hello i have do a lot off research here on this site but i can`t find what i`m looking for! i have a 88 camaro TPI and i thinking to swap it to carb i`m done with the f***ing ecm i have only problems with it. so what i want to now is everything about the wiring what must i leave and what can i pull out the car! some people said that the altenator,windshield wipper motor,oil pressure sensor and AC is in the engine harnes and other people said it`s not in the engine harnes so now i don`t no what i must believe! is here someone who has do the complete swap from TPI to carb? and can tell me (and other people here) step by step what to do and what not to do! i know i must change the distributor , intake , fuel pressure regulator carb i`ll drive with a T5 so don`t need the lock up and TV cable i`m very intresting in the wirring swap what must i leave and what can i pull away i hope this will be a complete swap thread that will make it a lot easier for me and all other people that will make the swap Thanks Dennis

you will make it 1000000 times easier on yourself if you go to a junk yard and snag a wiring harness and computer from a carbed camaro. put it in your car and replace intake, dizzy, and whatnot. im not sure abot the oil pressure sensor, where or not the connectors are the same. i believe they are. you can do what ive done and put in a manually adjustable carb and use a non computer controlled distributer. u can get after market guages for the oil pressure. but thats something different... other people will chime in with help too.

ok thanks but since wen have carbed cars a computer?
here in the netherlands it`s difficult to see a camaro on the junkyard!

and i think the early carbed cars hase the same wiring from the drivers side

so i look for someone who can tell what i ask

dennis

i think all the camaros that came stock with carburetors were standard with a rochester quadra jet. there were 3 models if i remember correctly but the popular one was the e4me. a computer controlled carb. took care of the fuel/ air mixture and the and whatever else the carb needed to run. made it easy. made it so you didnt have to tweak and tune your carb yourself. however computers are fine tuned pieces of equipment(so to speak). when something mechanical was changed or "broken" the computer didnt recognize this change. and it altered the performance of the car. so you have many options.


you can put a carb on that you tune yourself and outfit the engine with standalone instruments to measure the engines output signals and whatnot.

or you can put a computer controlled carb on top and connect it to a computer for a carbed engine and be done with it.

both options will take alot of adjustments, as will any swap.

What I did (and worked like a charm) was to get a wiring harness for an 88 Firebird, 305 TBI, while my car is an 88 Firebird with a 305 TPI. That way, all the wiring for the junction block at the driver's side firewall wouldn't have to be changed. It all matched up, just plugged it in, and cut out all the connectors I didn't need, such as the sensors, injectors, and fans, since I have my own harness for those. Worked nice, and I got to keep the wiring for the windshield wipers/fluid pump and whatnot.

so only the windshield wiper and fluid pump is a piece off the engine wiring?

what did you mean with ( whatnot )

i don`t want a computer controlled carb , then i can better fix my tpi i think

i want a manual carb for my tpi!

and want to know what wiring must stay from the engine wiring

dennis

funny, i switched to TPI from a carb, dont have any issues...

haha the issues will come later
i owned the car for about 2,5 years now
i have rebuild the hole engine about 1 year ago
the engine has running about 3500 km with everything new on the engine
including all sensors,and now again trouble with the TPI
bad running at idle (about 2000 rpm) smelling gas
hase do a lot off modifications but no power enough

my causin hase a 79 Z28 the only modification he had is a edelbrock carb and headers

his car is almost even fast as mine iroc and i have do a lot of modifications
like this:

flat taped pistons , crane cam , bigger injectors , heddman headers , corvette aluminum heads , K&N airfilters and i use a T5 trany

both off the engines are 350 cui

i don`t understand this!

dennis

ya i"m running into the same trouble with my 87. the guy before had a carbed motor in it and he just used the stock harness, it was origanly a tbi car. in my 89 though i had the same ecm problem and did eventually end up pulling the motor and building it up as a carb motor, by far much easier, i must warn you it is a huge project though especially with the distributor and such but def go with a stand alone no ecm setup

Yes, you must be havin some major problems if you cant easely take a 5.7L secondgen.

Have you done any tunin to the computer, to run higher flowing injectors?

You just leave the stock computer and wiring in place and use whatever wires you need for carb install.Coil wire .etc. Computer will still turn on fuel pump , run fans as normal.
Computer goes crazy but it is not controlling anything anymore so it makes no difference.
I have carb on mine with stock harness ; can change back to EFI in less than a day.

What problems are you having?

I don't see the point in putting a carb on a stock car like yours. You have a functional TPI setup. If you already have EFI, upgrading to better EFI gives you smooth reliable tunable performance.

If you have some radical cam with 250 degrees of duration, on a 600hp 10 second monster and you absolutely need a 950cfm carb than I understand.
But.. you don't.


-- Joe

hi

no i have no chip tuning for my ecm
here in the netherlands is no one who can do that for me on the right way!

the problems i have now is that the engine is running high at idle everytime (2000rpm) hot or cold engine!
it smells like gas in the car
sometime running idle up and down!

i have do al lot off modifications on the engine.
i`m a little bit faster than my causin with his almost original engine from a Z28 1979

here are the modifications that i have done: crane cam Duration 264/270, Lift .438/.452, Speed pro Piston/Ring Kit, Forged, Flat, Heddman headers , bigger injectors , K&N filters , clevite bearings and some other modifications

maybe it will runs better with a bigger Throttle body!
but for the price and the problems i have now again i thought on a swap to go carb

Yeah. if your going to throw parts at it, cams and all that, you need to either be able to do your own chips, or swap to carb.

