Straight to the point. My girlfriend picked up a 350 from a '72 Chevy pickup. I stripped and rebuilt the engine. I've never done a complete V6 to V8 swap. The wiring in her camaro is shot so I'm just rewiring the whole thing. My issue is, should I get an ECM from a 350 donor car, or just lose the ECM altogether. If I can get rid of the ECM, what will I need to modify to make that setup work right. Thanks for the help again guys!

 

i just did this swap on mine...u dont need an ecm if you plan to go with a carb(i did)-you need to save three or maybe four wires out of the harness-one is a big purple wire & there are 2 or 3 big red wires everything else you can cut short & tape off at the bulkhead on the firewall-if you dont have a problem with the lights i wouldnt cut any of the other wires...they run up the left frame rail to the headlights-u can unbolt and unplug the ecm under the passenger side dash & take it out of the car & get rid of all those wires coming out of it. hope this answers some of your questions

 

That helps a lot. Thanks. I have only one more question....for now anyway. What about the fuel pump? What did you do about that?

 

Your old 350 will most likely have a mechanical fuel pump, If youve got a fuel injected engine in the car now you may have to look into getting a gas tank from a carburated model.

 

Yeah. I figured I'd have to put in a mechanical pump. oh well, that's not too much trouble. I keep going outside and looking at that camaro and I keep thinking up new questions...I'm putting in a rebuilt 700r4 tranny. It's got OD. Any ideas on how to compensate for torque converter lock up without the ECM?

 

you can just remove the pump from the tank & replace it with a pick-up tube(piece of aluminium tubing)-the only pia is the fuel lines on a fuel injected car are on the wrong side. i crossed mine though the front cradle with steel braided line. on a v8 car they normally cross over in the tranny tunnel-as far as the tranny goes..the ecm has nothing to do with lock up. the torque converter locks itself depending on speed/gear

 

awesome. Thanks again. I'm not big with transmission work and all my friends were telling me that an OD transmission is controlled by the ECM. Good to know it's not. Saves me work. thanks