Just bought an American Standard Strat and a set of Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups. If I swap the pickups, how much of a sound change will this make, and where can I find good directions on how to install the new pickups? Thanks guys.

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Bill

The VNs are humbucking where obviously, you will notice this. Tonally, the VNs are treblier and more 'modern' sounding than most single coil or single slot HB "vintage" ilk pickups. Volume wise, the VNs will be weaker in comparison as well.

A word of caution: The construction of VNs is rather frail. Be extremely delicate when even handling, let alone installing them.

Note: Black and green wires of the VNs get soldered to ground.

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You dig?

I say first change the tone and volume pots to top quality, as well as look into changing the caps. Just that little conversion would alter your sound drastically.

I'm not sold on this practice of changing pups before looking at the electronics and experimenting with those first. There are so many possibilities by just rewiring that a set of pick-ups will sound completely different for much less of an expense.

Ahh...just before posting I read Martian's input, on point as usual, but I would add that you don't discard the Standard pups, store them and use them in a future guitar.
I changed the pups in my Deluxe Player to SCN's and used those pups in my stratopartster with TBX and 220k caps. I disliked the sound of the pups as installed in the Deluxe but after an upgrade in Vol. and Tone pots, they became quite versatile and what I was looking for in tonality.

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

Any wiring mod suggestions for a Strat Plus with Texas Specials? I replaced the lace sensors. What kind of rewiring and pot changes are there and what tones will they give me?

Right here on this website from Fender you can view schematics for wiring options for SSS Texas Specials, I would say the best is for you to experiment, you could swap the Tone pots to TBX pots, I have done that with the vintage players deluxe pups and am quite happy with the versatility, but I also upped the ante by swapping the 82k resistor to a 220k resistor for a smoother transition from the two pots at mid position and no unwanted change in either tone or volume.
But on this mod..go to ( wwwpremierguitar.com ) to the mod garage " The fender tbx tone control mod part I and II. All the details for wiring in a couple of modes is there.
You could also try Seymour Duncan site, they have quite a bit of wiring schematics, or just google for strat mods, you'll receive more links than needed. You'll just have to weed out and search for the one's you need, but being specific really weeds out unnecessary links.

I would guess as popular as these pups are, there are probably quite a few mod options.

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "