Simple and bare-bones as in the engine, tranny, etc., dont mean burlap interior with one seat and only front brakes, LOL

I dunno....I love working on cars, but hate dealing with wires, hoses, lines, etc. that get in the way.....I'm undecided with what I wanna do after selling my current 'bird, but i think i want to just get a Camaro in decent shape, put together a fairly nice carburated motor, a 5 speed, and just make everything as simple and clean looking as possible.....no A/C, no emmissions, no loose wires anywhere.....i wanna open the hood to the engine and nothing else. Any wires that i DO have to have (Stuff like headlights, blinkers, gauges, etc.) I want to be as organized and out of view as possible.
How far can I go with this while still having a car that is drivable every day? I dont wanna have any computers or anything to mess with, just a very basic engine setup that has as little wireing and electrical stuff as possible.
Any suggestions, thoughts, or ideas? Thanks,
-Chris

 

We did this on an 84 that was occasionally street driven but raced on the weekends. This guy was on a weight reduction kick. He ripped out every wire in the car. He also removed all the conduit and plastic retainer clips etc. All unused items were discarded and a painless wiring harness was installed. We routed the wires as straight as possible to eliminate excess. No conduit and only zip ties to keep neat. He claims to have removed 65 #'s and put back 15. The painless harness can be selected for the components you intend to run or you can clip away all unused stock wires. Very little(by comparison) wires are needed for bare bones stuff in a car.

 

I was just thinking about maybe a painless harness.....
what if i were to use mechanical gauges, and then just make a switch panel for everything like the headlights and crap? My question right now is how would I power all that? I dont know anything about electronics really, so would I be able to have like a fusebox inside the car that I could hook everything up to? Headlights, tail lights, turn signals, radio, interior lights, etc?
Sorry if this is all sorta confusing, I am just trying to figure out what I wanna do (if i wanna just get something like a 90-92 305 w/tpi and 5 speed and leave it basicly stock, or try and get an early thirdgen and rip it completly apart and start from scratch pretty much)
Thanks
-Chris

 

The painless stuff is very complete. Not cheap but very complete. The harness comes with a fuse box and all the wires are attached to it. It includes most important terminals and connectors. It even comes with zip ties. Instructions are very detailed. I have wiring experience so it was a sat project. My friend who owned the car had no experience and had 1/3 of the car wired before I arrived. Some connectors off the factory harness get reused and reinstalled onto new harness. Headlight sockets etc. any wires you do not need you can snip off.

 

Have you read this yet?

https://www.thirdgen.org/newdesign/tech/carbswap.shtml

It might be a good starting point.
I'm not sure whether your car has a carb on it already, or whether you're aspiring to do that.
If you do have a carbed 350 in an '89 there are no doubt a bunndle of wires that you could delete.
You could get things like manual/cable controls for the heater and rocker switches and mechanical gauges etc.
Pretty much just wire the thing up like an old International pickup, with parts that you buy at your local NAPA truck dept.

 

Well, the car i've got right now (89 Formula, yes, its carb'd, and yes, theres all sorts of crap from the old TBI setup still in the engine bay) i'm not sure if i'm keeping or not.....I paid way more than i should have for something that I'm gonna be replacing the engine and transmission in completly, and probably the rear end while i'm at it....
I dont know if i'm better off selling the car as it is (runs and drives, not GREAT, but i guess it runs, lol) and getting a real inexpensive thirdgen (I actually prefer camaros but i dunno) and just swapping the engine and tranny in from there....

I dunno, it seems like it would feel as though i paid 2500 dollars for a car that runs and drives, only to take about 70% of the cars value and cost and throw it out, only to replace it with new stuff....when i could sell the car, hopefully get 2g or so for it, then find a nice 500 dollar Camaro with a crappy engine and tranny, and use the money left over and the money i've got saved up to build it up
Any opinions on this??

Now, back to the origional topic, what do you mean exactly by wireing it up like an old pickup? lol

 

I just have an old '67 International P/U, and every time I have to do any wiring on a newer car I wish that the wiring harness was as simple as that old truck.
There's nothing there that's electric if there's some other way to control it.

 

lol, nice

with a camaro that would be an everyday driver, how far could i go with that idea?

 

Tear out your instrument panel and....
Actually I'm not sure, it sounds like the painless wiring harness might be a good bet.
I had a rat chew my wiring harness, followed by a fire.
I got it back on the road again with a carb, and the lights and instruments are all working, but there's a huge bundle of wires on the pass side floor that I'm in the process of figuring out what to do with.
Wish I could be of more help.

 

'ats cool, dont worry about it.....
I'd sorta like to wire everything myself, might jsut be easier to know EXACTLY where each wire goes and stuff....

Anyone have any pictures of engine bays like i'm talking about? lol

 

my car was converted to carb before i bought it for $800. the body pieces were mismatched, kinda like the guy wanted it to look like an RS but he didn't have the correct nose or bumper pieces for it. it was supposed to be a quick and easy project, but i've been working on it for five years now, and it's still not 'done'.

i've decided to make a weekend drag car out of it, and i've amassed the body pieces and wheels from a '92 RS, decals and badges for an IROC and i've got a motor on the stand that needs assembling. then the suspension will get a workover, rearend, removing anything that's not necessary.

i would think if you wanted it to remain a street car then you would want to leave it alone, as far as wiring is concerned. it's a huge project to pull all of the wiring and replace it with a painless setup - why would you want to re-engineer it? the only way i would consider that is if the wiring was damaged somehow and it needed to be replaced. otherwise, my advice would be to redo the motor and stuff and leave the wiring alone. of course, when you're done, anything that's left hanging in the engine bay could be cut at the firewall. but i wouldn't mess with the whole wiring setup just to replace it with a painless setup. more work than is necessary. the painless setup is going to come with a bunch of what you would consider unnecessary connections, anyway.

 

I dont think I will go with the painless, because of the price and because as you said, i really dont need it. The wireing in the car is all hacked up, but i think i can probaly just hide all the wires easier....
I'm buying my friends engine, its a Goodwrench crate engine with a bigger cam, edelbrock performer intake and edelbrock 600 carb......it'll be fine for now, but as soon as i get more money and decide what i'm gonna do with the transmission (trying to decide if i should just keep the 700r4, buy a t5, or save up for a tko or something), i'm gonna get Vortec heads and a better intake mani. and carb