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Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? #2320073
06/12/17 06:55 PM
06/12/17 06:55 PM
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JS23U Offline OP
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I bought an engine harness from Year One (M&H) for my 71 Bee 383. I bought harness HU117NM which is one modified for electronic ignition. My engine has an MP distributor and orange box but otherwise is electrically stock. I wondered about finding connectors for a 4-prong ballast resistor when trying to install the harness.
What should I do about it? Buy a 4-prong resistor? Modify the harness so it will fit my 2-prong resistor? How?
As the ECU is an orange box it will most likely have 4 pins. The harness is supposed to have 5 connectors (haven't checked yet). Will it hurt anything if I hook up the new harness to the orange box?
Anything else to be modified?
I sent an email to M&H but waiting for an answer.

Thanks
Jens

Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: JS23U] #2320095
06/12/17 07:17 PM
06/12/17 07:17 PM
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Supercuda Offline
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You don't have to modify anything, just use a two prong ballast in place of the 4 prong. Not sure why they wired a 4 prong setup in a 71 harness, should of done the two prong. below shows how to set up the two prong, color codes should be the same.



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Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: Supercuda] #2320168
06/12/17 09:21 PM
06/12/17 09:21 PM
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NachoRT74 Offline
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Originally Posted By Supercuda
Not sure why they wired a 4 prong setup in a 71 harness, should of done the two prong.


Because they can't guess if buyer will use 4 or 5 pins ECU


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Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: Supercuda] #2320179
06/12/17 09:34 PM
06/12/17 09:34 PM
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RapidRobert Offline
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Yes just use your 2 terminal ballast & in Supercudas' diagram the ECU main feed (#2) will be blue/yellow and the (#3) unused pigtail will be green/red. You may need to reverse #4 and #5, see where your timing/phasing is when you go to start it. EDIT corrected, the #1 main feed will be blue/yellow

Last edited by RapidRobert; 06/13/17 11:09 PM. Reason: made a mistake

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Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: NachoRT74] #2320193
06/12/17 09:52 PM
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Originally Posted By NachoRT74
Originally Posted By Supercuda
Not sure why they wired a 4 prong setup in a 71 harness, should of done the two prong.


Because they can't guess if buyer will use 4 or 5 pins ECU


I'd like to see where someone can still get a functional 5 pin ECU.


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Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: JS23U] #2320287
06/13/17 12:14 AM
06/13/17 12:14 AM
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NachoRT74 Offline
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Standard lx100 is one example... some Mopar replacements still available, some other aftermarket pieces. Still plenty out there.


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Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: NachoRT74] #2320316
06/13/17 12:54 AM
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RapidRobert Offline
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5 pinners with a functioning 5th pin (OE ECU's) require the 4 terminal "dual" ballast but a 5 pin with a dummy 5th pin or a 4 pin ECU can use a 2 terminal "single" ballast and with that last setup if using a dual ballast you can add a blue loop of wire on the other end of it to make it in effect a parallel "single" ballast to reduce the ohms for a slight degree of performance increase at the possible expense of longevity. You have ALOT of leeway on what you can and cannot get by with in regard to increasing the primary current with a lower ohm ballast. Always carry spares & your meter.


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Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: RapidRobert] #2320358
06/13/17 04:55 AM
06/13/17 04:55 AM
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JS23U Offline OP
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Thanks to everyone so far. Now I need to check the colors on the harness and compare it with the diagram.
In the meantime M&H answered. They suggested to just use a 4-prong resistor, nothing else needs to be modified.

A green lead with red tracer is coming out of the bulkhead connector and feeds the second half of the 4-prong resistor. It seems it was connected with something on my old harness. If I understand it correctly this one will be not used without a 5-pin ECU. So why is it there at all on a 71 (and earlier?) car?

Last edited by JS23U; 06/13/17 04:57 AM.
Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: JS23U] #2320416
06/13/17 09:22 AM
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Originally Posted By JS23U
Thanks to everyone so far. Now I need to check the colors on the harness and compare it with the diagram.
In the meantime M&H answered. They suggested to just use a 4-prong resistor, nothing else needs to be modified.

A green lead with red tracer is coming out of the bulkhead connector and feeds the second half of the 4-prong resistor. It seems it was connected with something on my old harness. If I understand it correctly this one will be not used without a 5-pin ECU. So why is it there at all on a 71 (and earlier?) car?


