​Man, the weather has not been cooperating!  After about two weeks of rain, i spent a couple days mowing the jungle that was our yard.  So now im finally caught back up, and progress can resume!

First up, theres now a tee in the OEM port, so i can run both the OEM & the NVU oil pressure senders:

​New Ford Performance 47# injectors:

​...and BAM!  Injectors, fuel rail, wiring harness, and plenum installed! 

​New BBK twin 61mm throttle body:

​This thing is a beast; way bigger than the OEM throttle body.  Should flow a ton more air:

​Also picked up this cool Felpro thermostat gasket, p/n 35041T.  Supposed to solve the typical ford leaky t-stat housing issue.  Its ~1/8" thick, and has an o-ring seal on both sides.  Its a pretty nice piece, and looks like it should work well

​Progress!​ Now its starting to look like something!

​Distributor all ready to go with new o-ring, cap, rotor & TFI module:

​Engine at TDC & distributor installed.  Plus a big win-  the oil cooler is installed!

​My frame notch was a huge success; Theres lot of room for the oil cooler, and it fit up in there easily with plenty of room to spare.

​Super excited about this one, it clears like it was made that way by Ford!
From here on out, i think everything left to do is basic reassembly, so progress should speed up.  My torque converter showed up yesterday too, which was the last item i need to finish reassembly.  If all goes well, i might be able to fire the engine in about a week's time!

​Despite the absurd weather, i have still succeeded in making some headway on the motor install.
First up, i am trying to finalize the Stinger PimpX install.  As mentioned a little while ago, this thing is a 100% new ECU, based on the Megasquirt 3 technology.  It is designed to work with the OEM harness & sensors, however, if you look closely, it has its own on-board MAP & BARO sensors.

​It comes with a flash drive that includes a custom tune, and all sorts of tuning and programming software, as well as some PDFs detailing the whole install and tuning process.  One thing i did, was to get the install manual PDF printed and bound by Staples.  Its pretty cheap, and its nice having it as a reference since its ~35 pages long, and you need to reference it for initial setup & tuning.

I know its difficult to tell in the photo, but this page is going over our setup.  You need to configure the ECU for your motor size & injection type.  Sounds complicated, but theyve actually made it quite simple:

​The ECU comes with a handful of jumpers you install on the board to set up if youre a V6, V8, batch or sequential EFI, Mass-Air or Speed Density.  In my case, all i need is to install these 4 jumpers, and im good to go!

​There is a TON of other things you can customize.  Built in boost controllers, electric fan controller, you can configure your ignition type (including TFI, DIS, EDIS CDI box, etc), boost controller, nitrous controller, you can add cam & crank sensors, more O2 sensors, VSS (if not already equipped), there is a ton of customizing you can do.  There is an extra port on the bottom of the ECU for adding in all the additional items the stock 87-95 ECU did not support.

included is some high quality silicone(?) tubing for the map sensor, and a USB cable for tuning

There is a USB port on the side, along with a SD slot for data logging.  You need access to the port to load the tune (this will come later on in the install), and thanks to my relocated ECU i did not.

​Back when i was getting ready to install the dash, i built this bracket to relocate the ECU:

​It was a clever design, but it has to be modified.  Thankfully i made it bolt-in!  So i carefully removed it and notched this side, to give me access to the USB port

So with that done i need to move on to some wiring mods.  First things first, we need to add a wideband O2.  The ECU will work with either the stock narrowband sensor or the wideband.  If you use the wideband you gain a self-learning feature, which i definitely want.  The install is simple, simply supply the +5 reference from the wideband controller directly to the signal wire that the original narrowband sensor goes to, and eliminate the stock O2 sensor.  It seems simple enough, but i decided to do what i usually do, and make it more complicated!

So, this pic shows where i mounted my wideband controller; up high in some free space above the brake/ebrake pedals:

​This means the +5v signal wire is right near where the factory ECU would be.  So rather than cut into the stock harness, i decided to add a wire to the ECU extension cord i made.  So lets take that back out!

​Once opened back up, you can see the board offers not one but two seperate places to tie into each circuit, specifically for piggybacking for aftermarket ECUs and controllers.  So all i did, was add a signal wire directly to the signal circuit for the stock O2 sensor, Pin 29:

​All closed up and reinstalled, with the new signal wire hanging out and ready to be sleeved/run to the controller.

