New Console for the Track Car - Advice?
 

Hey gang,

I am currently in the process of rebuilding the center console for my FC track car. This area will hold the auxillary gauges (currently H2O temp, Oil temp and Oil pres.) plus any additional switches (e-fan, fuel cut, etc).

I am just beginning the layout. I have a heavy gauge aluminum panel that will cover pretty much the entire area (vents, logicon and radio - all gone). So I am looking for advice on both layout, function (additional switches) as well as gotchas with regards to assembly and wiring.

1) For ground connections, I was just going to ground the whole panel to the chassis and then ground the gauges and switches to that. Do I have to worry about ground-loops?

2) Should I send a separate ground wire along with the signal wire to the electrical gauge sensors?

3) Does anyone use terminal blocks for all connections? Any thoughts on the best way to manage all the wires?

4) Any thoughts on layout?

5) What switches do you feel should be located on the console?

Any references or examples would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

-bill

I built mine from thin aluminum sheet. It is basically a box within a shell, held by Dzus fasteners so I can rip it out to work on it quickly. The Microtech computer is mounted to the side of the shell.
Since my car is 100% custom wired, the center console has a bank of 9 switches, each with a circut breaker and an indicator light. I'll try to take some pictures at some point and post them to my web page at rxracing.com
1: power to computer (Microtech)
2: Power to fuel pump
3: Power to coils
4: Power to Electric fan
5: Lights (brake lights only, switch is redundant, mainly routed for the breaker)
6: Dash
7: Dash Lights
8: Windshield wipers
9: Force Electric fan on (used before I wired the Microtech to run the fan properly)

I ran a ton of 10 gauge wire, with the heavy circuts getting a dedicated power line and the lighter amp circuts having three switches per supply line. If I were to do it again I'd run 1 battery size cable right up to the panel and then use some kind of breakout block (no fuses) to supply the 10 gauge power to the switches.
The only ground I needed was for the force fan on and the indicator lights, which were all exceptionally low amp so I soldered right to the sub panel.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

-Trent

I wired the 3 gauges I put in where the lexicon is to a common power and ground, and then ran separate signal wires to each gauge.

If you're going to do fuel cut (clean your injectors and fuel cut becomes moot IMHO), then I would wire the pump out of the stock system and run it to it's own relay and switch.

Wipers are a good thing to have, the motor runs on the basis of resistance to ground. The wiper gets power, and the wiper switch controls a variable amound of resistance and then grounds it. I just grounded mine, switch is either off (open connection) or high (closed circuit to ground)

Sounds like you're keeping the dash, light switch worked fine for me, didn't change it. I didn't light the secondary gauges but I could have spliced that into the existing power for interior lights pretty easily.

I preferred manual control rather than a thermostatically configured e-fan, so I wired mine to a relay, and a switch to the relay. You could easily get common power/ground from the gauges or run a separate power signal (I used the cig lighter since it's always hot and I can activate the fans without the engine on)

That's it for me.

However, I need to reroute the ignition out of the stock system since my stock ignition switch is dying, so my configuration will probably change soon.

Toggle ignition
Push button start
Toggle wipers
Toggle rear lights
Toggle fresh air fan
Modified motocross lap timer w/ toggle
Kill switch x 2
Fire system pull
Tach w/ light
Water temp
Oil temp
Oil pressure
Fuel pressure - on hood
Oil temp warning light
Water temp warning light


Some of this I did, what I didn't want to attempt I had an expert do. I have considered putting an AMB DisplayIT in the stock cluster area in the future. Maybe it gives you some ideas.

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/8672/pict0056vb0.jpg

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/8163/pict0055pa4.jpg

Might want to be sure your shifter hand is well clear of switches, we all seem to have the guages up top of the panel for easy visibility but get the switches up as possible so if your fingers stick forward of the or you miss the shifter, or your shifter handle comes off you dont kill the ignition or something..........
ask me how i know?
not related but......if not too late you might locate the main battery kill switch where you can reach it from the drivers seat while strapped in (like on the roll cage front just inside the drivers window), lets you turn it on after you are in the car, so when you get in and forgot it is off you dont have to get out again......(yes it is SCCA legal)......... ask me how i know.....