HelloThis is my first post on TGO about my second ever fbody and so far my favorite after about 10 days of her driving Me and my Dad put alot of work into her but it was worth it.


This is my 89 RS that was originally a 2.8L. I bought it after an unfortunate title issue with my 87 GTA, for $500 with plans to swap the engine and trans over and keep the original dash. But it turned into swapping all but the headlight harness from the GTA wiring wise mainly due to the original wiring being set up for a 2 wire alternator and the GTAs being a 3. We couldn't find any real info to get it charging so we just swapped all the wiring(including tailights!)over in the interest of saving time(my DD so it needed to be on the road asap)and headache from repining and whatnot. and now I have the only Camaro with a GTA digi dash I can find on TGO. I plan on swapping the GTA door panels over soon too and putting a 91-92 z28 wing on that came with the Camaro. So far her only mods are hedman shorties w/y-pipe. And I've still got some buttoning up to do on the dash(underdash panels)and motor(heater hoses/wire routing) but for now she drives beautifully



The GTA


Before the swap



The swap(changed rear main, oil pressure sender since it spewed about a quartiish a week, k member swapped and painted aswell)



(pic limit more coming..)

 

(these are just for show lol, we couldn't get a steep enough angle to put both in together)

 

(in the pics above you can see what the previous owner did to the GTAs carpet..spray painted, like the rest of the interior)


Drove around like this a few days to show off lol





Had to put that heavy SOB on by myself before work since it was going to rain..what a blast that was

 

Here she is atm. Painted the wheel, got rid of the aftermarket temp gauge(the ta had a pillar pod with it)and put the sender in its place so the temp is on the dash now. And got 14 gauge speaker wiring ran and radio installed

 

Looks like a cool project you got there. Once painted and wheels cleaned up more she will look great.

 

Might you have any in-progress pics of the dash swap? I might end up putting my Bird dash in the IROC unless I can get my hands on a 4th gen dash soon (don't have a dash for the 88 ), and I was wondering how much of the side brackets you cut off?

 

thats badASS! looking good bro

 

No I didn't think to get any On the bird the side brackets are just spot welded on and if you start wiggling them back and forth you'll eventually just break the spot welds after a minute or 2 and take the entire bracket. On the Camaro we just cut as much off to get as close to the body as we could with a sawzall.

 

Thanks Paint is coming in the next month or 2, wheels I'm prob gonna get some 5th gen Camaro wheels or some Vette wheels. Those came on the GTA and I've never cared much for them.

 

Thank you

Here she is atm. Took the decklid off the GTA and welded the holes up and bondo'd it up and got the 91 z28 spoiler on And I got tired of the yellow spots on the bumper so I just ran some mineral spirits on it and threw a quick coat of black and clear just to make it better for now

 

so was the digi dash swap as hard as i imagine or was it (ik its not simple but) as simple as taking the dash/harness/ecm form the bird, and installing it all in the camaro? like basically swapping it into another gta? or was there some custom work to be done, ik the brackets were probably tough as mentioned but anything else? hows it line up? vents work good?

 

It was as simple as that. We just took EVERY harness from the GTA to the Camaro. Engine/dash/console all the way to the tail lights were from the GTA(we did it in the interest of time/not wanting to do any splicing/tracing). Just took a few hours is all. And the brackets were super easy. You just need the little bottom piece from the GTA(don't even gotta cut it, just start pulling on it back and forth until the spot welds break). Where the Camaro dash attaches top and bottom on each side mount(you gotta cut it out). And aligning it we simply eyed the mount by referencing the same points on each car and we tacked em in place. You could measure it I guess but that seriously worked perfect. Fitment was great, didn't rattle or anything. All vents worked as they should(get the console vent thing from a TA the Camaro one is a bit too long for the TA's radio thing to go on). I loved that dash in that car so much better than the GTA. If I still had it I'd go take some pics but she's long gone

 

awe damn, sold it? crashed? you cant start a good looking camaro build then drop that bomb

 

Looks great! how long did it take you to do the dash swap? and did you have any wiring diagrams to help you?