87 trans am gta fuel vs carb questions and budget build questions
 

please bare with me as i know im new to the fourm I've been searching around the internet and this fourm and about 4 different speed shops and I've gotten conflicting answers so here we go.

i recently picked up a 87 trans am gta for about 800$ the story is the guy had the car and decided to go from tpi to carb which is all well in good accept he stopped half way through. :/ hence the price so i figured i would finish the swap and call it a day but im also on a limited budget about 1300 total for everything. any who the car itself has about 84k original miles on it. one shop told me id make better power with the carburetor the other shop told me i would have to rebuild the whole engine the other shop told me i would be better off tuning the ecu throwing a cam in it and some new injectors and calling it a day. i just am so lost in a sea of information and this is only the second v8 i have ever owned (usually i work and stick with euro tuners specifically saabs) i know if i go forward with the swap the hi pressure fuel pump has to come out which means the rear end has to come off then i need a trans lock out switch a kick down cable and a new throttle cable. which im assuming i can get from an older chevy. i was then told i would need specifically and 87 and up intake or i would change out heads and i could use the intake the guy gave me. but i don't exactly have 1k plus to drop on heads and i have not been able to find a used set of sbc heads. or i could keep the stock heads and cam it and it will make decent power.


option 2 is to hook back up all the fuel injection stuff throw a decent cam in it and maybe some bigger injectors( i was going to go with the a thumper cam which is about 300$ as i have the roller lifters from the factory.) tune the ecu and call it a day but i have been unable to find any info on tuning or anything with the car it self.


so the question i pose to you guys is which in the long run would be cheaper and give me more power ? and more economical for a power house dd ( im not worried about emissions as Florida doesn't have any)

the list of mods done to the car already are
373 gears and a posi rear end
and a full flomaster exhaust from the cat back which i was going to cut the cats out and run true dual exhaust with a x pipe and some decent headers since were going to pull the motor anyway to clean it up and reseal it.
the trans mission also has a shift kit in it which i also plan on installing a ratchet shiftier.

here is a pic list of everything i have

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any help would be appreciated as i am really at an impasse here of what is going to give me less problems and better power over all

Re: 87 trans am gta fuel vs carb questions and budget build questions
 

If (and that is a big if) all the original FI parts are there, you are better off putting the engine back together into stock configuration and ensuring that it runs at all. If the car never ran for you, there is no way to know for sure what other problems you would be facing. You could get it back together and find out that the timing chain jumped or that the rings are bad, but it would be a smaller time and money investment than to change it to carb just to find out that the engine is bad.

That being said, if you are willing to invest some time and money into the engine after it runs, I think you will be better off keeping it FI and selling the other parts. The only reason I could see converting it to carb is if you cannot reasonably and economically circumvent the emissions and programming hurdles that the MPI systems have.

Last note, it the fuel pump is functioning and has a return line, you can pop a regulator on there and call it good- no need to remove the pump and switch it out.

Re: 87 trans am gta fuel vs carb questions and budget build questions
 

:yup:

I'll second that.