISIS Wiring
Task: Wire up head lights
Parts: Kit wiring
Circuits: 1/1, 2/1, 1/2, 2/2, 4/9, 1/9, 1/5, 1/7
Prerequisite Tasks: Master cell must be mounted, steering column must be installed
Additional Costs: N/A
Time Requirement: 4 - 5 hours
Date Started: April 7, 2013
Date Completed: April 8 2013

I have been operating from my final wiring diagram. This is the wiring bible. If I divert from this, I had better have a good reason. Once I had this finalized, I began working on wiring components (e.g. head lights, signals) to Power Cell #1. Power Cell #1 primarily deals with items under the front hood. Power cell #2 supports components inside the hatch. Everything connects to the master cell via a data bus. The Master Cell is mounted under the passenger dash board and wires are snaked through a conduit above the AC unit.

I had to get serious about organizing the A and B cable bundles on the Master Cell. This is on a hinge that drops down (as pictured) below the passenger side dash board. The AC blower motor is cover in yellow plastic behind the master cell. There is a 2 inch conduit I installed to allow cables to easily move from the master cell to the area uder the driver's side dash board.

The biggest change in mind set for wiring is to realize that the control stalk on the side of steering is nothing more than a switch. The heavy power consumption for conventional wiring (i.e the head light signal relays) are managed by ISIS. These concerns go away. All that needs to be done is to wire the harness for lights, signals and horn to the signal wires that correspond to the circuits. This is still a fair amount of work, but this eliminates the need for in line fuses. 

I separated the cable bundles into their color groupings. Each grouping corresponds to the circuits for  either the A or B connector on a power cell. Everything is color coded, so if you get lost or a tag comes off you can refer to the master list and figure out what's happening. ISIS is expensive, but Jay Harris and the boys have done a great job of thinking things through.

This is the blue plug on the steering column. The first thing I did was extend the wires on the plug. This provides some room for error and slack on the electrical line. I added approximately 1 foot to each of the leads coming off the plug. It is a little hard to read, but each pin on the plug is identified by a letter. For the most part, just follow the chart provided in the build manual, and recognize that in my case I am wiring to ISIS not the Painless Wiring Harness. There are some changes to how this works.

This is splice between the extending wires from the steering column and one of the ISIS master cell wires. I have been pretty good about applying heat shrink to the splice, then wrapping in black electrical tape.

On my plug there were two wires for high beams coming out of pin K. I wired both of them to my extension wire. Next I sorted the Master Cell wiring harness by color groups. Next I selected the 8 signal wires corresponding to the circuits and separated them. These I pushed (from the Master Cell) through the conduit (to the steering column). The manual indicates that pins X, Y and Z need to wired to the battery positive. For ISIS, these are wired to ground.

Component	Power Cell / Circuit	Master Cell Wire	Blue Plug Pin
Right Signal	1/1	White – Black	B
	2/1	Yellow – Black	B
Left Signal;	1/2	White – Red	C
	2/2	Yellow – Red	C
Dash / Parking	4/9	Light Blue – Yellow	R
Horn	1/9	Blue – Yellow	V
Low Beam	1/5	White – Green	L
Hi Beam	1/7	Blue – Red	K
Ground			N, W, X, Z

This photo isn't the best, but it shows the blue plug on the steering column with extended cables .

Headlight and Turn Signal Mounting

<< Rear Parking Assist                                                 Wire the head lights >>

Major System Category: ISIS Wiring
Task: Mount headlights and turn signals
Parts: Kit head lights and turn signals
Prerequisite Tasks: Hood needs to be mounted and bolted into place
Additional Costs: N/A
Time Requirement: 4 Hours
Date Started: October 13, 2012
Date Completed: October 14, 2012
The manual that came with my kit comes with a Gen I procedure to mount headlights and turn signals. While there are some similarities (you mount them in the front), the Gen II configuration is different enough to make me wonder if anyone at Factory Five actually tried putting in the signal lights they send with the kit.

Headlight with the adjustment screws installed and the h9 HID plug installed.

The headlight bucket on my hood is not removable, there is no foam core between the inner plastic and outer fiber glass, the holes are pre-drilled.

Rear view.

A removable headlight bucket has the charm of being removed to the bench where some very precise cuts can be made. Most people will have the hood bolted to the chassis. This requires the builder to work around the side of the hood to gain access to the headline area. Not a big deal, but it does make it harder to measure the holes for the headline pins. I had some good moments drilling holes, and some really bad ones. The pre-drilled holes are smaller than the headlight diameters. I am sure this is done on purpose, because a snug fit is desirable. I used a drum sander on the Dremel to open up the inner and outer holes.

Front view

The mounting sequence for the adjustment pins are the same. This is pretty easy. One thing I added to my procedure is once I had three adjustment pins mounted and pushed into the inner plastic portion of the headlight bucket, I slathered them with Goop to keep them in place. Once I figured out what I had to do to make this all work, the next three headlights went fairly fast.

Mounted. 

The turn signals are a different story. The signal lens has three ears mounted evenly around the back flange. The manual shows that there is enough room to push/tap the lens into place and use screws to secure the lens to the inner plastic wall of the headlight bucket. NO WAY! There is absolutely no room for one of the ears. It took me a while to figure this one out. Once I cut off one ear and removed a significant chunk of material on the inside opening, I was able to get the turn signal lens into place.