Okay, so I've got an 86' carbed berlinetta. I'm swapping out the 305 for a 350 tbi from an 88 (or 89, i don't remember) cheyenne. what should I expect to give me a hard time with this? Are the motor mounts the same? I need as much information on this as possible seeing as I'm pulling the motor this weekend. thanks!

eddie.

 

Your motor mounts will work, but i would replace them while you can easily. When i did the swap mine were sagging. Since your going from carb to tbi(im assuming your not keeping the carb) you will need all the computer stuff, wires etc, and the correct fuel pump.

 

Test your fuel pressure - make sure that you have 20 PSI dead headed. Or even better get a new TBI pump installed!
Motor mounts should be the same.
You'll have to transfer ECM, sensors and harness from donor.
In the truck ECM is mounted just above glove compartment and harness run to the firewall is very short. On F-body ECM is mounted under the right footwell cover making harness almost 2 feet longer. You may want to consider adapting CCC harness to a truck TBI application (7747). There're several circuits that are different - I do not have CCC harness diagram in my collection. Perhaps someone will chime in with CCC harness diagram.

What is the service number of your CCC ECM????
What's your trany??
For this swap to be smog legal in the eco-**** state of Kalifornia you better off getting F-body ECM and all related equipment (CCP, AIR, EGR, and other crud) unless you live in few counties that do not have bi-annual smog checks!

/RF

 

yeah, i have the harness, brain, and am going to be throwing in new mounts. but i can thrown that sumbitch in there and not worry about how it's going to fit right? also, the camaro is auto and the truck was a manual. any problems with that?

 

Are you keeping your car auto? or swapping to manual?

 

The motor has everything on it aside from a smog pump that I'm going to rob off the 305 as far as smog. I know i have to drop the tank and fit a fuel pump in there, umm what else. what do you mean about ccc . computer controlled carb? and what do you mean adapting?
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sticking with the auto.

 

Which automatic do you have THM-350 or 350C or 700R4???? The last two have lock up converters that are controlled by ECM.

What is the service number and BCC of your truck ECM??? 1227747 ASXA??? BCC determines if ECM will control TCC in the trany - if not 7747 ECM are very common and easy to find. Better yet car equivalent 1228746, used in TBI LO3 and LO5 uses alomost the same harness as 7747 can be used.
//RF
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Yes, CCC computer controlled carb harness has a lot of commonality with TBI, but there are differences as well. I would get 7747 and CCC harness diagrams and do a circuit by circuit compare (pin by pin). Thereafter, repinning is easy....

Questons???

//RF

 

I don't know right now, but i will on saturday when we pull all that out. it's out in someones back yard right now. 700r4

 

will i have to resist shooting myself in the forehead? okay, so the bcc is the 4 letter combo on the upper corner of the label? and the wiring harness for the truck will be about 2ft shorter than it needs to be? but the harness off the ccc setup is very close to the harness for a tbi setup and could be repinned in a few spots to work for the tbi? I could add length to the harness wires to reach where they gotta go or could i relocate the ecm? the wiring harness on the 'maro is kinda mangled up so I was hoping to use the one from the truck anyways. am I getting any of this?

 

Yes, on all counts, but hold the shooting part!!!

Here are couple tidbits...
When you work on the donor (the truck) make sure that you label everything. Take plenty of digi-photos during the process. This harness came out of 1991 B-Body



It was in good shape, but it was going into my '75 and many circuits were not needed and un-ceremoniously striped.



Everything was labeled and all circuits and connectors were checked before re-installed. Some circuits (power, P/N, etc) were lengthened.







You may get lucky and straighten truck harness and it may reach from a stock (F-Body) location to where it needs to reach once you install it into Camaro. Lengthening harness wires is not that difficult, but it involves soldering, heat shrinking solder joints, wrapping things up. Do you rely want to do this??? Are you good at soldering since poorly formed solder joints will become a failure point when you least expect it....

If you have an option - go to a local J-Yard and find late eighties TBI camaro or B-body and lift harness (and ECM and all other stuff you can) from it. It will be much cleaner (and less prone to failure) in the long run. Expensive option is to get new harness from aftermarket sources (about $300+)

Do you have to pass smog?????


//RF

 

yeah

 

Technically (to have a fighting chance) you'll need passenger car ECM and smog equipment (CCP, Air diverter, EGR, etc). Look for F-body or B-Body on JY for harness and associated smog crud. Otherwise, they'll fail you on visual. You can still use the engine (probably as is) but all the other stuff you'll need.

//RF

 

Okay, so now it's going to be from a 1992 buick roadmaster. I was wondering how I should go about grabbing that harness? do I need every wire i can find? or just the stuff going out in front of the firewall?

 

On Roadmaster (B-Body) the ECM harness passes through the firewall on passenger side, below AC evaporator. It is held to the fire wall with two bolts. Inside the car disconnect the two ECM connectors and big multi-pin connector with a securing bolt through. There should be couple small connectors and vacuum lines used for AC controls. The photo that you see in my earlier post is of a harness that came from B-body aka Caprise or Roadmaster.

