hey guys, i just bought the wife '89 firebird formula and i need to do some stuff to it, but am not a Big chevy or pontiac guy. first of it was a 305 tbi car with a 700r4 trans. the trny needs some work as it no longer has any other gear beyound 1st and rev. now the guy i bought the car from removed the tbi and installed a carb, plus he disconnected alot of wires and stuff. how much of the electrical stuff do you have to have to make the thing runn proper, and is the trans electronically controlled.
now im not new to the hot rod world just new to the gm side of it, and ive never built anything new enough to worry about computer boxes and the such... any help would Be greatly appreicated. john

 

You've asked a schwack of questions at once, lets take this one step at a time...

Do you have to pass emissions? I'm in Canada, so I know nothing about this, but it's something you may have to consider

2nd, you just want to get it running, or do you also want some more power along the way?

I really don't know enough to help you much, but I thought i'd get the ball rolling here.

I believe the ECM controls shifting, so that would need to be connected to have proper trans operations... (did the guy who sold you the car have the tranny working ok anytime that the carb was on?)

Also, just so you know, the TBI motor heads are notorious for being junk... Just an FYI

If you don't mind pulling the check engine bulb and others, the carb setup with no "extras" should work fine, but i'll wait for someone who knows more about this to chime in (specifically if the trans would work right..)

Do you know what carb it has? Distributor? Other significant mods?

 

it has a quadra junk on it and hEI distrubutor. some one told me that this year 700R4 just uses a cable modulator to shift but i would still like to hear from someone who knows. if it was a dodge 904 or 727 trans i could tell you all about it but i know crap about chevy transmissions

 

The tranny uses a cable modulator for shifting, should be somwhere near the throttle cable...the puter controls torque converter lockup....the cable is VERY sensitive to position changes...when I swaped the miniram intake on my car the shift points were all f'ed up....so using a drill and a file I made tiny adjustments to the bracket to get the car to shift better....never quite got it like the factory.....but now I gots me a T-56....