Ok, i would have recommended a OEM harness, but the painless is fine, just requires a little more work. The OEM one would be a direct plug in, however, with the painless wiring one, it is set-up to be run as a stand alone system.
using a stand alone harness in a stock car is possible though, the main thing you'll need to focus on is the connection of 5 main wires... those being power(BATT), ignition, ground wires, tach wire, and fuel pump wire. The BATT and IGN wires can be tapped into the other main connector under the passenger side of the dash. The ground is simple, the tach wire would need to be spliced into the original tach wiring to where it goes through the drivers side of the firewall, and then the fuel pump wire would need to be spliced into the fuel pump relay(drivers side of firewall).
It seems complicated but its really not. The main frotn end harness in a f-body is 2 part, one deals with brake pressure, lights, signals, sending units, wipers, horn, etc, and that parts stays, IF the tach wire is traced into that side of the harness(i cant remember), you should be able to fully remove the engine control part of the harness and toss it, just go through a wiring schematic to make sure it doesnt contain any wiring that'll still be essential.
The painless harness will probably come with its own ALDL diagnostic port that you can just mount where the stock one is and tuck the original up under the dash. Also it make just come with one, or 2, wires for a "check engine light", youd need to wire that into your cluster as well. finally, where the harness goes through the passenger side of the car inside to under the dash, there is a speical weatherproof seal thing that you'd need to remove(cut somehow) from the stock harness and seal it back up around the new one to prevent water from getting inside.
The more i started thinking about it, the more complicated it seemed to get for the beginner, but dont worry, take you time, ask questions, and since you are in north jersey, i may be able to swing by sometime to give you a hand, explain some schematics to you, or check and label stuff for you. Just dont get overwhelmed and dont hook up the ECM until you are positive all wiring is correct, you dont wanna fry the ecm, lol.
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