-- Joe

yes and thats the problem now here in the netherlands is no body who can burn a good chip for me!
1 year ago i have orded one on ebay (his name was TBI Chips if i remember)
i put it in de ecm,drive 4 times and the engine was blow up!so i must make a rebuild thats why i have do the modifications on the new engine!
i have trow the chip so far if i can!

dennis

well thats your problem you put in bigger injectors and a cam etc.. and no tuning, i'm running that exact cam with 42lb injectors, but i tune my own chip and with 14#'s of boost my car purrrs like a kitten.

This is probaly the mor fun/easy way to do it. It is available with Port Mode. Down side, you need to cut and repinn following the instructions, though you could get some TPI ECM connectors and make a convertion harness, for more plug and play.
http://www.DynamicEFI.com/

Here you can find some nice tunin tools to use your stock ECM.
http://www.moates.net/index.php?cPath=73_64

thanks but i already have sold the tpi setup
i`m in the middle of the swap to carb

So has anyone answerd the original question yet? I am going through the same issue and I am taking the wiring harness out. What of that do I still need? What can I rip out? I dont need anything from the ECM, I am going to wire up the electric fans so they come on when the car is on? The only wiring I need is to the gauges. Can anyone help?

The thing is, the topic has been beaten to death. I realize you are young and are probably just getting into cars, however if you search you will find some direct technical material on the swap.

If you get into trouble, say a specific element does not work I'm sure you will find lots of guys willing to help. But your questions have been answered a million times.


The real key here, without being too abrasive is, if you don't know how to do the swap why do you think you need to swap? In my opinion you really shouldn't pick up a wrench until you know what is going on.

-- Joe

I know i am a newb and i agree that this topic has been beaten to death but the reason people join forums is to learn and exchange info about how to fix/sup up there cars. but when i was 13 my grandfather and i put a carbed 350 in 85 iroc this what you will need if you are converting your engine to carb
intake manifold
carb
distbutor
fuel pump

the things you will need to keep wirring wise is altenator starter exc. you don't need any o2 sensors or mass air flow.

you will also have run fuel lines to the carb

you can pull the ecm cause you don't need it
you have to drop your gas tank and pull the fuel pump

i am currently starting to swap my a carbed 383 in 86 z28 i will post pictures and random things you'll need to do it

Just because Im 18 doesnt mean I am just gettin into cars. I was going to do an LS1 swap in my car but I couldnt find one in my price range, then I developed a miss after replacing all the gaskets in the upper intake and I was never able to get it back to how it was running before, I know what I did to cause the miss and I am going to have to find top dead center and retime it when I do the swap, but I was also having issue with the OBD not connecting to the scanner right so it wouldnt scan. I replaced the computer in it to see if that would work and it didnt. Then one day it blew the ARC fuse and the timing jumped 90degrees. My first car was a 79 Nova with an inline 6 and i did all the tuning and work to that car myself. Carburated is what I know and it is a lot cheaper to tune a carb then it is a compterized vehicle, its also much cheaper to add hp to a carburated vehicle. TPI is to expensive of a setup to put add ons to, plus it is limited, you never see a race car with a TPI setup unless they have A LOT of money and that is just something I dont have. Im gettin really tired of gettin discriminated against just because Im younger, it happens everywhere I go, whether I am buying parts, or driven down the road ( i get harassed by the cops all the time for been a teen driven a sports car), I am doing all the body work and paint on my car too (Now if you dont think thats a good idea for me to do because I am young and in expierienced then Ill just let you know now that I have done body work and paint to multiple vehicles and I restored a 67 Corvette Stingray last year), I have also made a custom fiberglass center console, and I am putting digital gauges in my car as well. This is a learning process for me, I learn as I go and I rely on other people knowledge to help me along, I asked that quiestion because I have searched for an answer and I am still somewhat lost to how to properly take the wiring harness out and still keep what I need.

The way I interprutted what you said was that I have not looked around for the answer and that just because I am a kid I dont know what Im talking about and I have no idea why or what I am doing. I thought my question was somewhat specific, if you know its been answerd can you direct me to where it was answerd at so I can figure this out. Now if I interprutted your statement wrong I am sorry. I dont want hostility I just want help. If you know where I can get the info im looking for can you be somewhat specific cause I have been looking for awhile and I have yet to find it.

Hey all I want is to be treated fairly and not looked down upon by others because of my age, look at me as a fellow car enthusiast and help me out.

I have researched this swap and I believe that this is better for my wallet and my goals with the car. If you have advice or knowledge on this let me know, Im willing to listen. But dont accuse me of not knowing anything and dont underestimate what I can do. If everyone was just happy with what they had on their car or they sat down and didnt do anything just because they didnt know how to do it then we wouldnt have made the advances on what we have today.

We learn as we go.

Thanks,
-Coltin

Read this: http://www.thirdgen.org/carbswap

Only other thing, I can think of that page didn't say is to unhook the sensors you won't be using like knock sensor, O2 sensor, MAF sensor, and the sensors that were on the old intake manifold.

(just realized someone else just put the same thing I said)

Also people aren't here to put people down, they are here to help.

Thanks I saw that before its a great help. Im still wondering how to properly take out the wiring harness though.

My best guess is find a wiring diagram of the engine for your car and look to see what wires you already know you don't need. Then go from there. Also look at wiring diagrams for some carb cars from late 70s and early 80s to also get an idea of what wires need to stay.

You should be able to keep the stock fuel pump since the ecm only primes the setup, it ends up running off of something else. You will need a fuel pressure regulator too.