After 10 years of having this 91 Camaro RS conv. as a daily driver, we put it down three years ago to begin this new journey. We scraped the v6, tranny, drive shaft and now the rear end. We completely rewired it and removed the computer and all nonessentials. We rebuilt a 350 out of a 91 pickup. Bored it to .30 over and put in a Comp cam. We added aluminum heads and a Edlebrock torker II intake with 625 Demon carb with a HEI distributer.

We picked up a donor 89 firebird with a 305 with 700r4 tranny.

We are now getting down to the nitty-gritty details to finish this project.

Since this is my first build since the 80s when we were building 70s Camaros, I have a few questions.

I under stand the lock up wiring for the tranny. Some one had posted a nice topic on the tv cable. Will the Holley kick down brackets work with our tranny?

Will my speedo work with this tranny?

Is the torque convertor strong enough for this setup?

What rear end would be in this 89 IROC? I need to use it.

I will probably run into more issues and any advice is appreciated!

 

You'll need to scavenge the buffer box, VSS, tailhousing, VSS gears from the 89 firebird to get your speedo working. If the 89 is a camaro then you need to source another 90-92 camaro or 86-92 firebird auto trans for parts. V6, V8 doesnt matter. Camaros were cable speedo from 82-89

Check out austin thirdgen for wiring diagrams on the buffer box. Your V6 is wired like a TPI, so it doesnt have a buffer box. Check out the 90-92 TBI diagrams (VIN E) for how to use it

 

Where are these parts in the 89 firebird? I am using the tranny, drive shaft and rear end from the firebird. I am ordering torque converter lock up kit from Summit.

 

The VSS and related are all on the tailhousing of the trans. Grab the connector too

Buffer box is near the ECM, either white or yellow, about 4"x4". Grab both connectors

 

I got everything now. Thanks.

 

Any ideas of what gears are in this 89 firebird? It definitely has a posi. There are springs and 4 gears. I count 41 teeth and 15 teeth. this would figure to 2.73. Does this sound right?

 

2.73 and 3.23 were the gear options for auto cars, 3.08 and 3.42 for manuals

 

Car is now up and running great. I wired the speedo as instructed, but it is not working. Any ideas about how to troubleshoot to find the problem? Please help. Thanks.

 

Explain what you have now

 

I wired the buffer box according to the post. The tranny already had everything else. I wired the buffer box to the speedo as directed. Is the another connection to the speedo that hasn't been discussed. I rewired the entire car. The only thing not working is the speedo. I knew I couldn't use the tach without changing the resistor. So I put in a separate tach.

 

http://www.austinthirdgen.org/mkport...SS_V8_vinE.jpg

Thats what it needs to look like

VSS input high/low
Power/ground
Speedo output
ECM and cruise outputs not used

 

Like I said. I already followed those directions. Is there another connection to the speedo through the gauge cluster besides the one coming from the buffer?

 

I just tried testing the buffer box as described in another post. I jacked up the rearend, turn on the ignition, put the car in neutral, and turned the tires will testing both the green wire and brown wire(not connected to any of the wiring). The post says I should get between 1 and 3 volts. I don't get anything. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Your ratio is 41 ÷ 15, which works out to 2.7333333333333...