71 and earlier cars did not come with 4 prong ballasts or electronic ignition, which is the reason I was wondering why M&H put that style setup in your harness. It was eliminated for a reason years ago by the two prong setup.


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Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: Supercuda] #2320449
06/13/17 10:44 AM
06/13/17 10:44 AM
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That's interesting, I just installed a Year One(M&H) harness on my wife's 440 Six Pack 71 R/T Challenger.

I also bought the modified harness for big block with electronic ignition and mine came set up for the 2 prong ballast resister.
https://www.yearone.com/Product/Challenger-Cuda/HU117NM

Be careful installing the wiring harness connector into the firewall bulkhead, the plastic on the M&H harness is extremely brittle.
I also ordered the forward light wiring harness and one of the ears on the connector was broken when it arrived and the other ear broke off when I tried to squeeze it in.
The plastic connectors on the M&H wiring harnesses are very cheap and brittle compared to the factory connectors. down





Last edited by KillerBee; 06/13/17 12:02 PM.
Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: KillerBee] #2320959
06/14/17 04:31 AM
06/14/17 04:31 AM
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JS23U Offline OP
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KillerCuda: Thanks for the hint! I will take care. Have bought several harnesses and haven't inspected them yet...

I have ordered and not yet received a similar engine harness for my 70 Challenger. I wonder if that one will have 2-prong or 4-prong connectors.

Here is the answer from M&H if I could use a 2-prong BR with their harness:
"We just always encourage our customers to use the dual ballast resistor to prevent confusion. If using the single ballast, one side should include the brown and dark blue wire connection."
They tend to answer very quickly, so thumbs up for their support!

Last edited by JS23U; 06/14/17 04:31 AM.
Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: JS23U] #2321409
06/15/17 01:21 AM
06/15/17 01:21 AM
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NachoRT74 Offline
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Originally Posted By JS23U
If using the single ballast, one side should include the brown and dark blue wire connection."


Partially true... just on cars with still mech voltage regulators

Since Mopar began to use electronic regulator, the brown and blue wires spliced together become on two brown wires spliced together, because the coil + lead wire become brown like the one coming from ign switch, not anymore blue


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Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: NachoRT74] #2322004
06/16/17 06:03 AM
06/16/17 06:03 AM
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JS23U Offline OP
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Here is a pic of the ballast resistor of my Bee with the new M&H harness connected. As you can see the connectors are set up for the 4-prong br (have plastic shoes that incorporate two wires each).


As you can see on the upper left are the brown and blue wires that are needed. Bottom left is that green with red tracer wire that goes to the ECU and is not used on a 4-pin ECU. So this one can be left off. On the right are two identical blue wires. Are these spliced together somewhere in the harness? Will it matter which one of them I use? I understand that I only need both of the blue wires if I use the green w red tracer. So while not pretty the engine should run the way I have the harness connected to the BR. I will change the plastic shoes to single ones and isolate and hide the leftover ones.

To further confuse things the same engine harness has another (factory correct) green w red tracer wire that is used for the horns.

Re: Which ballast resistor on modified Yearone harness? [Re: JS23U] #2322021
06/16/17 09:25 AM
06/16/17 09:25 AM
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NachoRT74 Offline
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Doesn't matter which blue wire you use, both come from same splice. Originally in fact the two blue wires are really just one coming from the splice and then a jumper wire between both prongs.

Originally Posted By JS23U
A green lead with red tracer is coming out of the bulkhead connector and feeds the second half of the 4-prong resistor. It seems it was connected with something on my old harness. If I understand it correctly this one will be not used without a 5-pin ECU. So why is it there at all on a 71 (and earlier?) car?


Sorry missed this post

Yes, horn wire is also green traced red but usually a diff green shade from factory, darker to the horn. Maybe not on the new replacement harnesses. As you can see now, the green traced red up to ballast is not the one coming from bulkhead, but from ECU.


I can see you still got the correct blue and brown wires up to ballast to the year of the car even is upgraded to elect regulator. This mean you are getting two bluw wires up to ghe front of the engine, one with eyelet terminal to the coil and one with packard terminal up to alt field. This wasn't anymore on that way on originally elect reg cars, where the coil wire was changed to brown to make the diff from the alt field wire at the front of the engine

Last edited by NachoRT74; 06/16/17 09:37 AM.

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