North American Turbocoupe Organization



Wiring schematics needed for 88 Turbo Coupe
Biffy B Offline
Junior Member
#1
Hello, I am ditching the turbo 4 for a carb V8 engine. I started pulling the wiring out today and it was a pain. It has 2 bundles of wires going into the firewall on the passenger side. The top is mainly all EFI which I got pulled out. The other is mixed in with other wires and looks to be the ABS/Shock system wires that run to the back of the car. It looks like it has 2 big relays under the vacuum tree which I disconnected from the solenoid. Does someone have a schematic before I decide to just chop them off? I am dumping the ABS and Electric Shock System. Worried about getting into wires for the dash, but those are supposed to be on the driver side for the most part I think. I am giving the EFI wiring to the next owner. Thanks in advance!
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boboli Offline
Member
#2
I'm pretty sure both of those relays are for the abs and can be deleted, if you're ditching the abs. The main power sources are still by the starter relay and come from the same fusible links as other mustangs.
I'd think to carb your car, you only need to figure out the wiring to the dash gauges and powering the ignition and starter. You'll probably loose the ircm so if u want ac, fan control, etc you'll have to work that out.
Try rothfam.com for diagrams. They may only cover engine wiring.
1988 turbo tbird, 5spd, 140k, all stock except boost control valve.
1986 dodge omni glh turbo, 111k, my money pit.
1989 mustang Lx 5.0 convertible, tropical yellow/ tan interior, 1of only 144 made, 164k, aod, all stock including overheating TFI!
89 Jaguar XJS convertible, LT1 conversion, now fighting the prince of darkness (aka Lucas electronics)
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Biffy B Offline
Junior Member
#3
Thank you Boboli. Yeah I checked the site and only got the EFI and the IRCM. I do in fact want to keep the AC. I need to find which wire connects to the switch in the dash. Ahhh so maybe I can keep those 2 relays up front and cut the wire back from inside the car. Need to check the rating on them because perhaps I could use them as the fan relays or the AC? I may just scrap the wiring as it uses fusible links and instead find an engine bay fuse box with relays out of the scrap yard. Still not sure if I am going to keep the stock dash vs new gauges. Making a new gauge cluster may be easier in the long run from the drawing I saw online. I will need to find a wire to run the ignition off of, but ran out of time for that. Thanks!
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Pete D Offline
Administrator
#4
One of the two relays mounted on the firewall is for the hydraulic pump motor for the brakes, That one is not for abs, it's part of the regular brake system. Unless you are going to convert to a vacuum power brakes, don't disable the pump.
Pete Dunham


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firebirdparts Offline
Member
#5
Where are you in NC? I might want to buy your trash.
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boboli Offline
Member
#6
As Pete said, if you aren't converting to vacuum brakes, be careful on what you remove.
But those relays won't effect the AC operation. Find a diagram of the ircm. This will show you what wires run the AC. If you leave the ircm alone, you shouldn't lose ac. But if you want to delete it, the diagram of the ircm will show you the wire from the switch in the dash. If this wire is positive, you could probably just run it to one side of the pressure switch. Then the rest of the circuit should be there. You'll need a way to trigger the electric fan to come on at the same time as the ac
1988 turbo tbird, 5spd, 140k, all stock except boost control valve.
1986 dodge omni glh turbo, 111k, my money pit.
1989 mustang Lx 5.0 convertible, tropical yellow/ tan interior, 1of only 144 made, 164k, aod, all stock including overheating TFI!
89 Jaguar XJS convertible, LT1 conversion, now fighting the prince of darkness (aka Lucas electronics)
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Biffy B Offline
Junior Member
#7
Thanks all! Yes I will be going to vacuum brakes and probably the 93 Cobra setup with 2001 brakes for front and 1998 rear for my 5 lug conversion. Upon reading how many issues people have with those relays really makes me think I need to find some 90s-00's relay boxes out of another Ford. I scored a really nice one with 4 of them for my other project....came off a big car with a 4.6 at the Pull a Part.

I am about 30 minutes NW of Winston, Joe. Well the engine and trans are supposed to be sold, along with the wiring and the EEC. Unless you are looking at needing the ABS for parts? None of those are spoken for. The brakes worked, but lights were on on the dash. On my little test run they worked okay, but the previous owner did say the pedal would get hard at random times.

I will look for that wire Boboli. I believe I already did cut it from the IRCM as it was the only way to get it out from the harness. The fan stuff I am not too worried about since I can wire that pretty easily like my last car. I just have to learn all the parts of the A/C to make it work together (I usually ditch the A/C, but I would like to keep it on this one). Smile I for sure don't want to clip that A/C wire to the switch and have to run a new one. I did make sure to cut out all the A/C pigtails so I have those, but may not need the compressor one depending on which I run. I did notice the 88' 5.0 Mustang used the same plug in, so that's promising.

Thanks!!

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firebirdparts Offline
Member
#8
I got on ebay last night and found multiple copies of the wiring diagrams. I don't have a set, but I bought a set 30 years ago for the Mark VII, and I really like the original Ford format - big sheets.

Winton is really far away from me! My car is low mileage original, so I'm just trying to preserve it, mostly. I am wondering how I keep some of the more oddball stuff working, like the suspension.
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Biffy B Offline
Junior Member
#9
Thanks Joe. I did go on there and found some for a reasonable price. I was wondering though, one of them has like a smaller blue and white book with a tech on it that says "Wiring and vacuum manual"....then the other is just larger white pages that fold out from dealerships. Is one of them better than the other? I was thinking the larger sheets would be more informative to actual wires. They don't specifically say "Turbo Coupe" so hopefully they cover all Thunderbirds.

Yeah my car is not a low mileage super nice one like you have. It is in decent shape (200k miles), but not really a collectible shape. That's why no tears to be spilled over this one as I saved it from being a full part out/crusher car. Fixing everything to spec on it would have cost way too much. It will be going the way of more Mustang drive-train, less Thunderbird (If that makes any sense). LOL
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firebirdparts Offline
Member
#10
That wiring and vacuum diagrams book, I have never seen one like that. Could buy it and see what it is, but for $50, I didn't. I have a couple of "electrical and vacuum troubleshooting manuals", but I am sure everybody sees those. Lots of them on ebay. They have the wiring diagrams all broken up into subsystems, which is not a bad thing. Smaller format. I have one for the F150, I will look at it and see how interesting it looks.
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