Hey ,
I recently purchased a Ron Francis wiring kit for my 68 Cougar xr7. I was wondering if anyone have ever wired it to the sequential box; I have the digital box. Also has anyone had any experience wiring this to there cougar and I could run into done this project road.
Thanks,
Christopher West 
Do you have a link to this harness? My first thought would be no,…as you more than likely have a Mustang harness. Possible solution; if this is a resto-mod project, is to get a mechanical flasher can which you could open up and widen the point gap to delay the signal and install dynamite sticks ( http://www.cobranda.com/19shtadysts.html ),…by-passing the sequential box.
P.S. I see they have a delayed relay available for proper sequencing speed.
Skip the box and use mustang project LED setup with the sequencers built in, then you can just connect the wires. Very simple.
According to MustangProject, their sequencer will work with just about any harness, be it Painless, Ron Francis, or…???
Which RF did you(original poster) go with? I’ve been eyeballing the Access 24/7…
thanks for the tips. Okay if i get the mustang box. how did you fabricate it to the cougar tail lights?? Plus i would hate to waste the solid box that i got from WCC a year ago.
This project almost always turns out a disaster on an XR7. There are just two many unique circuits to deal with if you are trying to retain the original functionality. You will be money and time ahead to ditch this now and get good condition original harness parts to rebuild the car. These after market harnesses are great if you are building a hot rod or doing a full on custom. The real benefit they provide is for old cars that had very few available circuits to work with. They allow you to add a bunch of stuff like power windows and locks and AC and so on. They can work in a “newer” car where you are not trying to use much, if any, of the original instruments or features in the car. As an example, your XR-7 has a door ajar feature that illuminates a warning lamp in the over head console. The after market wiring harness is not designed to support this feature. The low fuel indicator is another major consideration. You will need to have to design and build your own prove out circuit and most of the rest of the circuit including the relay and ballast resistor. The turn signals will be a hand full as well because you really have multiple independent systems operating to flash the front signals, the indicators on the dash and the rear sequential system, you will also need to isolate this from the brake light circuit as well as the emergency flasher circuit.
You can get B stock harness that may have a few splices for relatively cheap prices and they will work fine. Don’t sweat the splices, there will be hundreds few of them than what you will end up with using any aftermarket harness.
If you doubt my advice you can get a quick reality check by calling one of the Cougar restoration guys and asking them what they would charge to install the after market harness. You need to get advice from people that are familiar with Cougar particularly XR-7, not Mustang, as electrically they are vastly different cars. I have been doing 12 volt electronics professionally for about 40 years, and I can tell you that I would not touch the project, even with my knowledge of electronics.
If you are doing a full on custom car then what works and how it works is up to you. Just be sure to have a very good understanding of how to do things right. There is an excellent book that covers this: Automotive Wiring and Electrical Systems by Tony Candela. It is super easy to read and understand. Remember: most serious electrical problems identify themselves by catching on fire.
Thanks again, I am taking everything end.
The reason I chose to run new wiring harness is because I am running electric fans, electric water pump, electric fuel pump, which i was told that the orignal wiring harness for the xr7 will not work well with those items. the Over head console i gave up on that since I am trying to make a road rally car with this. I just want my turn signals to work like the oringnal. Other than that the interior lights i really don’t care about. and my XR7 gauges work perfectly with the new Harness.
I guess I just need to find out what wires on the box does what. and Ron will tell me what wires go where.
I am surprised that the amp meter is working. It requires a shunt of a fairly specific resistance to operate properly. In any case, considering where you are going with the car, you might be better off replacing it with a volt meter, and Rocketman offers one that looks perfect. We put one in my sons restomod and we really like it.
Running a bunch of high current devices like the electric fans and water pump will require that you have a much more powerful alternator and the big wires that go with it. This pretty much insures that the stock ammeter will not read very accurately as the large charging lead from the alternator to the battery will have less resistance than the original.
It will require more horsepower to run the electric fan and water pump than the original belt driven versions. What happens is that you have to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy (the alternator does this) and then convert the electrical energy back to mechanical energy in each of the electric motors. This is not opinion it is simple physics. There are several other reasons why you might want to run electrics, but making more horse power is not one of them. Serious drag racers run them as they want to be able to run the engine cooling when the engine is not running, and they also have problems with over-speeding the pump or the fan at full throttle and then having them spin too slowly at or near idle.
Maybe if you tell us a little bit more about how you plan to use the car we can give you some more free and easily ignored advice LOL!
Sorry for the lack of information I did not think the engine info was needed to help me figure out what wires does what on the solid state sequintial box that i got from WCC.
I am currently running a 347 ci with AFR 205 heads, .622 int, 628 ext. lift comp cam, victor jr intake, 650 speed demon carb.
-the eng is balanced less than a half of gram.
-the engine was built by Genuine Auto Parts in Kailua, HI. 580 hp @ 7200 rpm 443 ft lbs 4400 rpm.
this car is not for drag racing. I am building this car for long endurace road rally type races from check point to check point. Like Targa Tasmania
Thanks,
Chris
That’s a beast of a 347! Nice motor!
