ok,,here's the problem I've run into I have a 91 Dakota factory 5.2. I am building a street/stripe 360 la block with indy heads.the wiring harness is gone. will a painless wiring harness work for what im looking to do here say for a 78 or later. the next question is can I relocate the fuel tank behind the rearend, has a four link going in with a 52" drum to drum 8 3/4 with 3:91 posi,and 727 tranny. truck will be dropped 4" in rear and 2" in front by doing this will I run into issues with relocating the fuel tank behind the rearend .

 

Welcome to the forum.

When you log on to the first gen. dakota, there is a section called normal threads. Will probably get more response there....

But that being said,

When you say the harness is gone, do you mean the engine harness? the front end harness? or the entire truck harness?
I assume you are building a carbed or aftermarket fuel injected motor?
If its just the engine harness missing, I would probably just wire in alt, ignition, sensors etc. A lot of the factory stuff probably will not match up anyways.
If its the front end harness, ie. lights etc. have you considered a junkyard?
If its the entire harness, IMO a lot depends on the build. I know you said street/strip, but that is pretty subjective. IMO a street car has factory options, ie: AC all lights, guages, etc. Or it can literally be more of a race truck with a license plate...
If its more race truck, then the painless harness would probably work well.
I have never put a fuel cell in one of these trucks, but with the spare tire removed, there is a ton of space back there. Were you just going to put the filler through the bed floor?

Hopefully you will post up some pictures!!
Good luck on your build.

 

As '93 mentions, alot depends on what harness is gone. I swapped in a Magnum 360 into my 90 vert, replacing the V6. I was going to go the painless route, but then found that the biggest headache is the Cab wiring harness and rear harness. If those are still in tact, I'd modify the engine harness from a 91 to do what you need. That's what I did. The advantages are you keep the firewall bulkhead connector and therefore all the interior stuff just works. Once you remove the PCM from the truck (you lose cruise, AC, and lockup/OD control of the tranny), there's less than 20% of the harness left that you have to work with. I cut all that crap out and rewrapped my factory engine harness and made a few custom circuits for the Tach (I used an HEI GM style distributor), the new lockup/OD pressure sensors, and I re purposed the AC relay since I had a convertible and didn't need AC. I also added an electric fan for my conversion, but you won't need to do that since the 5.9 will sit in the same spot as the 5.2.

Curious also, what kind of 360 LA are you building? The 91 5.2 is a bastard engine as it is the LA style block but uses the magnum serpentine belt set up. If you go with a straight LA 360 block and V-belts, you're going to have a longer water pump snout and have fitment issues for a fan inside the radiator.