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Well I am finally working on my car again (carb'd 302) with some help of some friends and after looking at the harness I did years ago I am not happy with how it came out and I was wondering if it would be better to go with an aftermarket harness. I have seen the Ron Francis one and it looks good but I was wondering if there were others and how people liked whatever one that they purchased for ease of installation and reliability?
FFR has transitioned through various vendors over the years and they all worked well in their time. My kit came with an American Autowire Factory Fit 12 which was perfect for my carb'd 351 build. If you are fuel injected or have other complications you'll just have to determine who or what best meets your needs.
For what it's worth, I just installed the latest Ron Francis chassis harness in my coupe and was very happy with the fit, etc. There was a recent thread by a professional builder (Mark Dougherty) commenting on what a good product the latest harness is. A few aspects of the instructions were either not crystal clear or seemed to assume a builder with more than my modest knowledge, but overall I was very happy with the product. I can't speak to any other options, or comment on prior iterations of the Ron Francis harness.
Did an early Mk3 with a generic Painless harness, and three builds (well 2 finished and 1 underway) with the Factory Five Ron Francis harness. I have no reservations recommending the Ron Francis harness. As already mentioned, it has recently undergone a couple of changes making it even more straightforward. To be clear, the same harness is provided for the Roadster, Coupe and Hot Rod. So it's perhaps a compromise a little for whatever you're building. But still a big jump ahead compared to buying an off the shelf generic harness IMO. Probably the biggest confusion factor for the harness is the integration of whatever gauges you use with the harness. That especially has been improved. But still requires a little fiddling. Overall through, for a carb'd 302, an easy installation. The harness comes with a decent manual and a detailed schematic. If you can follow the schematic you shouldn't have any trouble.
I am in the middle of the wiring process with the Ron Francis harness and so far it has been very nice! it lays out well, at least for what I need. For reference I have a carb'd 408w and the GPS gauges although I haven't gotten into the gauges yet the instructions for that part of it seem pretty good. I would recommend it RF.
I used an older version of the Ron Francis harness on my Mk 3.1 Roadster. Worked great. If it is improved, sounds like it will be even better.
I've got the Ron Francis Harness that came with my MK-4, which was delivered early in 2015, and this Novice Builder Really Likes It!
I did unbind it a bit so that I could shift things around in order to move the fuse block to the passenger side of the car.
Taking this action really gave me tons of room in the driver's side foot box plus makes installing the windshield easier while improving fuse block access.
http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/album...chmentid=51762
http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/album...chmentid=51771
Understand that I'm not a big fan of wiring and feel like the Ron Francis set up helped this guy do a professional looking job, in spite of my fuse block move.
Be advised that I only had to extend the brake light switch so the fuse block move makes getting at the master cylinders a breeze.
In addition, I did need to flip the blinkers from side to side which is very fitting for my project since this is truly a Dark/Dart Side Build.
Hard to beat the RF harness.
Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the feedback!
I'd go w/ the current RF harness. That way when you have questions, there will be a ton of people w/ that exact harness so a question about a
'green' wire at the 'xyz' connector will make sense.
Well thanks to you and others I pulled the trigger on a Ron Francis wiring harness, thanks again!
If you decide to put it on the WRONG side of the car, then give me a yell via PM.
Good Luck With Your Build!