Planning to rewire my car (Exocet) and need some newbe advice on solder vs. crimping, etc.

I've never tried wire tucking or any of that and truly I'm much more comfortable with a wrench in my hand than dealing with electrons.

However, I've got a car by definition that should really be rewired since the "stock" wiring is a mess. At this point the car is running and everything is working but I've probably got about 30lbs of excess wires and connectors ziptied together doing nothing for me.

1) Does anyone have links to good quality automotive grade rolls of wire they can point me at?

2) What is the preferred method to joining wires in a car that is going to spend a lot of time on the track (high vibration and heat)?

I used to think solder and heat shrink tubing was the way to go but it is too slow and messy and I've heard people say that solder doesn't hold up well in high vibration. I've also seen people say crimps work well but it is highly dependent on the crimps and crimp tool you use.

I'd really like to hear from people who have done wiring jobs on track cars on what works well and what has failed and why.

I would use crosslink primary wire, TXL preferred for thin wall insulation.

https://www.waytekwire.com/products/1454/Automotive-Cross-Link-Wire/&Insulation=Thin-Wall-Insulated

Crimp and heat shrink connectors for vibration and weather resistance.

https://www.waytekwire.com/products/1425/Butt-Connectors/&Insulation-Material=Heat-Shrink-Insulated-

And a decent ratcheting terminal crimper.

https://www.amazon.com/Tool-Aid-18920-Ratcheting-Terminal/dp/B0002STTTI

Solder can introduce cracks to the wire - not at the point where you did solder, but right next to it, in the transition area between the soldered strands and the 'loose' ones. Worst case is people crimping connectors either on wires that have been tinned with solder, or flow solder into a crimped connection.

I have soldered wires on cars before with decent results, but I usually keep the solder areas far enough away from other connections. Either way, if you do it from scratch, use crimped connectors. And get the best crimp connectors you can find, the cheap insulated stuff so beloved by legions of audio installers isn't that great. The stuff EvanB linked to looks much better.

+1 on the ratcheting crimper and quality crimps with heatshrink. Pretty much foolproof and solid. Failure rate of almost zero. I get my crimp connectors from DelCity.net but they're the same sort as in the link.

The wire that's in your car already is really good quality and easy to troubleshoot because there are diagrams for it. I'd modify the stock harness and wires instead of starting from scratch for ease of future maintenance. That also lets you go step by step - make a change, test the car. Grounds take weird paths in the OE harness.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

So you would recommend just adding or removing length to the existing wires rather than rerunning them? The unused ones I can just prune out.

Yup. I've done it both ways - building from scratch and modifying stock. On a running Exocet, I'd definitely modify stock.