American Autowire harness

[JKCuda]

Anyone use one of these in the past and still around? I’m currently wiring my car with this kit and I must say it is AWESOME, especially for someone whose automotive electrical experience is limited to changing burnt fuses and installing head units and speakers.

With that said, I have some questions.

First and foremost, what to do with the ECU and voltage regulators. There are no mention of them on the engine harness portion of the kit, the only thing I see ignition wise is ballast resistor, coil, starter relay, etc. Do I have to reuse those pieces from my old harness or what? If so, I am going to be pretty pissed about that.

Second, I’m using a Dakota Digital cluster that has its own oil pressure sensor, temp sensor, and Speedo sensor converter. What do I do with the engine side wiring from the AA kit? Just pull the tabs from the bulkhead and eliminate the wires I guess? Don’t really want to have useless, capped off wiring in the engine bay. This has turned into a frame up restomod so I’m trying to keep things as neat as possible.

If anyone has questions on this kit please feel free to ask. Maybe this can help some other folks because I’ve had issues finding anyone with much info on this kit.

 

[CCMOPAR]

The american wire harness is only set up for a single wire alternator which has an internal regulator. I mounted my sniper ecu under the dash. I mounted the ecu for the dakota digital in the passenger kick panel. All of the wire pertaining to the gauges are no longer needed. I just cut them out because I also did not want all the extra wires. The dakota digital uses its own oil pressure and water temperature sensors. The only way you can eliminate all the extra wires and still upgrade your wiring is to go with something from Ron Francis. The old style harnesses are not designed for all the new upgrades. Holley make a BIM ADAPTER that will eliminate some wires, Dakota digital has tech help to explain how this works. I also upgraded tyo a 100 amp alternator because the original 60 amp is not enough.

 

[Challenger RTA]

Nothing better then a follow up. That's worth a lot to everyone. Best thing you can do here. Any pictures you can post a +. Your getting a 2for on this one.

 

[JKCuda]

The american wire harness is only set up for a single wire alternator which has an internal regulator. I mounted my sniper ecu under the dash. I mounted the ecu for the dakota digital in the passenger kick panel. All of the wire pertaining to the gauges are no longer needed. I just cut them out because I also did not want all the extra wires. The dakota digital uses its own oil pressure and water temperature sensors. The only way you can eliminate all the extra wires and still upgrade your wiring is to go with something from Ron Francis. The old style harnesses are not designed for all the new upgrades. Holley make a BIM ADAPTER that will eliminate some wires, Dakota digital has tech help to explain how this works. I also upgraded tyo a 100 amp alternator because the original 60 amp is not enough.

Ah ok, well that makes sense for the voltage regulator. I have a new 110 amp mopar single wire alternator, I just didn’t realize that eliminated the need for the stock voltage regulator. Good info, thanks.

As for the ecu, I’m still running a carb so I’ll still need to figure that out as far as the missing wiring. For the Dakota brain I will have to mount mine in the dash, I plan to put speakers in the kick panels because I have the one speaker dash.

BIM adapter? What’s that and what’s it for? Can’t say I’ve heard of that before. I’m assuming something for the sniper to interface with the wiring or cluster?

For the extra wires, I will probably keep the ones under the dash and just secure them. Engine bay side is another story but sounds like I can just eliminate those by pulling the leads from the engine side bulkhead plug.

 

[JKCuda]

Summit ended up selling the harness to go from ECU to my electronic distributor so I just picked that up. $25.

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[Bret Schneider]

The BIM interface adapter is used to communicate with the sensors on the CAN bus which is available on the Sniper or other EFI set ups.

 

[JKCuda]

The american wire harness is only set up for a single wire alternator which has an internal regulator. I mounted my sniper ecu under the dash. I mounted the ecu for the dakota digital in the passenger kick panel. All of the wire pertaining to the gauges are no longer needed. I just cut them out because I also did not want all the extra wires. The dakota digital uses its own oil pressure and water temperature sensors. The only way you can eliminate all the extra wires and still upgrade your wiring is to go with something from Ron Francis. The old style harnesses are not designed for all the new upgrades. Holley make a BIM ADAPTER that will eliminate some wires, Dakota digital has tech help to explain how this works. I also upgraded tyo a 100 amp alternator because the original 60 amp is not enough.

Where did you end up mounting the megafuses? I think I’m going to mount them under the battery tray.

 

[CCMOPAR]

That's where I mounted mine.

 

[JKCuda]

That's where I mounted mine.

Nice. Did you mount to the underside of the tray or the inner fender? I think I might try to put it on the underside of the tray, don’t really want to drill holes in my new inner fenders haha.

 

[CCMOPAR]

INNER FENDER WELL

 

[JKCuda]

INNER FENDER WELL

I ended up bolting mine to the underside of the battery tray. It worked, can't see it. Got the engine bay all wired today minus the wire to from the megafuse to the starter. I'm not sure on length, gotta get the rest of the steering column in and test fit my headers to make sure it's not going to hit anything.

 

[JKCuda]

Anyone want to take a stab at helping me figure this out? Wiring in the flaming river column but it has a GM ignition switch. I think I have it all figure out except for the thin brown wire, any idea what to splice that into on the GM ignition switch (left paper)?

 

[JKCuda]

Anyone want to take a stab at helping me figure this out? Wiring in the flaming river column but it has a GM ignition switch. I think I have it all figure out except for the thin brown wire, any idea what to splice that into on the GM ignition switch (left paper)?

So just for informational purposes if anyone else ever comes across this setup... I called American Autowire tech support, which was AWESOME by the way, and because I'm running an HEI distributor the "thin" brown wire (AKA light brown) can be disregarded at the ignition switch as well as in the engine bay.