I have a 1985 2.8 camaro and and planning on the 350 tpi swap soon. I have a donor drivetrain and a lot of time on my hands.

The question I have is about the dash gauges. The 85 camaro had the idiot dash (speedo and gas only) all the rest were idiot lights.

Is there any way to swap over to the v8 dash cluster with working gauges?

I am assuming all I would have to do would be to change the sending units and get a v8 gauge cluster. Is this correct? I can't imagine GM would have two separate wiring harnesses for just the dash would they?

Also I was planning on using the TPI from a 1986 camaro if that makes a difference.

 

I can.

I had a tach in the V6 car, but I swapped cluster/dash/harness & all. Removed all doubt.

Does your V6 engine wiring harness have a tach wire on the distributor?

 

Not sure if the harness has a tach wire on the distributor but I ddi swap in a tach-ed cluster from another v6 and the tach worked, the voltmeter worked but the oil pressure and water temp do not (wrong senders).

Was it hard to change the wiring harness for the dash? I do not have a donor car so it might be a little difficult to locate, but if necessary can be obtained.

 

You're on the right track...all you'll need to do is to use some sending units made for gauges and you'll be all set.

Pete

 

The V6 and V8 tach are funtionally the same (even though the displays are different). The tach is calibrated with a single resistor located being the face. Change the resistor and you have a V8 tach. This is how my tach was converted to V8 because I wanted the 6000 rpm redline shown with the V6 cars. A friend of mine had a variable frequency drive and did the work to calibrate my tach. It's dead on from 200 rpm to 8000 rpm