With the 69 Camaro project well on it’s way, the one thing that we needed was to get a wiring kit for it. We normally would use Painless, but a lot of people on Pro-touring.com and Lateral-g.net have been raving about the American Autowire product so we decided to give it a shot. I ordered in the Highway 22 kit and once it came in, I was amazed at what was in the huge box. Now I have been doing Painless products for years now, and over the years they have become less and less painless over the years and while their products have always been at the upper end of the price scale, the product is no longer up there.

Inside the Highway 22 kit was everything that a car builder would need to wire their car. It came with all the basic switches that you would use in a installation. Each wiring section for the car was located in seperate sealed bags. In these bags was all the wiring, all the connectors and very, very very detailed instructions on how to wire up that section and how to incorporate it into the rest of the wiring harness. Sections like the gauge cluster and lighting sections actually had molex plugs so that each section could plug into one another and make it acutally serviceable. In each wiring section there was also extra wires for options and upgrades that some builders might use.

The fuse box is designed so that you strip the wires and insert them into each section of the box. The connections are push tabs (spring loaded, just push them down and slide the wire in) which make for a cleaner install most times, especially when using multiple wires with each tab. The kit comes with a small flat head screwdriver for pushing down the taps. On either end of the fuse block is a “strip” gauge, so that you will know how far to strip the wire (I thought that was pretty cool)

The kit also had a bag of connectors to be used for practicing. It was labled “Practice Connectors”. In the bag was one of each of the various connectors used in the kit (I also thought that was pretty cool)

Each instruction page fully explains how each section of the kit works, how it interacts with the rest of the harness and how each connector is put together.

All of our future projects will be wired with American Autowire products.

American Autowire has a complete line of kits for custom projects as well as a HUGE selection of harness for restoration projects. They sell them as complete kits or as individual sections. They also have harness for restomods where most of the car will be stock but all the modern features added to it.

The only bad thing I have to say is that I didn’t do enough research or ask the right questions when I ordered the kit. I assumed (and you know what happens when you assume) that because it was called Highway 22 that it had 22 fused circuits, when in fact it was just 22 circuits. I was disappointed that there were no fused provisions for things like Power Windows, Power Locks and other add on’s like that. But again, that is my mistake for not asking these questions.

DSE (Detroit Speed & Engineering) make this motorized headlight door kit for the 68/69 Camaro’s with the Vacum operated headlight door system. This kit replaces the vacum motors with these new electric motors making this a hassle free system. If you own a Camaro with this system then you know how troublesome it can be. Now if your doing a full restoration then you want it original as possible. If your not, every Camaro owner should own this kit.

It was easy to install, it comes with very detailed instructions. The kit is extremely well built and should present years of hassle free operation.

We recently used one on our 69 Camaro project here at the shop and we give it a big thumbs up.

http://www.detroitspeed.com

We recently got one of their dash panels for the 69 Camaro project we are working on. I did a bit of research on the net and found that as far as custom panels this and the DSE panels were the only ones on the market. They had three options, a silver one, a carbon fiber one and a black one. I had seen some closeups of the silver and carbon fiber ones and they looks pretty good. We wanted a more subtle look for the car so we went with the black one to house the Classic Instrument gauges (black with stainless rings). Well I ordered it and three weeks later I got the call that it was in…………………..

Well I opened the box and I was horrified……………it was horrible……….I was PISSED………..The design and layout of the piece was nice. It is a injected molded ABS panel created from a modified OEM panel but with the new gauge provisions. The finish is what was horrible, the finish is your basic ABS texture, it looks like a cheap piece of crap, something you would get off of eBay for $49, not $299.99CDN………………….The same price as the well finished Silver and Carbon Fiber models.

I then found out that the Silver and the Carbon Fiber ones were covered with a heat formed vinyl to give it their smooth finish.

Now if your going to charge the same price for three different products, why not finish them all the same way…………………..

Now we have to spend hours and hours sanding this thing and creating a suitable finish for the panel so that it looks at home in the car.

It is no wonder all the pictures of the panels on their site are small, that way you not expecting much.

I should have went with the DSE one, I have never heard anything negative about their piece, infact I have always heard they are a stand up company to deal with.

If anyone is looking at getting this product for their vehicle, I would suggest something different or at least be prepared to spend A LOT of time making it presentable.

Electric Trunk Latch Release Kit - 67-69 Camaro.

This kit was a easy bolt in installation. The instructions provided with them are very easy to understand and follow, making it a easy installation for even the non-mechanically inclined people. The kit is well built and comes with all new mounting hard ware as well as wiring and a dash mount switch. We replaced a typical trunk release universal solenoid with it and compared to the loud “thump” made each time it pulled open the trunk, it’s quiet action is a welcomed bonus.

What a stupid deck this thing is. It does DVD, Navigation….all the normal crap.

BUT, it comes with NO mounting cage and it comes with NO trim ring. Now this is fine if you drive a import where you can ISO mount the deck using the stock brackets and then put the stock dash trim over it………………….but does it say anywhere on the box that you should be aware of this ???? NO !!!!

“well you can buy a trim ring and a cage off www.pioneerelectronics.com ”

Why not put them in the damn box…………..”sorry Mr. customer, your going to have to wait 5-7 business days because Pioneer is to STUPID to put the basic installation things in the box………………..but hey…………..it hits a certain cheap price point”

That’s kinda like buying a car and then having to order the tires from the manufacturer.

Other dumb things: Can’t control iPod video, you can send video signal into it, but then you have to control it from the iPod…….how 2002………………just another reason to buy Kenwood…………….

Later…………