good copper and wire joints
I stick with Toyota/Lexus due to the fact that it gives me an abundance of white wires with a black stripe (W-B/chassis ground), as well as brown wires (BR/sensor ground) and wire loom sections. Staying with Toyota also allows me to keep Toyota ground colors the same (W-B or BR). The most valuable items in these harnesses are the wire splits, these are usually found near the ignition coils (heavier gauge) and throughout the harness for the 5v splits and sensor ground splits (smaller gauge). Unfortunately, Toyota doesn't have a common wire color they use for 5v wire supply across different models. The big downside is disecting the harness, the electrical tape leaves a residue on the wires, and there is a glue around the wires to protect them where they go through the firewall, but dedicate a few hours to it and you'll have all the wires sorted for your project!
Quick Disconnect Connector
You can actually order these pins from Ballenger motorsports, but I've mostly gotten the connectors from junkyard toyotas. In the Toyota/Lexus models with the ECU in the engine bay you should find them in the same plastic box the ECU is in. They should be kept out of dusty/wet environments since they aren't water/dust resistant. These connectors are GREAT for quick disconnects, troubleshooting, or swapping one sensor wire out for another based of where you'll be driving.
There are 2 main types, the first type has wires that snap into one side, and the opposing size has a lid with a connection joiner underneath (right picture). The plate joins the wires together that feed into the other side. Some of these have split plates and some have one solid plate to join two types of wires. I prefer to use these over splicing multiple wires together. The second type is a male plug on one side and a female plug on the other side. I have one wired in near my engine management mounted in the interior, it allows me to quickly replace an input or output for the less necessary sensors if I need to connect a sensor for diagnostic purposes.
Part numbers are not listed in my OE Electrical Wiring Diagram book, but these connectors can easily be found in a junkyard. (under the dash, behind the front door panels, and near interior fuse boxes)
Tools
I use barrel crimpers and you can purchase a set like I have from amazon along with some barrels for around $30. These have probably crimped more than 1000 connections by now (AMP, Tyco, Deutsch, Delphi, etc). The only downside is that they're cheap, and along with that comes the quality of the crimp, BUT on the barrels I always flip the crimpers over after I crimp the connection and crimp the wire again. This folds down the ridges created on barrel splices. When crimping pins I just don't squeeze so hard that it deforms the crimp. Just make sure you put your heatshrink on first so you don't have to cut the wire and start over!