Back, inside engine compartment start removing harness from the firewall out by disconnecting it from securing mounts, etc. Do not, under any circumstances, cut any wires!!! It should be unbolted, diconnected. You want that harness intact at this stage! It took me about two hours (by myself ) to remove the harness at the JY. Having a loads of patience and cool disposition is a must, but swearing is OK if it helps!!!
It is a good idea to have a clip board and id connectors - write down number of pins, color of connector insert, device connected to, etc. Once you remove it from donor B-Car you'll be able to strip unnecessary circuits, but that should be carefully, without damaging wires and connectors. If you have questions - drop me a line. '92 should be very similar to '91

//RF

 

Do you think the jy will let me trade my old motor+tranny for the tranny on that motor?

 

--- It is does not hurt to ask, but if its in good shape swapping a complete drive line makes better sense!

//RF

 

Well, it's in my garage now,with the tranny(100 bucks w/core). the guy who was driving the lift ****ed up the dizzy and I haven't looked at it really yet, but it's there. i grabbed all the wires I could, but I think I ****ed up and didn't bring a thing or two

 

Hey - post photos of your carnage. Let see what you got for all its worth...

//RF

 

I'm about to go to bed right now, but the camera is full of pics that I'll throw up into photobucket or something tomorrow. It came out pretty clean, i just don't know if I got enough wires.
THERE WERE A LOT

 

Well, good night and sweet dreams - you have a lot of work in front of you. Photobucket or any other online picture storage service makes good sense as long as you can get a link from it to a post.

Shoot, tomorrow is Monday!!!!

 

http://s228.photobucket.com/albums/e...buick%20motor/

Okay, there you have it, my new motor. A quick question. I thought I heard somewhere that I had to swap out my old oil pan or something for the dipstick location. any truth to that? Will the headers from my 305 still fit the 350? I'm sure I'll have more when I get around to them. Tonight I'm going to pressure wash the motor and get it a little sparkled up. It'll be nice to work with something clean now. haha.

 

also, can I use my old dizzy off the 305? I know this one has a separate mounted coil, and it's a baby looking kinda guy and the one off the 305 is humongous, but i don't know anything really about interchangeability yet. I have a feeling there will still be more questions to come.

edit: i already thought of one. How can I go about using my old electric fan setup and ditch the 350's fan clutch?

 

osirus

Nice catch! A complete engine trany combo is always a good foundation for low cost build.

First things first.
1) Your headers for 305 will bolt to the 350 heads without any issues.
2) Visually inspect 350 pan vs. 305 oil pan I believe that they are nearly identical, but I am not sure.
3) Your original 305 used a full size HEI. Buick and Caprice use unique intake manifold and dizzy to clear that low overhang firewall. FWI use small HEI. Large hat HEI from your 305 will NOT mount on B-Body intake manifold. There is a current thread that goes in deep discussion of the three different dizzies used through out years.
4) You can ditch fan clutch and have electric fans activated via thermal switch. This is easy to setup - reauires thermal switch and one of those BOSCH 30 Amp relays.
5) I hope that you got the B-body ECM 16136965 which is similiar to 7747/8746 family of ECM's.
6) Save all extra parts - you never know when you'll need something.

7) When cleaning your new engine be carefull with moisture ingress - easy does it!!!


//RF

 

I added a few more pictures.

 

now they include pictures of the harness, ecm, and more detailed pictures of the wires that i did bring. I didn't bring as many wires as I probably should have though

 

From your photos I think that you got about all it with the exception of the CCP canister that sits next to car alarm horn. Those are easy to overlook, but you need to grub it to make your swap complete.

//RF

 

I think it's there somewhere
hmm
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http://s228.photobucket.com/albums/e...t=CIMG4090.jpg

is that canister sitting in front of the motor what you were talking about?

 

Yes, that's the thing - it is sitting on the leg of the cherry picker.... has a red/blue plug plugged into it a two rubber hoses.

//RF

 

you should throw your 305 serp setup on that motor...imo

 

the serpentine setup is from the 350 if I'm not mistaken. The older setup uses all them v-belts can I rob the roller rockers off my 305 for the 350?

 

oh im not sure but i got a 350 tbi and im swapping it to carb and iam taking my serp setup from the 91 305 and putting it on my 350. but with the rockers im not sure but i would think you could but again im not sure.

 

http://s228.photobucket.com/albums/e...20motor/dizzy/

Okay, so there's a link with some pictures of the dizzy. I don't know if there's any way to fix that or not ( I was hoping there was). the metal plate that everything bolts into is sorta freely sitting there. feel free to ask me any questions about it, I'll be further inspecting if I need to.

 

Okay, yeah.. I took her out and that thing is messed up bad.

Does anyone know how much a replacement should cost? from the jy or something maybe?
CAPRICE 91-92 8-305 (5.0L)
CAPRICE 91-92 8-350 (5.7L)
CUSTOM CRUISER 91-92 5.0L
CUSTOM CRUISER 92 5.7L
ROADMASTER 91 (8-305, 5.0L)
ROADMASTER 92-93 (8-350, 5.7L)


those should have one right?

