Need wiring harness help!!

[old yeller]

Like the title says I am swaping out an old TBI N/A 2.5 littre motor from a 1994 acclaim and got my hands on a 1989 turbo acclaim and motor and I just today noticed that the harness's are not the same. Now Hemi has been helping me via emails and has givin me some edvise and also told me that there is a harness that will join the two?? SO UMMM ANYONE SELLING ONE? Also could I not just splice into the wireing harness's and make it work. Does anyone have wiring diagrams for these two years taht would be great!!

They are both north amarican cars and are the 3 speed autos and four door. Any help at all will be great!! Thanks again guys!

[old yeller]

Any one???


I have two cars! One none turbo and one an 89 turbo!! I have the hwole car What should I swich over???

[Veronica]

I was hoping that one of the guys would speak up so I have held off of answering this for some time. Im not the best at mechanical stuff here, but with a degree in electronics, I am fairly capable with electrical.
Have actually done extensive electrical repair (when I have had to) and so far have not had to replace a whole harness.

So far my experience is that Chrysler used first rate heavy guage copper wired and that with a factory service manual set of wiring diagrams plus basic hand tools (muli-meter, highlighters and pencils to take notes on the wiring diagrams) I have been able to fix electrical issues on the few vehicles that I have attempted with no more skill than is required to measure volts, amps and ohms. Perhaps if the original harness was fire or flood damaged it would make sense to replace the entire harness. My suggestion is that unless the harness has been seriously damaged that it would make sense just to troubleshoot and to correct any problems. Very rarely will a wire actually be bad (unless it were over heated with excessive current). 90% of the wiring issues that I have had were terminations that had broken, oxized or were poorly done in the first place. Contact cleaner is also not a bad idea, if I had a dollar for every piece of gear that De-Ox-It fixed I would be quite wealthy. (Of course I do AV for a living)

[old yeller]

Hello Veronica and thank you for your input. But One harness is 21 years old and is really showing its age! The one from the 94 it not that bad at all. But the harness' do not mach up under the dash so I will have to remove the connectors and join the two so that I will have my horns, lights, turn signals and so on. Next summer since I do not have the time now I would like the a/c to work with its alternating cluch and to have my air bags working and all that silly stuff. And thats why next year I will be taking apart the harness and making them anew since I have to take them apart anyway!
Also I ahve the wiring diagrams but that is not my forte. The only part about cars which gives me the most truble or that I ahve the most truble in is the electrical. But I know push come to shove Ill get'r'done! But the only problem is taht the car should have been done weeks ago!


If I was to rebuild it I would do it to specs so it would be the same gauge and everything.

Thanks again.

[Veronica]

The trouble with re-wiring is not gauge it is color. Auto wiring comes in so many colors (that we cannot find) that a labelmaker becomes our friend when we get into re-wiring a harness. Once the harness is re-wired not even a kit has the same color scheme and it is suggested to annotate the wiring diagrams with the new color/number convention to make future wiring work tolerable to some extent. My last major wiring project was our 1982 Dodge B250 conversion van which had so much undocumented custom work to figure out. Document document document. (One can never over-document wiring).

[old yeller]

Very good point about the colors and all that! Hmmm Gonna really haveta re thunk this one! One thing is 100% and that is that I will join the two next summer. But over summer I will be thinking and replaning my harness adventure.


Thank you very much Veronica you gave me some really worth while and good points to look at. To bad thay mad me a little sad But thats ok I am still about the whole thing.


P.S. Motors in!! Time for the hard part!

[capev86]

1989 cars still used the SMEC (single module engine controller) whereas the 94 will be the SBEC II (single board engine controller series two).....the SBEC I was in the middle and used in 1990 and 1991. my 86 k wagon came with the logic module (in passenger kick panel) and power module (under the hood) system. the SMEC put it all under the hood in one unit and the SBEC's simplified it even more (one computer board). i have my work cut out for me.....grafting later engine controls into my k wagon and just keeping the wires to the lights and dash. it has been done, but certainly not fun. thankfully the engine bays are very similar between the different k based cars!

the engine wiring harness is going to be different for a turbo car that runs multiple fuel injectors whereas the n/a tbi motor runs one single injector. best bet would be to go to turbododge.com or turbo-mopar.com and ask for a harness from a 1992+ turbo car (not one of the T3 16 valve cars from 91-93). you can use a harness for an automatic car in a manual trans vehicle. but if you have a 5spd, you will need the computer for a 5spd car. i have an SBEC 1 2.5 T1 harness and computer for my 86 k wagon project (going 2.5 T2).

i had an 89 spirit es 2.5 5spd a few years ago and it went pretty good. best upgrade after you get the turbo motor is to intercool it. you will want a 91-92 spirit r/t (TIII) radiator w/ side mounted intercooler because the mounts are on the sides unlike 80's k based cars. i picked up one of these for my car, but it actually disintegrated while sitting and would need to be re-cored. the plumbing and air box from an 87-89 daytona T2 car would work best. i got that setup for my spirit but now it is going in my k wagon. and you will need an aux trans cooler if you have auto, as the narrow radiator used with the intercooler has no provision for trans cooling.