Speedway Motors Week to Wicked Day Four: High Voltage; Stringing Up the Chevy’s Wiring Harness

Thursday morning in a rain-drenched SoCal may be slowing things down for folks out in the real hustle and bustle, but in our Tech Center, things were definitely electrified kicking off Day Four on the Speedway Motors Week to Wicked 1952 Chevy pickup.

The installation of the Painless Performance 21-circuit GM Truck wiring harness not only converted the old half-ton from its previous 6-volt system to the preferred 12-volt (with power being supplied by a Red Top Optima group 34 battery), but allowed the incorporation/utilization of all the modern electronics we’ll be using on our build. Those “amenities” include Speedway’s electronic Omega Kustom quad gauge set (specific for 1947-1953 pickups) and Vintage Air GenIV SureFit air conditioning, for starters—but don’t forget, we’re powering the pickup with a computer-controlled engine and transmission, both using dedicated harnesses and controllers, which in simplistic terms means more wires!

Chevy Performance supplies the electronic necessities for the LS3, as does Performance Automatic with the 4L70E we’ve bolted up behind it—each of those individual systems will require integrating into the Painless harness, so our routing, crimping, and connecting of wires is nowhere near the basic process it was back when all that heavy 6-volt stuff was originally wired into the truck decades ago. Fortunately, we only had a few bulbs here and there to swap…but if we missed any, they’ll make their presence known soon as we power thing up!

But the wiring is just one of the itinerary items left to check off the to-do list—Friday’s rapidly approaching and we’ve still got quite a bit left to accomplish. Check back later today to see how far we’ve gotten before it’s down to the last and final build day. For more on all the Speedway Motors Week to Wicked parts particulars, don’t forget to visit the build page.

To read the original article, or to check out the build photos, click here.