 

Yes, it looks like the num skull at JY did a number on that poor thing. The problem if you want to keep B-Body intake you'll need a matching B-body specific dizzy, preferably that has not been crashed or otherwise misused as per your list.
Alternatively, you have the following options
1) find cast iron TBI OEM intake from F-body (use your 305 dizzy)
2) Eldebrock (Performer TBI #3704) - weight improvement (with your 305 dizzy).
3) possibly (E.O. group 1 to keep smog police happy) 4-BBL carb intake with a matching TBI adaptor plate (trans-adapt, CFM-tech?).


What is the make and model of your 4-BBL intake on 305?
If you pull intake take a look at your cam - is it roller or flat tappet?

I have B-body dizzy - drop me a line - it is a used unit from JY

//RF

 

flat tappet on the 305, some performer intake, not sure about a pn for it off the top of my head.

 

Ah, another boo boo on that motor. Oil pan has a sensor going into it, idk pressure, level, anyways it was intact when I looked over the car (everything looked really cared for in that bay, big reason i got it). Just noticed, now it is not. Drivability should still be okay, right?

 

is there a difference between tranny mounts? if I order one for a 92' buick, will it plug in the camaro no problem? or will I need to order one for the camaro. also, it doesn't look like my bracket that held that shield by the driveshaft in place will hook up to the new tranny.

 

Also, where the hell do i start with this wiring change? the ecm wiring goes into the bay right? and that other that mounted to that connection box? I am really hoping that i don't go looney with this. I don't know, it's probably tons easier than i'm envisioning at this moment.

 

i have a dizzy thats fine i pulled out of my 350tbi i bought a new one with the coil in it because im going carbed its in perfect condition just swap over your cap and rotor and your set to go the motor it came out of only has 11k miles on it lmk thanks

(exact same setup as a 305 but its a 350)

 

thanks for the offer man, but alex is hooking this vato(haha) up. I'm really devoting my mind to the wiring right now. scaary. gotta tune up before i throw it in the car, figured it'd be easier that way.

 

no prob osirus i was just throwing it out there lol.

 

ya, the old dizzy off my 305 is in pretty good condition, with a new accell supercoil thing ( i don't remember, i was just tuning the ****er up haha), cap, rotor, and the gear was still looking really good so i'm basically parting out that old motor on craigslist right now to pay for stuff to install the 350. especially since i'm so short on cash right now. on the bright side, change is here!

 

the buick motor link should now also have pictures of the oil level sensor

 

Well, she gave us hell for a good two hours but the tree fiddy is now settled down. on to the wiring (crap).

 

Okay, long time no post. Now that ****'s done going on for a bit, I'm jumping into the 'maro project again. My question is with pulling the old harness out. Do I just disconnect the old harness from EVERYTHING that it was connected to? like random **** mounted the firewall and so forth? I dunno, I got the harness and ecm pulled from under the dash and the passenger side is pretty much out ( I think mostly due to not connecting to any of the old stuff anymore.) but there's like a good size loom going to the other side. Do I disconnect all that stuff too? I'm going to try to see if I can get an electrician from work to maybe install the new harness.

 

Hey - long time no hear!

Disconnect old (ECM CCC) harness from all components attached within engine compartment. You do not have to cut any wires. During factory installation harness was (is) attached to engine before being mated to the car body. Engine was tested before installation with its harness connected to all engine attached components.

Just make sure that you identify all components that harness is connected to before removing it. Strongly recommend that you label everything before hand. To do this task electrician is not required as this is just plug - connector disconnect activity.

Questions???

//RF

 

Hey Alex! Yeah, things took me away from the project for quite a while huh? Okay, so I've gotten the passenger side stuff pulled up but the bundle going to the driver side is a bit intimidating for the mere fact that I don't know if I pull it all off? I did intend to but I don't know, will the new harness have provisions for the items that are hanging around there? I'm definately going to take pics and such just in case, but I dunno.. What do I do with that cluster**** of wires that's going to feed under the dash. I noticed that there's a box that the old ecm went into that had like stuff for hazzies and lights and so forth. what will I be doing with that?

 

okay, i'm chugging along right now, pulling and labeling, but I don't know what to do with this bundle. it looks like it goes through the firewall on the drivers side (no separating connector). I was just wondering about this bad boy. Maybe ignition/tach/whatever the **** wires?


**edit:Okay, so I pulled the harness out, I guess I didn't need to mess with those? On to the next subject at hand. That main harness (which I will have a picture of up by the end of the night) is the only wiring that is hitting the road, right?

 

Old Harness:


Cluster**** that I ended up NOT having to **** with so far.


Loom that takes away said cluster**** to parts unknown.


Used to lead into the old dizzy for the batt/tach spot. Obsolete?


If my memory serves me correct, was this not to oil pressure? Obsolete?

 

Wire went to the old quadrajet. obsolete?


I don't even know what this went to, but I'm sure it's obsolete as well maybe?


There's more, like the a/c power and other stuff. Does this all go out the window since there's a new big ol' harness? I don't know how exactly to weed all this stuff out. I was going to just start by maybe pulling the wires that don't obviously connect to anything anymore.