I currently have no engine in the camaro i baught, and want to put simple 4bbl carbed engine. I have no wiring harness or nothing in the car, what do i need to get this engine to run, plan on using the 7004r tranny. Engine is fully equiped with starter, distribur, alternator and all the stuff needed to make it run (powersteering pump too). Engine is from a 73 chev pickup.

 

When you say that you have no wiring in the car, what do you mean? Is the car void of all wiring? Or, do you mean under the hood?

 

well i assume theres no wiring at all so therefore you need to find a donor car with preferably a factory carb v8 and 700r4

and that would be an 84 to 88 car


not too hard though, v-8 and 4 speed auto cars are super common


the real dilemma will be if you have to run the EST/ESC system or not, if you have emissions inspections there.

if so then youll have to go quite a bit further with this and swap in the ECM and harness too

but that 73 engine wont be able to have a knock sensor

thats the first problem of many others with such an old engine into an 80-up car

we need more info from you

 

i just mean like the wiring for the engine, it used to have a 2.8 in but the guy took it out, its now ready for a small black chevy, the engine mounts are in and everything. THeir is no wiring for ignition and that stuff.

 

There's no need to limit it to carb donor cars (which only go to '87 in f-bodies, FWIW). The wiring needed would be in any auto tranny car, including V6's.

A '73 would have a points distributor originally. I hope you don't consider using such a distributor. You can get a new HEI distributor with cap, rotor & coil on eBay for less than $80 that will work with just a power and tach wire.

If the wiring was just cut out instead of removed at the connectors, the wires you need are still there. You just need to identify which ones they are (okay, not an easy task, but not impossible, either, with a wiring diagram) and splice wiring to where it needs to go.

 

well i guessin 88 they were all FI but in other models such as the monte and caprice they were still carb

and the harness from either would work jut fine, the ECm sits in the kick panel just the same as in the f bodies

not sure why gm decided to cut off the LG4 engine for 88 in the f bodies only,

wierd.,.,


either way you need a donor car wiring harness for factory v-8 carb and preferably 700r4 too

still..


also take not that the 73 power steering pump lines and fitting in the back of the pump will not work for your car

as in 1980 the lines and fitting were changed to O ring type and 79 older were flared type

sop you will need to go get an 80-up fitting from any rear wheel drive 1980-up gm vehicle pump and the hoses from an 82-92 f body v8

you can retain the current pump and brackets and pulley and hose and all that



another issue wil be that if you plan on running stock factory correct manifolds in your car the driver side oil stick will not work and you will have to get a flexible aftermarket one

but you would be fine it were the other way around and you were putting in an 80 and up engine with the passenger side stick, as those clear all the manifold types that gm made over the years


the last time i ran into this oil stick and manifold issue was when i put an 80 older 4 bolt 350 engine into an all original 83 k-20 pickup, with the same type manifolds as on the 80 and up cars, you cant do it


you run into and learn about these issues after doing lots of different engine swaps in a million different vehicles types over the years


good luck

 

Sorry, i'm shy on patience today, so I didn't read this completely. Few thoughts that come to mind:

'73 car with a staggered bolt pattern starter on it - do you need to swap to straight bolt pattern starter to fit the smaller flexplate you'll need to use to fit the smaller bellhousing you'll need to use to fit the camaro? (gasp! run on sentence!). I know this to be true with a stickshift, not totally aware on auto trannys. I just know it sucks to find this out at the last minute.

An older carbed motor with no wiring? Isn't it great? I can hear the FI guys turning green with envy all the way over here.

He's not going to worry about finding a ccc carb setup over in New Brunswick, so we don't have to worry about that.
You'll only need to wire from your charge light to your alt, alt to battery, battery to starter, starter to fuse panel, and maybe from _____ to your electric choke, and your ignition (key ignition) to your distributor, and wiring from distributor into car, for an aftermarket tach. (The V6 car probably didn't have this stock?)
And oil pressure sensor to your mangled wiring, and temp gauge from drivers side head to dash (or mangled wiring, which may end in the area of your power brake booster.

Ok, so not "zero wiring" but very little. Enjoy.

 

The 700R4 tranny ... is it the original from the 2.8l setup? If so, you won't be able to put a 350 on it - a 6cyl 700R4 won't attach to an 8cyl motor.