​Once that was done i reinstalled the kick panel and tied that wire into my O2 signal.  So now ive got both signals wired in, w/oo having to cut or modify the stock harness which is a big win in my book.
So now lets move under the hood.  This is the wiring for the OEM MAP sensor + O2 sensor.  Its a lot of wire, and we dont need it anymore.

​I dont like the idea of simply cutting the wires off, so instead i cut them back, crimped new pins on the wires, and installed a 8-pin plug off a junk harness i had laying around

​That looks considerably better!  Almost like Ford made it that way.

​So here's what we removed.  Not discarded though; ive made it us as a companion harness that will plug back in and then put away in a box on the shelf.  This way, if i ever want to add the stock sensors back in, i can, without having to do any additional modifications to the harness.

​So this should complete the wiring mods for the PimpX, which means its time to finish the motor install!

Progress has been made!

First up, i got my air-fuel ratio gauge installed.  I removed my a-pillar trim, removed the gauges, and removed my standalone harness for the gauges

Wiring harness dissected, and A/F gauge wiring added!  Since its a gauge from NVU the wiring is basically the same.  So i spliced in the power, ground & illumination wires, and only had to add a single wire to the harness- the +5v reference from the wideband controller.  So overall a pretty easy job to do.

​Bam! installed.

The Glowshift pod fits pretty good actually, but i did trim the top slightly where the windshield trim fits up against it, so it would fit a little tighter.  Just some minor work with a razor knife, nothing major.  I also took the time to lay out where the original trim screws go, so i could use the OEM screws to go thru both the pod & the pillar so no extra hardware to remove, and it actually looks pretty clean.
So, that's done, moving on.  I got my new ECU from Stinger Performance, the PimpX!

​It comes with a bunch of stuff, including a pretty in-depth 30-something page PDF, which i printed off for a reference since the wifi in my garage sucks.  They actually want you to open it up, so here we go!

If youve ever been inside your ECM/PCM, then you know it looks nothing like this!  This is a 100% custom-built ECU based off the Megasquirt III.  It has a bunch of jumpers you need to install in the board to configure your unique setup.  They intentionally dont install any just so you have to go thru it and do it yourself, which i actually kinda like since it forces you to set it up exactly for your vehicle.  In my case, its only a couple jumpers since im still batch-fire, Speed Density, and running the stock TFI & ignition compnents.  It supports a ton of stuff like sequential EFI, coil-on plug, boost switches for forced induction, narrow or wideband O2 sensor(s),  it has its own electric fan controller....the list goes on.  Im still reading thru the PDF, but im pretty sure i know how im going to configure mine.
It uses its own built-in MAP sensor so i have to delete the OEM one, and run the supplied vacuum line from the intake right to the ECU.  Also, i am going to be using a wideband O2 in place of the factory narrowband (which gains me self-learning programming), which means i only needed 1 o2 bung in the exhaust, and i will have to tie the wideband controller's output into the oem signal wire from the original narrowband sensor.  I think this is the only modification i need to make to the wiring harness tho, everything else should just work like stock.  I still have more reading to do on this, so there will be more updates on this over the next couple weeks.
Heres the big one though:

​The motor is done!
All ive got to do is install the motor mounts & flexplate, and sometime next week she's going back in the bronco!

parts

​lots and lots of parts

This is basically every sensor for the motor plus tune up parts, gaskets, etc.  It also includes a wideband O2 + controller!

This is Innovate Automotive​'s LC-2 wideband O2 controller.  Fully tunable controller, but does not come with a gauge, which is fine since im getting one to match the other gauges i already have from NVU.

I mocked up the exhaust in the bronco, and found a good place to install a bung for the wideband sensor, just behind the stock sensor:

I removed my 2-gauge pod from my pillar, and am installing a 3-gauge pod from GlowShift.  Its actually a pretty nice piece and fits very well.

This is the harness i built for the oil pressure & trans temp gauges; its built around a 6 pin connector, and i was only using 5.  This works out super conveniently, because i only need to add 1 wire to this harness for the air-fuel ratio gauge- the signal wire from the wideband controller.  The rest of the wires for the gauge are all already there.  So wiring the gauge will be a pretty simple task.

