Hi I was just wondering if there is a way to burn a prom on the older cars? My car is an 83 and is carberated but it is still controlled by the ecm. I was reading the diy and it only showed 85 and up. is the computer to old or is there just no benefit in tweaking the prom with the carbs? I think it would be interestng and fun to learn how to do this. thanks.

 

It can be done, and I WAS starting on the .ecu file that would be needed for it, but I've not gotten very far. I haven't had any time to put into it, so it's gone to the back burner.

There's not much that can be done in the way of fueling from what I see, the main differeces would be in the timing area, and TCC coperation. In fact, anything other than idle and part throttle fueling is all still basic carb stuff. Unless you have modified the engine, I don't know how much power you're going to pick up. I could use some more timing on mine, and since I have a newer trans, the TCC stuff is way off, but by the time I get around to burning chips for the thing, I'll probably have fuel injection on it anyway.

I'll dig up some old posts about this and update this thread.

 

Just get the instruction manual for the ZZZ retrofit into the 3rd Gens. Use the ecm, and esc module they suggest.
Then get a copy of Doug Roe's Quadrajet Book.
Using the above, with Q-Jet on a cross fire manifold I went mid 13s. 355, CC 270, 9.5:1, vette heads, 3.23 gears.

 

I don't have a quadrajet, I have a rochester 2 barrel E2SE, so I don't think that would help out this car. It's just a 2.8l with 144 hp stock. I know it's sad. I just thought I would try and get as much power out of it as I can because it's fun to do. Even though I would love to put a v8 in it I just don't have the time and money right now. I have been working on the electrical nightmare and interier also. Thanks for trying to help though.

 

The 83 Firebird with the Rochester 2 barrel is actually rated at 107 hp. net (in a 3500 lb car!! GM was nuts to do this to the F body). You can see this spec for yourself here My friend has a 5 speed manual 83 firebird that we're trying to get rid of, it's the slowest car I've ever driven. I outran it in a fully loaded 3.8 1996 Chrysler town and country Lxi (which does 0-60 in 10.9 seconds, its very very slow) and I also outran the 83 2.8 to 75 mph on an old Suzuki 185cc 2 stroke dirtbike.

 

just wondering if anyone on here knows someone/company that does make the computer for carbs. was thinking of switching mine back to computer controlled but it has a 383 in it instead of 305 so i havent found anyone who does 85 trans ams