If you have an 8cyl 700R4, then you'll need to go into the pan, and install a new solenoid to lock up the torque converter - TCI, B&M, and several others make toque converter lock-up kits to install - since there won't be an ECM controlling the lockup, it'll need to be controlled via vacuum switch and new solenoid from one of these kits.

 

Need to know what year the transmision was. In 86 or 87 chevy small blocks went from being a 2 piece rear main seal internal balance engine to a one piece real main seal external balance engine. So what does that mean? The most notable difference is in the flywheel which is the part that connects the engine to the transmission. An earlier flywheel will have the larger crank to flywheel bolt pattern and no counter-balance weight on the flywheel. The latter one's have a smaller crank to flywheel bolt pattern and do have a counter-balance weight on the flywheel. If your 700r4 is "early", you should be fine with the 73 engine. At some point, around the same time, they also went from a large outer diameter flywheel to a smaller one. I believe 186 tooth to 153 tooth. Normally the large diameter ones used a staggered bolt starter and the small diameter ones use a starter with inline mounting bolts. I think there may an aftermarket starter which can be used on either.

I learned of these issue when I tried to put an early engine in my 87 camaro. A little machine work was done, but it turned out right and still runs great.

 

You've got a mix of fact and error in there.

In '86, they did indeed go to the one-piece rear main seal. But, that didn't change the transmission, just the flexplate (flywheel). All 3rd gens used 153-tooth flexplates (~12-3/4" diameter), regardless of rear main seal type. And, the transmission isn't what matters, it's the flexplate and starter that have to work together.

The '73 engine will need a 2-piece rear main seal type flexplate. Just use the '83-'85 3rd gen f-body V8 application part, and you'll be fine.

For the record, the "large" 14" flexplates are 168-tooth.

 

i had had to switch from that type to the externaly ballence type when switching from an 84-87 motor. i wish my car had no wireing and i could start fresh with a mechanical carb insted of the ccc junk on it. my old truck was so simple. like 5 wires for the whole damn motor. pretty much just hook up the basics and the rest you can trash. if your interested in that flexplate i know its in my shed somewhere just Pm me

 

Although the one-piece rear main seal flexplate has a weight attached to it, it is not "externally balanced", unless you say that every SBC that has a weight external to the crankcase is "externally balanced". That weight takes the place of the counterweight that was built into the 2-piece rear main seal cranks through 1985.

The only true "externally balanced" SBC were the 400's. 383's that use a 400-type crank are also externally balanced. An externally balanced engine also requires a weighted damper. 1-piece rear main seal engines don't have a weighted damper, so convention says they are not externally balanced.

 

yeah thats what i ment, i knew only 400 cranks were exernal ballenced. but when i looked at the 2 flexplates when i first swaped them i was like wtf? i thought it was a diffrence between the 200r4 trans and 700r4 trans they came from then i relized duh 1piece rear main vs 2 piece.

also i know 400's are the only small blocks externaly ballanced but arnt there externaly balanced bbc's too?

 

Thanks five7kid,

I was sippin on the homemade hard cider when I wrote that, but at least it got you to chime in. Part of comes down to how one defines internal/external balance. A "defining" moment in my life was when my dad and I were putting the first engine I had built into the camaro. It was one I rebuilt which came out of his 78 corvette. At the time I didn't know about the different ring gear and bolt hole pattern sizes. Anyhow the bellhousing on my 87's T5 wouldn'd fit around the large flywheel I was trying to use. To make matters worse, I was home on leave from the Navy and had to report to my next duty station in a few days. The short term solution was to drop the engine into the 73 chevelle I had at my parents' house with a bad engine in it. The long term solution was my machinist took my flywheel from the 87 and bored out the center hole and drilled a new set of flywheel to crank bolt holes. He also had to mill out the counter balance weight and then zero balanced it. Is it external balanced or not? I don't care to argue over symantics; I want engines to run right. As far what the threat originally concerned, I think you are right. The bell housing on an automatic transmission is open on the bottom, so you can run either size flywheel unlike what I went through on a manual. I also drilled and tapped an additional hole in the block so I could use a starter with inline bolts. There may be a staggared bolt starter out there which can be used with a 153 tooth ring gear. Does anyone know?

 

The T5 bellhousing is a special case, that is for sure. The originator was talking about a TH700, though.