​Here's the new Bosch wideband O2 sensor:

​Here's the wideband controller:

​Just a couple wires to connect to make it work, plus the large plug goes to the O2 sensor, the other 2 plugs are optional.  One of the small plugs is an input for connecting a laptop for tuning the controller, and the other one is an output if youre using other software/hardware from Innovate.

Here's the included harness that connects the sensor to the controller.  its available in several lengths; i got the 8' one because i dont know how im going to route the wire yet.

​And it also included this adapter harness for connecting a laptop for datalogging or tuning the controller:

Its unlikely ill need this, but it would be useful for those who like to do more specialized tuning for racing, or want to use the controller to emulate a narrowband sensor.

Ive already started wiring the controller up in the truck, but i havent routed the cable for the sensor yet.  Its difficult to say exactly where i want it to go, w/o an engine or transmission in the truck to check for clearances.  Hopefully the engine will come back soon, and i can get this thing back together and running!

I have a torque converter on order from Broader Performance, hopefully it comes soon.
​I also decided its worth it to just order a tuner, so friday i ordered the PimpX ECU from Stinger Performance.

So the next big part of the wiring job is the electric fan.
I opted for a can controller from DC Control, specifically his model FK-75 controller. Its a PWM controller, rated for 75a continuous duty, and fully adjustable. For those that dont know what PWM is, its pulse width modulation. The short version is, it doesn't just turn the fan on, it pulses the power on & off, to control how fast the fan spins. This means you can run the fan at any speed you want, and it also means theres no big load on the electrical system when the fan starts. Most OEMs are now going this way for their electric fans, and its all over the industrial world as well since its so effective for motor control. Anyway....

So im running the windstar fan, which i installed on the radiator some time ago:

Its 2 single speed fans that Ford ran in parallel. Its not a high/low thing.

Fan controller:

​Came with everything required to wire it up, so lets get to it!​

Ok, first off, i want the fan to turn on when i turn the key on. I dont want to have to turn a switch on on the dash, because that also means i can forget, and overheat the engine. Youd think youd remember, but my old fan was wired that way, and i definitely forgot once or twice!

This meant i needed a relay capable of handling 60+ amps continuous duty. Well, i found one, and its more affordable than you think
Obtain Surplus: 75a relay

​Conveniently, it fit right between my winch disconnect and the contactor. Perfectly. I didnt have to drill any holes, its the perfect spacing that its held in place by the screws from both of them:

​fan controller mounted:

​Fans wired. You can see the temp probe wiring poking out of the loom:

​Temp probe. Its a delta temp probe that installs right in the radiator fins, and it is remarkably quick to respond to temperature change:

​This was an interesting picture to take. I had to drill a small hole in the fan shroud for it to pass thru, and then wedge it into the fins. Then hold the fan away with one hand and try to snap a pic with the other!

​Everything all done being wired & loomed:

So theres an input for A/C. When the A/C is on, it automatically turns the fans on at 50%. So i tied into the output for the pressure switch, this way it only spins up if the A/C is actually working. Which currently it isnt!

​...and there it is, the whole thing done!

So there was nothing left to do but test the system. And it works!
So, if you were paying attention, you noticed an LED next to the switch for the winch control. Well, its for the electric fan:

​This is a feedback sensor for the fan. When the controller first turns the fan on, it will blink red. Then, it will start off green. As the fan ramps up in speed, it will turn yellow and then eventually red once its 100%, so you always know how fast the fan is spinning. So, i ran the truck for almost an hour the other day to test it, and its amazing how well it works. First off, the PWM is amazing; even at idle the volt gauge doesnt even flinch when the fan turns on. The controller ramps the fan up to speed and then turns it back off since at idle, it cools it off very fast. Even with the engine held at 1100 RPM, the fan doesnt run full speed, which is quite promising. The controller is adjustable +/- 35º, so i can fine tune it if i need it to turn on sooner or later, but my preliminary testing seems to show that its gonna work just fine.

So, this concludes the wiring portion of this project! Im taking the next week to get some projects done around the yard (and cleaning the garage). Then, the truck goes up on jack stands, and we will begin rebuilding the axles and suspension. We're getting ever closer to driving this thing!

