I posted this in the electrical forum, but I haven't got a bite yet and I'm not even sure that it's a proper topic for that forum.
So, I'll give it a shot here...

I just bought this car('85 Camaro carbed v8), so I have no idea what sort of devilry that was inflicted on it by the po. At first glance, all the wiring to the carb and distributer seems fine, but there are several two wire plugs and one long one wire plug on the passanger side of the engine compartment that are unhooked. I have no idea what (or if) these need to be connected to. The check engine light remains on constantly and shorting the proper pins on the aldl does not display the codes. The check engine light just remains on. I know I could just install a vacuume advance distributer and a non-computer controlled carb, and I may in the future, but I'd like to find out why the original setup isn't working first. Also, I've read somewhere that the torque converter not locking up can destroy a 700r4. If anybody could point me in the direction of where to start tracking down the problem, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks in advance,
Tony

 

Tony H,

There should be three electrical connectors attached to the carb. Are they there?

What are the wire colors of the loose connectors?

 

The TPS, and the other plug (mixture solenoid?) are plugged in. I've got the idle speed solenoid unplugged right now because it extends and causes a high idle all the time when plugged in.

The unhooked 2 terminal connectors are as follows:

pink with black stripe + 2 brown wires together.

pink with black stripe + black with purple stripe.

pink with black stripe + gray

The one unhooked single terminal connector I found is attached to a blue wire. The connector on this wire is oval shaped and looks like it may have plugged into a sensor.
Thanks for the help!
Tony

 

The one wire plug may be the ECM power, if it's orange and has a Weatherpak connector. If it has a green connector, it's just the test one.

Like Vader said, tell us what color wires; and exactly where they are, or even take a picture.

 

Also, while I was looking at the wire colors, I found another unhooked single wire connecter. It mated to an unhooked connector coming from the + battery cable. Plugging this one in woke the computer up! I can now hear the mixture solenoid clicking, and after driving the car, the TCC seems to be working properly. The check engine light also went out. I haven't tried to put it into diagnostic mode yet, but I'm sure it would work now.
I imagine I'll have my hands full retuning now that the computer is working. The po had it tuned to run ok with a dead computer.
I'm still curious to know what all those unhooked plugs are for though.
Thanks again,
Tony

 

You must have posted while I was still typing.
Thanks,
Tony

 

This may be off topic, but now that I have the computer in control again, how can I tell if it will work with winaldl? I'm planning to buy the components to assemble the cable tomorrow, but I don't want to waste my time and money if it won't work. Also, and I know this is a really stupid question, but where is the ECM located?
Thanks,
Tony

 

Tony,

The ECM should work with WinALDL since the protocols and requests are the same. However, the baud rate you'll use is 160 only. The older ECMs can't present data at the 8,192 baud of the newer ECMs. You should still be able to get the data streams, although much more slowly.

 

Thanks!
Tony