the mechanic i have helping me is acting like this project is super hard, and i dont beleive him. i am putting a 95 LT1 in a 92 Z28. the motor and tranny are in, all i need to do is wire the car. i have the 92 harness, 95 stock harness, and a painless kit. he thinks he needs to spend days building a harness, combinig the 95 and 92 harness. i also think that is bs. i have read alot on this forum, and it dont sound that hard. does anyone have a step by step for doing this? i am willing to send back the painless and use the stock harness, or i will use the painless. i honestly dont care. this has been going since august, and im sick of it. thats why i am supposed to be paying him to do it, but he seems very confused. i have showed him all my research from this site, and he still dont get it. i just want it done. is there anyone out there willing to come to hermiston oregon, and get paid to help me? i am stuck. i am not a good enough mechanic to do this alone. i have already invested 5k, so it is starting to suck. like i said, i will pay someone to help.

 

well may not be of much help probably but i just wanted to try. I have a 79 vette and i dropped a 96 impala SS LT1 in it...to make a long story short, its a 4 year project still in the making, anyhow, i had the stock lt1 harness, stock vette harness, and "tried" getting a painless wiring lt1 harness, after the motors bolted in, i find out painless doesnt make a harness for the 96 with distributor less ignition(this was like 2 years ago) so i was stuck with the 2 stock harnesses. i found a company called Centech wiring, through them i bought a 96 lt1 harness, every connector was hand labeled and set up for just what i needed. it had i believe like a 4 wire hook up... power, ground, starter, tach. i got the manual for the vette and cut and labeled every wire at the bulkhead connector at the fuse box, when i get time, i wil reconnect the the needed corrosponding wires to the appropriate sensors.(im doing aftermarket gauges so that makes it a lot easier..just run directly to new gauges) so all in all, i have the LT1 as a stand alone unit running itself with its compuetr seperate from the car. On your 92, i assume if you just run the painless wiring kit the same way as a stand alone system, it should be the easiest. then just locate the neccesary wires in the stock 92 harness and splice those to matching sensors. the starter/main power wires at the starter should just swap over fine. with my harness i even got the vats bypass plug in module, a check engine light wiring, and a diognosic port to plug into the impala computer. well thats all i got to tell ya, probably confused you more than anythign but i hope somethign helps....-paul

 

oh, let me just clear something up, the wiring isnt hard, thats not why its takign 4 years , haha, i just always have other projects, the time it took to wire the engine and get it running was like 2 days workign occasionally too. its pretty straight forward. if you need any specific advice or would like pictures on my lt1 install just email me at smokingss@aol.com. also i may be able to help with other f-body related questions or parts. right now im doing a 305 tpi to a 350tpi swap, mmmm fun....oh well. -Paul


current cars:
2001 SS camaro ttop
1988 Iroc Z ttop ...wrecked(being stripped now)
1986 Iroc Z ttop
1985 Camaro berlinetta(getting tubbed, caged, BBC, etc)
1984 Z28 ttop
1979 Corvette (with 96 Impala SS LT1)
1991 firebird...well only 1/2 of it now...sawzalls are fun....
1987 ford bronco

past cars:
1995 caddy STS
1988 Iroc z convertible(383 stroker 5 spd)
1986 Iroc Z ttop
1984 Z28 hardtop
1985 firebird ttop
1988 trans am GTA ttop
1987 Shelby Z daytona ttop
1984 Turbo Z daytona
1984 mustang GT ttop
1973 Dodge Coronet

 

Hey man, this is what I did to patch the original LT1 harness to the car at the firewall connector.

Get both GM shop manuals detailing new engine wiring and car wiring systems.

1) get LT1 PCM reprogrammed to take out everything you do not need it to control, IE cruise, emmissions, VATS. A lot of places can do this.
2) get details of PCM pinouts - label everything, then remove all the wires that you do not need anymore..ie canister purge solenoid, AC control etc. You will only have about half the harness left.
3) Determine exactly what wires you have at the firewall connector from GM manual. Will be for guages etc, starter, PCM power, fuel pump feed, old AC control. All of my old guages worked with the new (95 LT1 engine in 86 camaro except for the oil pressure for which I installed the old sending unit to the new motor)
4) Hookem up...basically go through each wire step by step and determine what it connects to and if you require it.
5) put harness in car and lengthen/shorten wires to make it fit properly. Be sure to use high temp wire (insulation...to test it try holding a match to some reqular wire, then the GM stuff in the harness..you'll see. Also be sure to use solder, silicon sealer and shrink wrap on every connection to seal it..like the original harness).

That's it...look in the manuals to start, it's not that difficult. I also recommend removing or working on only ONE wire at a time from the harness. Take you r time. It took me about 30-40 hrs MAX to do this.

 

Jeeze, what kinda deal is he making of that, man i put a stock harness back in mine for the chassis the other day, and in a few hours had it running again, wtf, go to diyefi site and print out the wiring diagrams for your harness, actually if its a TPI car, get a used tbi harness for nearly nothing, and modify it, then sell your tpi harness, make some money back that way, you should be able to find all the wiring diagrams there for it.

 

The stock LT1 wiring does not need much modification just to get the engine running. The bare minimum to get the engine running is.

Fuel pump power
Hook up your starter
Power to the PCM
and make sure all your engine connections are hooked up.

 

yeah but i want all the stuff in the car to work too. it doesnt make sense to me not to do it all at once