SHO Swap going quite awry

[TheFurryCarGuy]

Well, that's the jist of it!

The name's Josh.
Back in 2011, I picked up my 1995 Taurus SE with 57,000 miles on it. (This one)

And immediately started tinkering with it. Catback exhaust (Which, I have to share, because the 3.8 sounded surprisingly lovely. http://youtu.be/WP3KuQRPHII )

To make a long story short, a bunch of people egged me on in to the thoughts of a SHO swap.
Back last november, I bought a crash damaged '94 SHO with a recently replaced drivetrain (Year unconfirmed) with only 51,000 miles. And, being out in the sticks gave me the chance to get a little road time in on the car, and I immediately fell in love.

(With the face only a mother could love)

And fast forward to June 2014. My 3.8, with only 82,000 miles on the clock, decided that it would like to eat a connecting rod for lunch, and thus, it did!

That's when all the swappy things started.

To get you guys up to speed, the motor is in my car, pedals mounted up, hole cut in the floor, subframe undercoated/etc. However. I am massively and unarguably boned. I cannot, for the life of me, get the wiring harness in the engine bay sorted out. There are some HUGE connectors in there that I can't find homes for, all around the ABS area, but I know they don't all go to just that unit. I'm going to attach some pictures and I'm praying I can get some help. The SHO is in borrowed garage space and patience is wearing thin on the owner's side, so I NEED to make some progress soon.

I'm taking the dash out over the next few days to do the interior harness, but all my problems currently lie in the engine bay, and if any of you have even the slightest bit of help, I will be forever in your debt.

Here come the pictures:

General disaster shot

Another

passenger side

Up top

And up above.

I had shots of individual connectors but they're MIA, so I'll have to take more next time I'm at the car... Do any of you have any suggestions as to what I can do? I know it's my first post and all, but yeah, I'm pretty lost.

Thanks in advance ^^
Josh

 

[SHOspazz92]

I see some 02 Sensor Plugs that should be down at the Y-Pipe, The IAT which goes in to the airbox...all kinds of fun things!

Go to SHOphoenix Project and look through the CLUTCH and 60K procedures that show a lot of those connectors being disconnected....may help.

-Sam

 

[rubydist]

you need the entire under-hood wiring and dash wiring from the SHO transplanted into the SE. Is that what you did? If not, you will never get the wiring sorted out. been there, done that.

the lights on the SHO are wired like a Sable, so that part of the SHO harness will not mate up to the SE, but your SE would look better with a SHO front end anyway...

 

[TheFurryCarGuy]

I see some 02 Sensor Plugs that should be down at the Y-Pipe, The IAT which goes in to the airbox...all kinds of fun things!

Go to SHOphoenix Project and look through the CLUTCH and 60K procedures that show a lot of those connectors being disconnected....may help.

-Sam

Checking out now!

you need the entire under-hood wiring and dash wiring from the SHO transplanted into the SE. Is that what you did? If not, you will never get the wiring sorted out. been there, done that.

the lights on the SHO are wired like a Sable, so that part of the SHO harness will not mate up to the SE, but your SE would look better with a SHO front end anyway...

Oh hey, you sold me the intake bolts a couple months back! And yeah, the dash harness is about to go in, so it'll all be 100% SHO within a week or so depending on how quickly we get it all labeled and lined up.

 

[rubydist]

OK, so part of the "chaos" is because the wiring that comes through the firewall from the dash does not currently have the right connectors on it - once you get the SHO dash wiring in place, it will make more sense.

Under the hood, once you lay out the engine wiring correctly, the connectors will make sense. There are a couple of small connectors that are left open (I think they are both 2-pin, iirc) and there are a couple of others that you can get mixed up in the area of the firewall below the master cylinder, so check wire colors when you connect them.

Part of the stuff that looks "left over" is because you don't have the airbox/iat/mafs in the car in those photos.

The wiring to the abs system may have different connectors - I know they changed from year to year and I don't know if a 94 SHO was the same as the 95 SE or not.

 

[TheFurryCarGuy]

OK, so part of the "chaos" is because the wiring that comes through the firewall from the dash does not currently have the right connectors on it - once you get the SHO dash wiring in place, it will make more sense.

Yeah, I'm gonna have some of that sorted soon.

