Before & After - My 1993 K1500

[93 Krawler]

Originally Posted by underpowered

when dealing with electric, bigger is always better. especially when dealing with DC. also, if it is a sustained load you want to go bigger as well. No way i would run 125 amps through 10g wire. chances are you are not sustained amps, so any of your individual breakers should trip before you hit full current pull


I know industrial wiring, 10g is 30 amp wire, for 125 we use 2awg. granted this is 120-480v vs 12v, but an amp is an amp no matter the voltage. If it were mine, i'd use no less than 6awg on a feed such as that.

I know what you mean, I have 2/0 for my battery cables.

My factory battery cable was like #2-4, and there was a #6 that ran everything but the starter. I think the charge wire is a #8. If you add all the power wires that come out of the loom on the 5.3, I'd say they are about the size of a #8 max. I don't even see how a 18g wire can handle 10-15 amps. DC is confusing as far as loads.

In a house panel, the breakers add up to more than the the service size. Does the same apply to DC. If you add all the fuses in any car, I bet it adds up to more that the battery cable size. I guess wattage plays in there somewhere. Like high power car amps. they take huge wires.

I'm with you, go big. I'm getting a 150 amp relay, and run a #4 to it. If that's not enough, then I give up.

[underpowered]

Originally Posted by 93 Krawler

I know what you mean, I have 2/0 for my battery cables.

My factory battery cable was like #2-4, and there was a #6 that ran everything but the starter. I think the charge wire is a #8. If you add all the power wires that come out of the loom on the 5.3, I'd say they are about the size of a #8 max. I don't even see how a 18g wire can handle 10-15 amps. DC is confusing as far as loads.

In a house panel, the breakers add up to more than the the service size. Does the same apply to DC. If you add all the fuses in any car, I bet it adds up to more that the battery cable size. I guess wattage plays in there somewhere. Like high power car amps. they take huge wires.

I'm with you, go big. I'm getting a 150 amp relay, and run a #4 to it. If that's not enough, then I give up.

i dont think the same thing applies to your vehicle as your house. In your house, you won't ever be running everything in your house at the same time. have every light on, something in every outlet running ac, heat, dryer, stove, washer, fans, etc.... but in vehicle, you certainly can be. it is possible to be driving at night running your lights, wipers, heater/ac, stereo, powering your engine, fans, fuel pump all while winching yourself out. So there is a chance you could see near full load on all systems at once in a vehicle compared to your house.

wattage=amps x voltage, so it does play a roll in it all, just a different way of stating amps. people seem to like seeing watts better than amps. they prefer a 55 watt light over a 4.6 amp one even though they are the same thing stated differently.

[93 Krawler]

The guy that built the one in this pic does all kinds of harness building. The main wire feeding the 30 amp relay looks to be a #10. He only has 4 fuses, a fuel pump relay, and the switched main power relay. I see this all over the net. I don't see anyone running big wires to run the engine harness. Maybe they are wrong, or maybe I'm over thinking this...

[93 Krawler]

Getting my stock gauges to work was a pain. The stock 93 temp sender is 1/4" NPT, and the 04 is a 12 x 1.5 thread. They make an adapter, but everyone complained that it suck out so far that the reading was off. I saw one guy took the stock one and milled it down and threaded it to fit the 5.3 heads. So I did it that way. Worked great. I can use an adapter for the oil pressure sender.


Removing the over flow bottle left a perfect spot for the ECM. The fuse block fit perfect over the spot where the old pcm wires went through the firewall. Now I need to find a smaller coolant bottle to mount.




Made some good progress thanks to Waffle coming over to help. Got the exhaust done, steering lines back on and filled, radiator in and filled, trans lines ran, and then the best part, starting it up. Runs great. It's throwing an engine code. The MAF circuit is low or something like that. Hooked up the scanner and it says the IAT temp is around 230 degrees. That is way off. The engine didn't have the MAF sensor, so I got one from u-pull. It looks like it needs to go back. Still have to make a better air intake duct. The stock one is too bulky. There is a lot of little stuff to do now. It will be back on the trail real soon.

[93 Krawler]

The MAF wasn't bad, the pcm ground that goes to the sensor was grounded to the chassis. Oops... It was an easy fix. Runs great now. I should have it done by the end of this weekend. Might take it to Haspin for a test run.