​So this took a while, but the end result was well worth it.  All the aux wiring is done!!
So, i bought a relay box off amazon:

Switches are from OTRATTW.  Locker, line lock, light bar & winch control switches installed:

i bought 18ga 12 conductor cable from Show Me Cables to wire the switches:

​Wiring up the fuse/relay box:

​I have one standalone circuit for each accessory, plus one spare already run from the box to the dash, so if i ever want to add another switch, all the wiring is already done.
Everything is color coded; the switch wiring is color matched to the individual +12 for each accessory so i cant mix up any wires. There is also a key-hot power source turning on 2 of the relays; one is for the OBA system, and the second is for the elec fan, so i dont have to worry about remembering to turn either on.

.​..and installed!

A​t this point, every accessory has been wired and tested for function.

​So ive had pretty good luck with the Badlands Wireless winch remotes. So i bought a second, and wired it into the bronco!

Hidden here in front of the battery:

​and some simple wiring to the contactor:

​The power source is the switched output of my disconnect, that way the receiver only has power when the winch does.

So from there i directed my attention to the dash. Removed the pocket from the dash panel, and made a switch panel (out of a cheap plastic tray from walmart) to take its place:

​The finished product; i also added a hole for in-cab winch control, and that little LED is for my fan controller, altho we'll talk about that in another post

​Laying out the wiring. I bought 12 conductor cable, so everything would be bundled together, and color coded:
Youll note 3 extra wires. The brown is going to be supplied with a key hot, which will turn on certain accessories (such as the OBA & elec fan) as soon as i turn the key on. The 2 black wires are spares, just in case i decide to add an additional switch down the road; itll all already be wired up and ready to go, ill just have to stuff a switch in somewhere and tie in to those wires.

​Going in for the final install:

​...and done!

​I routed the harness thru the firewall where the cruise control used to enter, so no extra holes in the firewall. For now the cable is just laying across the engine bay, but the next step (starting tomorrow hopefully) will be to wire up the relay box for all this stuff!

So now i have a ton of wiring to do. I need to wire up the OBA, ARB, electric fan, line lock, and winch control. So im going to build a whole harness for control wiring so i can install the switches in the dash, and then run over to a relay box on the passenger fender liner. Lots of wires to run, and im surrently stil designing the harness, so this part will prob take me a week or two to sort it all out.

i bought a new relay box off Amazon, check this thing out:

​6 relay box with fuses. Came with all the pins to make all the connections plus they include spares, and silicone boots to seal underneath. $20 on Amazon​​

So now im working out the wiring diagram. Yesterday i got notification of shipment for my electric fan controller so hopefully ill have that this week since ill need it to build this harness. So i decided to test my winch wiring.

This is the switch im going to use in the dash, for in-cab controls, complete with temp wiring to see if the winch works

​...which it does!  Winch cable is finally rewound!

​So i guess this week ill begin laying down wires to start building my aux harness. Hopefully i can get that done quickly, because im hoping to have the truck done by thanksgiving!

Ok seriously though. Got the gauges wired!

I decided to do it a little differently this time. So i made this harness that goes down into the dash, but it goes to a connector, so its not hardwired into the truck:

​That plug goes into the dash harness. key hot to power the gauges, ground, illumination, and then of course the two wires that go to the sending units. That harness is built into the dash so i dont have any pics of it. But!

and lit up! Paired with some LED bulbs for the dash, and they match perfectly, i love em

​Black windshield trim!

​...and new windshield installed!

​I got my center console cleaned up and ready to go:

Cup holder inserts were backordered, now look like theyll be arriving this weekend, so i guess next week we'll be doing the cupholder mod and getting this installed!

I took all 5 locks (doors, tailgate, glovebox & console) over to the locksmith to get them all rekeyed, to match the tailgate key for my 96. Yay for sharing keys! Ill get those back sometime next week.


I started wiring these up today too:

Theyre from New Vintage USA. They make some really nice gauges. These are their aviator series, but with a twist: normally the aviator series would illuminate red, but they custom made this set to be green like stock :cool: They even do full cluster replacements for our trucks, which is pretty cool.
Unfortunately i wont be able to complete the gauge install this week as my pod is cracked so i had to order a new one which i wont get until this weekend. But im hoping to get them all wired up so i can just install them once it arrives (and i get it painted).