addition413

I am looking for some advice on an upcoming project. I have a couple of parts cars and would like to make a daily driver out of them. First car is an 84 Camaro that has an excellent body but no engine or transmission. The car is complete except for engine and trans and was originally had a carb. The other car is a 91 RS with a TBI. The body on the 91 is rusted very bad but the car is complete and engine and tranny are good.

With regards to transplanting the engine, would be best to swap the computer and engine and leave the engine a TBI or swap to a carb? Also wondering about the tranny. Will the 91 tranny work in the 84 without swapping the computer?

Thanks for the help.

1nastyRS

this actually wont be very hard. for your 84. the computer is located under the passenger side of your dash. take the under cover of the dash off by a few bolts, and your computer is right there. unplug all wires from it, and wiggle it out. behind the passenger side fender is where the pass through for the engine harness wires are. pull them out and go from there by pulling them through by your blower motor. after that is even easier. just pry the tabs holding the rest of the wires open, and they will come out.

now to pull the motor out of your 92 repeat the 84s steps. it is possible to pull the motor out the top, but is almost impossible with your tranny bolted up. if you go out the top, unbolt your tranny from your motor and then unhook your fuel lines, throttle cable etc. dont forget motor mounts pull motor up and out. then undo torque arm from your tranny, unhook drive shaft, and shift linkage, and then unbolt tranny crossmember. if going from the bottom, thanks to thirdgen user Pocket for guiding me through this. bottom is much easier.

Drain fluids, unhook the lines, remove DS/y-pipe(i cut it) unbolt crossmemer/K-member ( from what i remember 6-8 bolts pointed straight up), separate centerlink from pitman arm/idler, remove strut upper nuts. Lift car off engine/trans

I didnt have a tool to separate ball joints so the steering box/idler came out too .

i dont know if the motor mounts are the same. but if you decide to drop motor in top , check and make sure mounts are the same. if bottom, repeat the k member drop out. put motor/ tranny on the 84s k member, bolt back up everything, run wires, hook driveshaft and shift linkage up. torque arm too, and put new computer in!


any further questions just ask.

Night rider327

iTrader: (13)

I strongly disagree with that. I have pulled out and installed well over 300 engines/transmissions in third gens and never once have I un bolted trans from engine, or went from the bottom.

It takes me 2 hours from the minute I place jack under car, to the time I am picking up my tools and cleaning up to remove engine/trans as 1 unit from the top with a common cherry picker/engine hoist.

Here are just a few pics from many years ago. (last one shows my Dad guiding engine in place as I lower it down) I'm on my laptop so I don't have all my pictures on here. I have at least 50 more on my PC.

In the last 5 mo. I have pulled 4 engine/trans out of third gens that I'm parting out.

Night rider327

iTrader: (13)

Now to the OP...

The swap is very easy for both ways. It really just depends on what you want and like.

If the '84 was a v6 car you will need to swap K member mounted engine mounts out. If it was a V8 car, you are fine.

No... No third gen transmission was computer controlled. The computer did work the lock up function of torque converter, but you can leave it un hooked and trans will work fine, or buy a cheap little lock up kit, or make your own lockup kit.

You may need to swap the fuel pump/pickup sending unit if you go with TBI, depending on if the '84 was carb or tbi from factory.

If you stay with TBI, you will need the ECU (computer) and it's wiring. Pass. side kick panel and hush panel... Wiring is ran out through side of car behind the fender and up into engine bay next to heat/ac blower motor.
It would also be easier to grab the engine wiring harness off of the '91 as well.

If I was doing this and keeping the TBI here is how/what I would do.. Un hook and remove ECU, get ECU wiring up into engine bay, un clamp/bolt all harness from car and things that stay on car like heater, etc. Un bolt the engine wiring harness from firewall.

Un hook all the driveline stuff like driveshaft, shift cable, trans cooler lines, etc.

Pull out engine, transmission and all wiring that goes to engine/ecu as one unit... Clean stuff up, sit it over into the '84 and put ecu wiring and ecu in, put harness on firewall, etc.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

There was no EFI in any '84 f-body, V8 or V6.

There is a very slim chance there is an in-tank electric fuel pump in the '84 (later L69 or dealer-installed vapor lock kit), but very likely it would be easier to swap over the '91 tank in its entirety (assuming it isn't rusted like the rest of the car). The wiring would not swap directly over to the '84 because the EFI cars ran the harness behind the rear seat - no hole for it in the '84. The rear chassis harnesses also changed between '84 & '91.

I just ran new wires for the in-tank electric in my EFI-swapped '82s.