I worked on Mad Mike Halley’s works Peugeot Pro Rally car back in the early 80’s. He was very good at breaking stuff. “Works” meant that they gave him a shipping damaged 504 body, a new V6 to go in it, a couple sets of rally tires and a stack of Peugeot stickers. He drives a VW new bettle now… go figure.
Sounds like you have already dealt with a few of the electrical demons. For what you will be doing the only thing I would question might be the water pump, and that would be based on reliability issues more than anything else.
Do you plan on running anything off the tarmac?
No I will stay strictly road racing.
and for a water pump i will be going CSR. because i have a friend that has one in his box chevy and he has been driving it from AZ to VA, down to Parris Island,SC he has close to 100,000 miles on it and haven’t had any issues.
That’s better than most belt driven pumps. I am a keep it simple stupid kind of guy so typically adding complexity scares me. Sounds like this works though.
The off road stuff really tore up those pro rally cars. it was nothing to remove part of a tree or a huge rock form the under side of the car.
I hope you keep us updated on this.
I put a Kwik Wire kit in my 68. New gauges, electric fuel pump, etc. All the lighting is much improved and I’m very pleased with the results. Due to the specific nature of the factory sequentials, including the solid state version, I removed all of that and installed sequential modules for the brake lights. They are cheap and very simple to install. The speed of the sequencing is increased but the power draw is way down as well. The modules require LED bulbs and flasher unit. If you go this route be aware that all LED tail bulbs are not created equal. You want as many lights per bulb as you can because the original housings don’t reflect well with LED’s. Also, because the center brake/blinker light fires with the front blinker light trying to marry the two systems is a nightmare.
Good to see another rally enthusiast on the forum. This is my friends car from Targa Tasmania. Car is very quick because of his attention to suspension and brakes. In 2012 he was 2nd in Classic Rally Class by 1 second. This year he was beaten by a V8 Jensen, but was able to beat a number of Shelby’s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0NZfHEpO5k
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I once managed a forest rally team for a few years, running RX2/3/4, Volvos and a Peugeot 203 in classic events. Life was a lot simpler then and you could afford to run in an international event (Southern Cross Series). Now the price of an entry in Targa Tasmania, even in the Touring Class, is nearly $10k, plus accommodation, the cost of running the car plus the cost of the service crew. My Eliminator is set up for tarmac work and gets a run at the local racetrack every now and then but I haven’t run it in a proper pace-noted tarmac event yet.
Back to the topic. We put an aftermarket wiring harness into a local Mustang a while back. If you have the Mustang harness there are less issues than with the generic harness as the generic harness is set up for GM style wiring. The key differences are with the wiper circuit and the indicators. The wipers won’t park correctly unless you use the Ford wiring harness from the switch to the wiper motor, including the foot pump. You will also need the harness from the heater controls to the heater resistor. The easiest way to get sequentials is to use the kit from Mustang Project to suit a Shelby conversion and wire the front and rear indicator circuits as per a mustang (the Cougar has a weird setup for front indicactors and dash lights)
Probably the easiest way to wire a 68 Cougar for extra electrics is to
Under hood fuse box and relays - using mini-relays - in the 68
Avoid using a computer controlled fan system like SPAL or Dakota digital as they will get destroyed in a competition car. A Tridon TFS111 thermo switch is better than SPAL 195 as SPAL cuts the fans out below 180F - the thermostat makes sure they never cut out unless the sender is in the lower radiator tank
BTW - you can convert your 68 washers to electric by using a 69 washer bottle and replacing the foot pump bulb with a momentary switch mounted on a bracket below the pedal. Leave the existing wiring in place as you can still use the pedal for intermittent wipe.
Switch panel for all the extra stuff - with a separate on/off for the a/c so I can have a/c on every setting
I have been doing 12 volt electronics professionally for about 40 years, and I can tell you that I would not touch the project, even with my knowledge of electronics.
What is the best way to integrate additional electric devices (like fans or aftermarket AC) if you are using an original harness and fuse box? Can a more modern style fuse box be used to replace the OEM panel? Easy for the Mustang guys - not so much for us.
UPDATE!!!
With the help of Vic Yarberry @ Cougars Unlimited I was able to wire up my 1968 Cougar XR7 with the Ron Francis Express wiring to the sequential box and it works perfectly. I am very happy and I will Post a Video by this weekend on the success. Thanks for all the tips and advice to help me do this. Now I can run Electric water pump, Electric Fans, Electric Fuel pump, and Get the F.A.S.T fuel system put in without over loading the electrical system.
Chris 
I want a full detailed TECH article, not just pics, man!!!
Vic is doing a final draft of the full schematic for it. So when he is done with it I will share it for other people that wish to get the Ford Express wiring harness from Ron Francis.
Awesome, you rock! (Vic, too!)