What would I be missing if I go for the Professional Level course as opposed to Club Level?

Hoping someone can chime in with some wisdom. I'm currently building a CJ7, that will have a gen V chevy transplant, and will see considerable use offroad. The main interest in the Professional level course is having a completely sealed harness as water/mud/salty beach sand will be a frequent reality for this Jeep. And concentric twisting is pretty cool and fascinates me. I don't know that I'll do it, but I'm not concerned by the extra expense, and have or have access to most tools necessary. And I don't generally need much of an excuse to buy more. He with the most tools and all that. So maybe, why not?

So my question is this: What education will I be missing by taking the Professional Level course that I would get from the Club Level? Thanks for any guidance.

Hello Matthew bit of a tricky one because everyone is at a different level

I have 30 years of all levels of motorsport tuning wiring etc and I learnt and refreshed my brain with the basic coarse so I recommend it to all to do it

Regards Ross Honnor

Thanks for the reply Ross. The first thing I did was take the fundamentals course, sorry I forgot to mention that. The thoughtful and thorough nature of the instruction is what sold me on making the investment in the higher level courses, and eventually the tuning courses as well. My main question is the difference between the club level and pro level courses. Or more accurately whether taking the pro level would leave a gap in knowledge that would have been filled by the club level.

I'm not a stranger to electrical theory or practical application, though I'm certainly not an expert. My discipline of engineering isn't electrical, but learning what I need isn't intimidating. I have a lot of downtime and nowhere to go when I'm out on the drillship, might as well put it to good use, ha.

Thank you.

Or I guess another way, are the courses a progression? Like level 1:fundamentals, level 2:club level, level 3:professional and should be learned in that order? Or are club and professional both the same level, just with different focus? I just don't want to take club level, then buy the professional course and discover that pro covers everything in club level and adds more to it. I don't mind buying both, I just want to make sure that I NEED to.

Thank you.

Some parts of the motorsport course builds on the club level course. Hard to say if you really need the club level course, but atleast for me, a happy amateur building cars in my home garage, club level was a great start before I took the motorsport course. Some of the planing and preparation is not that well shown in the motorsport course but well covered in the club level course (harness layout and section measurements for example)

I too really like the idea of making motorsport harnesses for all my projects but it is just not realistic as the time it takes to do it right is hard to justify when I only get maybe 10hrs/week in my garage. If what you need is a sealed harness for mud/water I think it could be accomplished at the club sport level as you could boot connectors and use DR-25 for sheathing.

Starting from 0 and getting everything you need to build club level harnesses can be expensive. But just wire strippers and crimpers on the motorsportlevel sets you back atleast $600. It's a whole other level of material and time investment!

Having that said, I am planing to do a full motorsport harness for my next build...

/Carl

Carl,

Thank you for the reply, that was exactly the type of information I was looking for. I guess I'll just get both courses then! I just didn't want to get club and pro level and then find out that the pro level covers everything that club does just with extra. I don't mind spending the money, I just didn't want to make redundant expenditures.

I'm an Engineer in the oilfield, and spend about 8-9 months a year in the field. So, fortunately when I'm not keeping crews from blowing up their rigs I'm at home with very little professional responsibility to occupy my time. It's like having all your weekends and holidays all in a few big chunks throughout the year. Currently, building/restomodding my old Jeep CJ7 is occupying that free time, and I intend to do it right, no corners cut. I won't be certain until I finish both courses, but I think the idea in my mind leans towards a sort of hybrid club/pro type harness. But I could definitely be way off base.

As for costs the tooling/materials, tell me about it. I've probably got at least a $1500 in crimpers, cutters and other related paraphernalia since deciding to go this route. Much like Knipex and other quality brands, DMC is nice, but not inexpensive. And I still have my eye on some other related toys... er.. tools. I'll admit I may have a slight problem with tool addiction.

Plus on a few items I've bought multiple versions/brands to test and see which I like best. I sell the ones I don't decide to keep for a bit of a loss, but the education is worth the added expense. For example, JReady brand on Amazon makes slightly more affordable (about 1/2 to 2/3 the cost) copies of various DMC crimpers/positioners that will accept all the DMC positioner heads. The crimps in Deutsch solid barrel contacts were very comparable as far as I can tell with an indent micrometer and my Mark 1 Mod 0 calibrated eyeballs, but that is only an example of one. I had the idea to start videoing when I do tool comparisons thinking it might help others, but unfortunately that bright idea didn't occur to me before when I was comparing the DMC/JReady. But I do have footage of several versions of heavy duty lug crimpers that I'll hopefully get around to editing and post up on YouTube one of these days.

Anyway, that was a bit of an essay to say Thank You very much sir.