OK - early November 2025 and it's been a busy year for me at CBS. I've been condensing our catalogue to A5 format to produce a cheaper - 'at a glance' version listing of our products and I've been condensing the A4 catalogue from 435 to 356 pages to save on the considerable printing and postage costs of 20,000 copies.

Also, in truth, I've been struggling with my mojo. I'm not getting any younger and it's been difficult to find enough time and motivation to tackle what is, for me, the most difficult part of the build so far.  Preparing to fire-up up the engine will take a lot of both, but it makes sense to get the 27 year-old engine fired up - even just for a few seconds before the big expense of exhaust fabrication and fitting the main tub.

A couple of days ago I gave myself a talking-to and decided to have a go at the wiring. 

I hope you enjoy reading about it because I'm writing it all down just as much for myself as a public CBS blog.

Here's the original invoice for the engine from 2006. It had already been sitting in its crate for eight years when I bought it. Remember  - this included transmission, exhaust, all ancillaries (starter, alternator, air-con compressor, all the wiring and ECU)

'''''  and here is the full 7 - page spec. of the engine:

.... and here is the original Ron Francis invoice from 2010 detailing the ECU reprogramming and the harness design to my specification for UK IVA emission rules. 

£ to $ Exchange rate in 2010 was about $1.60 to the pound

This is the original engine loom - carefully unwrapped, labelled and removed from the engine.

The replacement 'Ron Francis' loom is supplied as a set of individual wire bundles in labelled bags with the correct, pre-wired plugs and connectors for the coils and every engine sender. There is ample length to connect to the designated terminals on the dedicated fuse panel, wherever I choose to locate it. Amazingly, every wire is printed along its length with its purpose and the fuse box terminal number it should connect to. Fool-proof instructions link the bag number with its purpose and its  'from' and 'to' route.

Here's just one of the bags - the Datalink connector and wiring. It could turn out to be the most important one.

Here I've laid out all the wire bundles across the engine and connected each plug to it's matching sender. You can just see the new fuse, relay and connector panel at the bottom of the picture with its short output bundle leading to the multi-pin connector and the re-flashed ECU on the right of the picture. Each bundle has three or four wires, each about eight metres long to allow for the most indirect route around the engine bay to the connector board.

Here's how clever and thorough the guys from Ron Francis are. Each wire is printed along it's whole length - in white ink for darker wire colours and black ink for lighter wire colours. The red wire is from the LEFT ignition coil connecting to terminal 10 on the panel. There's even a little arrow showing you which way to read the number. The others are - Throttle position sensor, Mass airflow sensor and Left Front Oxygen sensor. It's about as foolproof as it gets (in theory).

If you're tackling a similar job, all the tools and parts you'll need can be found in our catalogue and on our website www.carbuilder.com

Here is the loom connection panel. Four rows of 30 numbered terminals. 120 connections for the pre-insulated forked connectors. As this is just a trial run for the engine I've left all the wires at their full, sacrificing a set of terminals. 

Remember - this is just the engine wiring. Instruments, lights, cockpit, A/C etc will all run from one of our Wiring Modules

All the engine wiring is connected. I've terminated each wire at it's full length so there's tons of spare wire on almost every circuit, but it's hanging clear of the exhaust and the serpentine belt. Tidying, shortening, wrapping and neat routing will come after the engine has been fired up. 

I've set up a temporary fuel tank (borrowed from the Berkeley) with filters, a swirl pot and one of our #INJP4 pumps. I've connected an ignition switch, a battery warning light and ECU light and a Voltmeter and Oil Pressure gauge.

I bought a new battery and connected live +12v feeds through our #BDB3R, battery clamp distribution board and for the neg -12v feeds through our #QDIS2.

I've borrowed this diagram from our catalogue. It'll give you an idea of the basic battery wiring

The engine coolant plumbing is complete but I've not yet added coolant. This will be the next step after the engine has fired for a few seconds.

Here's the Berkeley fuel tank - perched above the swirl pot, filter and pump so it will gravity feed the system. The engine fuel rail feed inlet is 15mm diameter and the return is 12mm so I have used a selection of joiners and reducers to connect it all up.

I've borrowed an old instrument display panel and fitted a starter/ignition switch, ignition/battery light and an ECU/engine light.  The white faced Volt and Oil pressure instruments are the only ones connected at this stage. For now I have retained and connected  the original Ford oil pressure sender which may or may not be matched to the gauge and could give an inaccurate reading. But it should read something and indicate that we have oil pressure. I have used black and red busbars for temporary Ignition live feed and earth.

If all goes well, the wires will be shortened and tidied into a neat engine bay loom and re-terminated to the distribution board which will be safely mounted inside the body sill section.

Friday 28th November. I asked Matt to check over my wiring and fuel installation and I invited our Marketing Manager, Adam as an additional pair of eyes to check for sparks, smoke or anything extraordinary as I tried to fire up the engine for the first time. 

