Hi my 87 firebird is getting overhauled with a built 350 and it will have a holly carb and vacuum advance distributor. I wanna get rid of the wiring harness and have read anything that comes out of the passenger firewall but looking it looks like the lock up for my 700r4 is from that side, am I able to just leave the trans plugged in and more or less just tuck the rest of the harness away?

 

No , of course not ......

When you hack the ECM out of the system by removing all of it's input sensors (O2 , TPS , CTS , and the rest) and output devices (mixture control solenoid , EGR valve , EVAP valve , and the rest) the ECM , even if still present and receiving power , WILL NOT lock up the converter when it needs to be locked up . The net effect will be a fried transmission in short order if your new 350 gets "foot to the floor tested" . much .

Lucky for you , your not the first or likely even the hundred thousand first , to butcher an ECM out of one of these cars . If you do a search of "lockup with no ECM" you will find there are two work arounds for this . One is a kit that has all the needed components to control the lockup without the ECM , and the other is a home made (cheaper) solution to the kit .

You can likely tell I'm not much in favor of removing the ECM , but then to each their own and since you have asked for no judgements I will give you none .