Hi guys, I'm new to the forum but I've been in the chatroom a bit talking with roc and the bunch of them, they said I should come here for this one. I'm a 20 yr old crim. justice student and i've budgeted about 1k to 1500 dollars as all I'm doing to the 355 are the seals and gaskets, the rebuild has 45k on the engine. I've considered alum. heads from a vette l98. I didn't budget for those yet. The swaps priority first before I change heads. The iron heads are ported as is.

I am going to remove the carb'd 305 from my 85 t-top camaro and will be replacing it with my 355 tpi from my 88 iroc.

The previous owner of the 88 did mod the car, I'm not sure how extensive, both fans run all of the time, there is no toggle switch for them. There is a hypertech sticker under the middle console storage door and had a 160 degree thermostat, I have to check to see if the ecms chipped. The key for the ignition does not have the little chip in it, so that means no vats right?

Anyway, the 88 was mated to a 350 trans I may use that, but the 85 has an overdrive trans in it, and I would like the overdrive.

With this swap, what harness's do I have to change from the 88 to the 85? I understand the engine harness will be swapped over, thats a given, but what about under the dash? I am going to switch to the 145 speedo from the 88, and I am scrapping the smog pump as this is a summer only car and has t-tops.

I know someone will say the 85' with ttops might not be good for the torquey 355 but I'm going to have subframe connectors.

I know you guys have a lot more experience than I have, I havn't taken a look under the dash of the car to check out the harnesse's.

In advance, thank you for any info you can give me for this swap.

 

Welcome aboard.

When you remove the ECM from both cars, the dash portion of the '85 should plug into the '88 ECM.

Not sure what the smog pump and T-tops have to do with each other.

What are you doing for exhaust? Most likely the '85 system is the poor LG4, while the '88 would be much preferred.

Other than that, sounds like you're on the right track.

 

The exhaust is in place, hedman shorties without smog accessories, and the exhaust piping from the 88 with no cat converter back to the holley aerochamber muffler which pours out of the two tail pipes. thanks for the reply

 

In the battery tray there is this connection, what is it for and why are two wires cut from it?

 

I saw this connection down in the passenger side of the engine bay, it was blocked, but why, is it one of those things that fools the cars sensor into thinking somethings there?

 

Which car's harness is that?

Nothing like dealing with a hacked-up harness. Time to get a shop manual with wiring diagrams.

 

edit- second one is the fuse for the ecm, should be bolted down to the frame rail however, someone forgot that.


Those two pictures are from the 88' tpi harness in the passenger front engine bay area.

 

Just finished the 355 tpi swap, oh yea... the car sounds mean. I can't wait to post up some sound clips and pics


I know so many are doing ls1 and lt1 swaps and what have you but doing this was pretty cool!

 

any way you could do a mini write-up? that'd be cool