First, we disconnected the fuel pump live feed and connected the main live feed and earth to a brand new battery ......  and spun the engine over to check for oil pressure. As I half expected, the mismatch between the Oil Pressure Gauge and the original Ford sender didn't give us a trustworthy reading on the gauge so, peering down the oil filler hole in the rocker cover soon confirmed a healthy flow of oil through the engine.

Next we connected the fuel pump + 12 volts supply, switched on the ignition and primed the fuel system flow and return. 

Eventually we all felt ready to spin over the engine with all systems live ....... NOTHING....... not a single bang, burp or fart. We spun it for twenty seconds or so to make sure fuel had reached the injectors. NADA.

Matt took out a plug and checked for a spark - Yessss - we had ignition. He disconnected an injector plug and checked for a voltage pulse - Yes - we had power to the injectors. It's a simple, two bolt job to release the left hand fuel rail and remove an injector. Matt connected 12 volts + and - directly to the injector terminals whilst blowing through it, clearing a stale-smelling orange goo that had been patiently waiting and possibly protecting the injector internals for almost thirty years.

I refitted the injector and fuel rail and spun the engine over again......   YESSS  .... one cylinder firing per revolution so I removed the air filter inlet, both sides of the fuel rail and all the injectors. I wired an injector plug from the old engine loom to a positive and negative 12 volts supply and cleaned each injector with brake cleaner and an air line. All but one of them cleared nicely and produced a perfect, symmetrical cone of brake cleaner from the nozzle. Just one refused to clear properly, delivering a sideways 'spurt'. I refitted them all hoping that the duff one would clear when it gets hot. 

A few more revs on the starter and the engine coughed and spluttered into life. I let it idle for ten seconds, confident that there were no suspicious mechanical noises and that it was OK to fill the cooling system ready for a longer run.

The cooling system took 20 litres of water and, as is usual with mid-engined cars took a while to bleed through to the heater and radiator. When we were satisfied that there was enough water in the system for a longer run we fired it up again. It ran sweetly for twenty seconds or so before popping a large flame from the left hand cat. With the fuel pump disconnected we fired it again and it ran for a second or two. There was obviously a fuel problem. Suspecting incorrect fuel pressure, I cobbled up a pressure gauge for the checking point on the fuel rail which gave a perfect result - 2.7 bar ( 39 psi). The remaining suspect was the injectors themselves - possibly sticking and overfueling. No surprise considering their, almost thirty year hibernation. So I took them all out and a customer of ours sent them in, one of their batches to a specialist, for checking, cleaning and reconditioning, if necessary.

...... and here's their summary. 

While I waited for the injectors to come back I cut one of the redundant threaded Oxygen sensor bosses from a discarded section of the original Ford exhaust and cut a hole for it in the modified collector, just before the left hand cat. I'll take it for welding and install the two oxygen sensors before firing up the engine again.

Friday 19th December 2025. Almost twenty eight years after my engine, number G6443, was built by Vaughan Herbert and Bob McIntyre at the Romeo plant in Romeo, Michigan, USA.

I refitted the Injectors and both cats back with oxygen sensors and still it's not right. The engine will fire and run for a few seconds but soon misfires and dies with a flaming pop from one of the cats. I spend a few restless nights trying to recall the faded principles of fuel injection and engine management that were second nature twenty years ago. 

I found, and sorted a loose terminal on a water temp sensor and an un-tightened manifold vacuum union on the fuel pressure regulator - neither serious enough to cause the running problem but I fitted a temporary vacuum gauge to check manifold vacuum. 19 inches of mercury - perfect.

I decided to go through all the engine wiring harnesses again and check that I have connected them to the correct terminals on the distribution board.

Whilst checking the coiled bundles of wire I noticed a taped bundle of four coloured wires but with only three colours exiting the bundle and connected to the board. I'd missed one from the mass air flow sensor and I'd missed another from the throttle position sensor. Simple mistakes that I probably wouldn't have made years ago but, at least pleased that I'd found a possible cause of the misfire.

I turned the key one more time and the big engine fired up and settled to a smooth tickover. 

As the engine was warming up I checked temperatures all round with one of our Infrared Thermometers - exhaust manifolds for equal-ish temperatures around each exhaust outlet, temperature of each catalytic converter, the thermostat housing for it's opening temperature, flow to and return from the radiator and even hot water flow through the heater matrix.

It's been a long time since I experienced the huge sense of satisfaction and relief when a new engine fires-up perfectly for the first time but it was still just as exciting. From the factory, with all the emissions stuff fitted the power was quoted as 305 hp. Removing the surplus emissions bits should give a few extra hp. That'll do nicely.

Mission accomplished  - at least to this stage. I've proved that the engine and cooling system - with all my modifications, work fine. I'll wire up the rad fans and fire the engine again for a longer period to get it up to running temperature and I'll fill and bleed the clutch hydraulics to make sure that's working, and I have all the gears and drive to the hubs. Then, if all's OK, I'll disconnect all the engine loom wires, drain the coolant, remove the temporary fuel system and begin the long-awaited challenge of fitting the centre tub for the final time.

Thanks for reading.