Have a 85 z28 that was a stock lb9. I just got a 87 t/a l98 from salvage yard. my car has no engine but looks to have all the wires and ecm. the l98 has most of the mouse eaten harness but yard cut the thing in bulk areas. the 85 lb9 had a larger dizzy with the coil in the top I think.The 87 l98 has a smaller one with seperate coil. can the ecm run this l98? can I just change the conectors out for the dizzy and coil? will my tach read right or will I need a different cluster?

 

nobody? Can I put an earlier dizzy in this 350 motor.like the one that came in the 85 305

 

NOT 'plug and play'. If you try to just bolt it in place the roller cam will shred the teeth on the distributor gear on the large cap HEI.


The only way that you can install a large cap distributor on a "roller" motor is to first remove the Cam Gear from the large cap HEI and replace it with the proper Cam gear.

 

ok. I checked austinthirdgen wire diagrams.85-87 are all pinned and color coded the same. I dont see any reson why I cant change the l98 conectors into the lb9 wire harness. everything matches. other than the plug wires if the yard wouldnt have cut the main harness where it enters the pass fender and the conector on firewall going to fusebox I would have pluged it in for a try

 

Still waiting to see a verified case of that happening.

While I wouldn't say it's the "only way", why would that be so hard? Easier than changing the wiring harness connectors, I would say.

 

Sorry for the bad advise; allow me to adjust that statement;

I gotta' ask,... What "other way" is there ? Just bolt it up and hope for the best ??


Everything I've ever read on a factory big cap distributor mounted to a roller cam says that the stock pre 87' cam gear will get shredded by the Camshaft. Replacing the coil-in-cap distributor gear for a "melonized" gear is highly recommended and widly accepted as standard practice when dealing with this issue. I have used a coil-in-cap with a roller block and swapped the gear first based on research done in advance of the build. Could I be wrong; sure. Is it possible for the original gear to hold up without becoming shredded for awhile; Yup. However; I'd never suggest bolting an 85 Thirdgen Distributor "as is" to an 87+ roller cam engine to anyone.

Took about 2 seconds to find this post:
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tech...ml#post5434100


I won't do it, but to anyone with the guts to try it; go ahead and bolt a stock coil-in-cap distributor to a roller engine,........ & then be sure post back and let us know how much metal (if any) is inside the oil after putting some hard miles on it.

 

Be no trouble to change the conectors on the harness.Motor is already out and conectors on l98 in good shape. I have alot of cleaning and checking to do before I go that far. gota drop the pan and see if it looks ok. I let ya know which way I go.Thanks for ur post.