ive been reading alot on the ls1 into a fox body and dont understand the " reworked " harnesses from speartech. basically you send them your stock harness and 450$ and they send you your harness back minus a few wires and 0$. i dont understand the reason behind this. what is the actuall work that is going into reworking a harness? in the sticky it plainly tells you what wires to remove. is there something i am missing? mainly what is speartech doing to the harness and is it hard to diy?

 

they take out unessary wires and put in fuses and relays where they are required.

 

Some people get alittle over whelmed by the LS1 harness. Speartech, and similar companies, take the guess work and confusion out of this part of the swap by making the harness truely plug and play. While the LSx harness is pretty much stand alone as it is...there is plenty that can be removed and reworked to make it a better harness for swapping. Some people have trouble reading and understanding wiring schematics. Some peopel just plain dont feel like messing with the spaghetti.

Also there is the time savings in ordering a harness. If you order it ahead of time, you'll have it by the time you are ready to hook up wires. No wondering if you have it wired correctly... plus they do a very nice job of making the harness look clean. I used loom and tried to make mine as nice and neat as possible..but it still doesnt compare to speartech's harness.

Bottom line...if you can work with wiring, and feel comfortable disecting your harnesses and making them work...great! Then spend the $400 on a new cam or some spray or replace some of those ratty interior parts in your swap car that you've been wanting to replace. If you dont feel comfortable or just want to save yourself some work and frustration...then speartech gives you that choice and provides the service to make it easier for you.

Justin

 

<---wish there was one that didnt say stupid.

 

ghettocruiser, great post.

if you don't want to pay speartech's prices and just want to have someone reprogram your PCM and hack your harness for you, Wait4me performance will take care of you. I paid around $300 for them to reprogram and reqork my harness (and they did a superb job of making it a perfect fit. Everything came back labelled nicely.

There were a a few things I would have like to have had --- like longer wire for the gas sending stuff, etc...but overall, the harness was A+ quality.

 

Thanks for that shifty. I think Speartech is premium but wait4me will work for what I am after, or I will mod the harness myself.

 

Wiring harnesses are like anything else. Some people have no skill at electrical things while others are very comfortable working with them, while others just want to know that everything is ok with their harness. Your project time table as well as how much money you have to spend are all contributing factors in how you handle the wiring harness for your project. Many people don't even want to use the old harness and just order a brand new custom harness from us. Others can make use of the factory harness and send it to us to be reworked for stand alone use.

Here's what you're paying for when you have us rework your harness:

We eliminate what you aren't going to use in order to clean up the appearance of the harness. Then we bring out the needed wires and blend them into various fused circuits and add a fuse block for protection and ease of installation and hookup:



We then add an OEM GM fuel pump relay that is weatherproof for years of trouble-free use (not a $5 autozone cheapie):



Next we add an OBD-2 diagnostic port AND check engine light so that if you do have a problem at some point the light will come on and notify you. You can then diagnose the problem thru the port at any GM dealer or repair shop that has late model diagnostic equipment. Your engine can be diagnosed and serviced as if it were a 2002 Z28 (or whatever your engine came from):



We also bring out and label all of the available gauge wires, etc. for your convenience. Most of these aren't required for the engine to run, but they are there if you need them:



After the main harness work is finished we install your harness on one of our many shop engines and actually run it to make sure everything works properly and the engine runs right:







This is where we often times find internal harness damage caused from the vehicle collision (usually why you got the engine in the first place) We pick this up on the Tech 2 and repair it so that you are assured of a perfectly functioning harness when you get it installed:



Unlike some other rework services that look like a 15 minute hackjob done on someones dining room table, we try to offer a complete professional service for what we consider to be a very important part of your project. It's not for everybody (that's why there's a sticky at the top for the DIY'ers) but for many it's exactly what they need!

 

To me, it ultimately boiled down to: Do I want airbags on my truck or not? I respect all of the work that goes into the harnesses, but, to me, paying $750-$1500 for a new harness seems exorbinant when the man hours and work involved is considered. All in all, paying 6x as much for a harness with 1-2 add'l features just cut into my suspension budget, and I couldn't have it.

As S&P's pricing shows, though, when people don't want to bother, they will pay for it.

I hope I don't wind up with any problems, and if I do end up getting something down, Speartech is who I am going to use (price point is closer to "fair" than anyone else). But, I wonder - will you ever offer replacement fuseblock kits like Painless does?

 

John...Awsome post! If I had more money in my budget, and more time, I would have gone with your harness for sure. Everything is so simple and neat and ready to go. ONly thing you have to add are fan relays correct???

I only wish mine came out so neat. I ended up using the 99 f-body fuse block as well...so my harness kind of goes all over the place...but it works so far! haha.

Justin

 

John, you hit the nail on the head. this is another reason i am considering your products. the feedback is high rated and your not afraid to tell us what you do! i was unaware that your kits come with all the gauge hook ups, which would make it alot easier and cheaper then having a cust gauge cluster. excellent post john.

 

I just got a call from John and my harness is on its way back to me.

I'm happy with the customer service I received from John and am looking forward to a clean easy install of the harness.

Marc

 

i posted a little while back on a ford forum asking the same questions, and oh boy did they flip out. bad idea to let them know about creating a "posser" car. any way a few said something about the ign wires under the dash, and how they must be re-wired, does the speartech reworked harness include theses? or is it even true? they said it mainly included the charging system and ign wires to the key. is it plug any play with the reworked harness or does there need to be a seperate custom ign system installed? i see in picture 4 there is a wire labled ign, does this connect to the stock mustang key?

 

I have one of John's reworked harnesses in my truck, and it really does help a lot to have a nicely laid out, good-condition wiring harness to work with.

I wish I could say the same about the original GM wiring

 

With regard to your purchase, how did you feel about the length of the wiring? For example, did you feel like things were laid out well enough to give the length for a run to your gauge cluster for pertinent wires? Also, what about options? Was it simple enough to setup the fans using the reworked harness? Was it truly plug and play, or was there more work involed? If there was more work, I'm interested to hear a list of those tasks. This would give me a good idea of what I'm going to do when time comes to upgrade.

 

Shifty,

I got my harness John and it is truly plug and play. I was able to mount my computer in the glove box and had plenty of wire to get to where I needed them. I think the only one that I extended was the wire to the fuel pump.

Bill