I grabbed some other pictures of the giant connectors I'm currently missing, Maybe some of y'all could at least point me in a general direction just so I know what I'm looking at.

These are just a handful of them, I'm almost certain the third one (The big round one) is ABS related but.. I still can't find the home for it.

 

[rubydist]

The first one looks to be one of the 4 halves that sit on top of the transmission.

The third one does look to be abs wiring. As I said earlier, the abs computer connectors changed over the years, so you need to look at both cars to see if they are the same or different. The abs computer sits under the airbox, toward the radiator a little...

 

[TheFurryCarGuy]

The first one looks to be one of the 4 halves that sit on top of the transmission.

The third one does look to be abs wiring. As I said earlier, the abs computer connectors changed over the years, so you need to look at both cars to see if they are the same or different. The abs computer sits under the airbox, toward the radiator a little...

Yeah, the ABS is going to be a bit of a hangup, since the SHO came without a module and the module form my SE didn't fit. Not to mention I don't know for certain what year the drivetrain is from so it could be a lot different than a '94. My SHO ran without the module in it so it's not an immediate necessity (I just need to get the car in to movable condition, I have a new daily) but I can get that sorted out sooner or later.

 

[rubydist]

I have at least one abs computer in my for-sale thread. I will look and see if the connector you have is the same one that I have on the module I have.

 

[TheFurryCarGuy]

I have at least one abs computer in my for-sale thread. I will look and see if the connector you have is the same one that I have on the module I have.

Sweet, let me know, bud. I had a module and the mounting bracket (It stands vertically in the engine bay) that I got from a '94 ATX but I haven't been able to find it to see if it fits yet.

 

[sperold]

I don't see a lot of tags on the connectors, so that makes it harder to decypher.

In the end, you will be replacing all the wiring in the 95 including the harness to the taillights and the one to your interior dome lights. All the automatic wiring should be out of the car by now as that just confuses the issue. You can even hook up your power trunk release.
.
Plan on removing the drivers seat as all the wiring to the rear passes there. Are you swapping the interior as well?

I would even swap in the header panel (if possible) and all your front lighting, as that will make it just that much earier near the end.

The rad fan may be the same in both cars (2-speed) but swap in the one from the donor car to be sure.

If you know the number on the Constant Control Relay Module (CCRM, the thing on the rad top), that might help identify the year of the donor if the swap person changed everything.

You will have to modify your catback system as you need the y-pipe from the manual car to get the exhaust by the shifter.

It would be a benefit if you could find another SHO near where you live to confirm some of your connections, I understand there is at least one connector that will fit in 2 different places.

Good luck with the project.

 

[TheFurryCarGuy]

In the end, you will be replacing all the wiring in the 95 including the harness to the taillights and the one to your interior dome lights. All the automatic wiring should be out of the car by now as that just confuses the issue. You can even hook up your power trunk release.

Thanks for the help ^^

I'm going to sound downright ignorant when I say this, but what in god's name is so different that it requires even the taillight/body harness to be swapped?

 

[rubydist]

iirc, the 3.8 cars had a "J" code ccrm as well as the atx SHO cars, so that should be the one he has in the SE.

the taillight / body harness may not need swapped, but when I put the SHO motor/trans into the Sable, some of the connectors in the driver's side kick panel were pinned differently, so I had to re-pin connectors to make stuff work. I don't recall exactly what, but it had to do with stereo and airbag stuff I think, so it has to be right. If I remember correctly, the 94 and 95 chassis wiring was the same, so you may not need to mess with that.

 

[tery]

Thank you Furry Car Man...I am definitely going to severely tag and label every connector I mess with when I go in to check/replace anything more than a air box filter after seeing what you've got to deal with. Good luck. I think the idea of connecting up with a SHO owner and looking at a functioning system would be the easiest and least time consuming..
T

 

[Devin]

What year is the harness?

 

[chrism3784]

Been there, done that, with a 90 sho into a 88 wagon. Was mostly just bolt up, and plug n play, what I did was switch over the dash to. Was an extreme amount of work.

 

[TheFurryCarGuy]

What year is the harness?

Well... I wish I knew.
The donor car was a '94, and the dash harness was original. However the motor/trans/subframe weren't original to the car, so I don't know if it was a '94 or not. It ran and drove, though.

 

[Devin]

I had a 93 harness and a 90 engine and found out that the that wouldn't work at all.