88 B2 97 Expo 5.0 wiring questions with pics

Well I started gathering parts to do a 5.0 swap in my 88 Bronco 2, and have a few wiring questions after hours of research. This is my first swap with fuel injection and this much wiring so bear with me. I bought a motor out of a 97 Explorer and it was already pulled and on a stand. motor still has engine harness on it and came with pretty much every wire out of the explorer. I still need to get wiring diagrams for the explorer and all that but looking at these harnesses I have a few questions that I cannot find the answers to. What appears to be the engine bay harness that plugs into the actual engine harness via the large black connector, seems to have plugs for the body harness with the air bag module and all that as well.. does this all get removed from the engine bay harness? im guessing I don't need anything from the body harness... I have some pics to describe what I am talking about

This picture im guessing is the body harness being it has the airbag module in it



This is the big connector on the body harness that the three large connectors that go in this seem to be on the engine bay harness.



This is what Im guessing would be the engine bay harness that the main engine harness plugs into



And in that harness here are the 3 plugs that corospond with the body harness



so does this harness come apart to get rid of some of this stuff?

here is more of the engine bay harness



and the engine harness



any insight or help would be appreciated! Thank you

You can get rid of some of it, but it doesn't just come apart. You have to de-pin connectors. It'll mean removing almost all the wrap from the harness. It'll probably be more work than it's worth IMO..

So do I have to use anything from the body harness? Or should I just tuck the stuff I'm not using away somewhere?

If the OBD2 stuff is like the older (91) then the body harness should be completely separate from the Engine/Underhood harness. Just have to get power to/from the right pins between them. (Mostly in and out from the ignition switch etc.)

Not as bad as it looks!

Essentially, you can pitch most of the harness in the bin. Your 3rd picture down shows the engine to engine bay harness connector.

That connector has 42 pins (yea, scary) but only about a half dozen of them need to be hooked up to anything to get the PCM to light off and run the engine.

You'd be well served to grab the few extra that get you a check engine light and the ODBII connections but still, out of 42 pins, you're still under a dozen to be fully functional.

Awesome that's what I wanted to hear

So I have been reading a lot on the thread that RangerSVT put the 2000 motor in an 88 B2 and the first time I looked at it, it would only let me see 3 pages so I couldn't see all the wiring on page 10. But what it looks like if im seeing this right is I can cut the wires off of the engine bay harness side of the 42 pin black plug like you mentioned in my third pic down and just wire the wires I need into that?

in short yes....or make your own adapter with the other side of the 42 pin.

but i have a bad habit of over simplifying shit.

That's what I meant to say.. I won't be able to start digging into this until next week sometime but I'm sure I'll have a ton more questions once I dig into it more. Thanks!

Next question, Fuel system... Ive read that the factory bronco 2 pumps will keep up with the 5.0, and then I have also read that they wont come close to pumping enough volume to keep up. Does a 97 explorer use just an in tank pump or does it use a separate high pressure pump on the frame like the bronco does? I would reeeaally like to get rid of the pump up on the frame rail of the bronco, because where I have my motor set, the exhaust will be almost touching the heat shield for the pump... Ive been looking around quite a bit at mustang fuel set ups but haven't quite found what I am looking for yet... I would also like to put a fuel cell in the back, to get the tank out of the way of rocks and be able to beef up the back of the frame a little bit...

The '97 Expo uses single pump submerged in the fuel tank, only needs to supply a steady 35 - 40 psi to the '97's fuel rail where the FPR will route any excess flow and pressure back to the tank.

I wonder If I can get an explorer pump mounted in a fuel cell.. or maybe a wahlbro or similar mounted on the frame rail..