I just picked up an 87 trans am with a 305TPI and a 700r4. I got this from a buddy of mine, there is only about 40,000 miles on this combo.

The car actually started to rust away around the motor. So anyways, i am looking to put this into my 91 bird that is currently a v6 car.

Since i have the whole car, what else should i need. I will of course do new belts and hoses, plugs wires, all that good stuff.

Should i buy an aftermarket harness, or just re-use the one from the 87?

If i do that, should i run into any problems hooking anything back up?

One more thing, can i use my ac condenser and other items on the v8 car?

 

Everything should swap over without a hitch. Are you going to use the tranny to? If so then you can use the wire harness and just make the necessary mods to get your speedo to work. Your 91 is electric and the 87 is cable. I would take the entire AC system out of the 87 as well and just use that. There are lots of little things that I did not cover but you will be able to have a sucessful swap.

 

Good to know, i was under the impression that the 87 and up birds already had the electronic speedo, i thought the camaros got it later.

Thanks for the tips

 

Oh you could be right on that. I am not sure when the change over was on the birds. Good catch.

 

I have a 1987 Trans Am GTA and I just took out my speedo and it is electric not cable. So youre all good to go. Thats gonna be a fun mod to your v-6 Bird. Good Luck

 

I just did my swap from a v6 3.1 to a 350 tbi v8. Anyway its a pretty stait forward swap. Your doing it right by getting a junker car that you can strip parts from. I would use the harness out of the junker and rewire it using your 3.1 harness. You will most likely run into problems with the ac wiring aldl wiring acc wiring and fuel pump wiring. You will have to move the pins around in the block where the harness goes into to make it all work. You need the motor mounts,brake line to the passenger side brake,radiator and a couple other small parts like the surpentine brackets. IF your doing a 350 swap your going to need more such as sensor etc.

 

If you use ECM all the way to the engine from the donor car, why would you have to do any splicing? It will all come out in one piece, sensors and all.

ECM to dash - now, that I'm not sure about.

For sure the V6 tach has to go (unless you re-resistor it).

I used the entire donor dash, which was fine except the dash to rear chassis connector was different. With a different number of wires. Spent a lot of time figuring that out.

I absolutely agree that a complete donor car is the right way to go. However, getting a donor car older than the receptor car can pose some problems.

 

 

Thanks for all the info guys. I was thinking of buying a wiring harness from painless wiring. Then i would think everything would be pretty easy.

I will let everyone know when i fire her up.

 

Well, i have not started on this yet, but i am this week. I have another question.

When i pull my v6 out. what part of the harness will be left? I know i will pull the ecm/engine harness with the motor. I assume the harness that connects sensors to the gauges will still be there?


I am just trying to figure out if the wires leading to my dash guages will still be on the car or not?