A friend of mine is parting out his camaro 87 has tpi and only wants $500 he says it easy to change over however i dont know if im capable or how much a repair shop woud charge is this a job that would take a few days i have reman engine in it so its not stock 85 camaro

 

I wouldn't suggest the swap. It will require a bunch of wiring, troubleshooting, and cost you more than the car will be worth. I would suggest buying a TPI car if you want TPI.
JMO,
Charlie

 

Dunno, for $500, i'd do it,but like the above poster said, wiring will be a nightmare, everything else should work fine.

 

i would go for it,if you have any mechanical skills and a little patience you can have it all swapped in a week end!

 

Get him down to $400, I bought a whole 89 tpi system for my vette off ebay for $450 including heads and dist.

 

It's really more involved than I thought it would be which is why I abandoned the project after a few months of getting nowhere fast. You really need a donor car for all the necessary parts that you forget (sensors, relays, throttle/tranny cables, VSS, etc.). If you can buy the whole car from your friend, that would be the best option, then you could sell off what you didn't need to do the swap after it was done.

 

No need to buy the entire car, just get the TPI, every sensor, all the wiring, every relay, etc...

It looks very modern once you do the swap,
Before,


After,


You will need a fuel pump and you can use the sender and pump from your friends car or you can do as I did and put an inline pump under the car.

 

I gotta say, that's a very clean-looking swap. It looks stock. Nice job

 

Thanks,
I put about $2200 or so into the car while doing the swap.
I put the TPI heads on, a Crane Cam, SD ecm, bought a programmer, did suspension and exhaust, wheels and tires.
Here is a vid of the car with the TPI on it,

http://www.transamws6.com/video/ZepherWS6.mpg

 

If you are just going to swap that only it is probably not worth it. If you are using that as your jumping off point for more upgrades (power adder(s))then it is probably very reasonable.
If it works then you get a huge boost up the learning curve as you will learn all kinds of stuff doing it.
If it doesn't work, then you will have learned a lesson at $500 that costs others 2-4x as much to learn.
Plus if you friend is saavy enough to do a clean removal of EVERYTHING, then you already have someone with some experience with what goes where.

I've never done it, but I am looking forward to it for the jumping off point with the 350 I will be purchasing.

 

I was able to install my TPI onto this guys Camaro in about 8 hours. That included removing the carb setup, installing an inline pump, and running some fuel lines. Oh we also had to drill the intake for the earlier style heads too.

Doing it your very first time will probably take a few days or so.
I worked on mine for a looong time, but I was doing more than a TPI swap.

 

What??

You guys are lazy. Months? I sold a TPI setup to my buddy brad, and he got everything working in his '69 camaro over a weekend. "Months?"

If this is whats considered hard, we got issues guys.

-- Joe

 

Not lazy at all and don't like the attitude. I just don't see doing that swap as being practical when the TPI cars are so plentiful and cheap. I have seen some good swaps and some BAD ones and I know the good ones looked "factory" so why not just get one from the factory. If you are just into fixing up a car out of a labor of love, then go for it, but it will most likely make less power than the carb, and I don't even know enough with the given information to know if the TPI is off of a 350 or a 305 or if it's going on a 350 or a 305.

 

Yeah, anesthes, I don't think you can really call me lazy when I spent every spare moment I could swapping out an engine and trying to get the induction working properly when I had almost no help and little experience and inadequate tools. If it weren't for the guys on this board helping me I would've gotten nowhere at all with my swap. Part of my problem was that I bought a gimp wiring harness and then tried to adapt it to make it work. I built most of my car with my bare hands with hardly any help, and I worked hard and researched hours. I don't think you can say that exemplifies laziness. Looking back, I would've done things much differently, and I think that now the swap wouldn't be as difficult because I would buy all the correct parts first and would definitely go speed density, but now I can't afford to so I am sticking with carb.

 

I got a lot of help with my swap from the members here on the board as well as a ton of help from John Millican.
I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with John trying to diagnose some issues I had. He also did the MAF to SD harness conversion for me.

 

Thats a really lame way of thinking. Replace the car to change induction and ecm? What if he likes his car?

Perhaps your swap was cursed to begin with. I can't see doing a carb to TPI conversion taking longer than a weekend if you have all the parts.

If your saying "the hardest part is collecting all the parts" well then ok sure. But if he has everything, whats the big deal?

I've done the carb to TPI conversion, I've converted from MAF to SD, and just went from '730 SD to '749. I don't know what the big deal is. And i'm not even a "real" mechanic.

John seems to be a great guy.

In the end, my point is please. If someone asks for help or whatever in doing something, don't shoot it down. If you can't help them, or give them optimistic information don't bother at all.

I think he should get it. $400.00 is a good deal if he gets EVERYTHING from the donor car (including trips back if he forgets things).

Then his next mod might want to be a SD conversion (took me about an hour). Then perhaps a HSR after that, and put the TPI setup on ebay for $200.00 or so.

These arn't new ideas....

-- Joe

 

If you will be swapping from CC carb to TPI, yes, it would be very much worth it (priced a replacement CC carb yet?)
Expect about a week down time on the car (always estimate over in case of surprises)

Find out what all sensors you'll need and cables (trans, throttle, etc) and start slowly. Put the TPI on the engine but don't tighten it up, leave it loose. Then run the wiring by just laying it out on the engine and hook to sensors and such (to figure out the routing you need). Next remove (don't cut) the old engine wiring harness and stary perminantly installing the new one. Then remove the TPI, put the gaskets on and install it perminantly and hook up the wiring to it and plumbing.
For a nice slow easy approach like this I would estimate 3 days, but give yourself a week incase of problems.

 

Another recommendation:

There are some places where the harness connects to the firewall connector block. I'd completely remove the harness, then lay it out on a table.

Then lay out the completly removed TPI harness. Any connections to gauges/fuse power/etc splice from your existing connector block ON THE TABLE. BE careful, label stuff, etc. When you're done you'll have that factory tpi look, and you won't spend $3,000 finding a car as good as yours, but with TPI as oddly suggested above..

-- Joe

 

One of my problems was I was swapping from TBI in a 91 to an 85 TPI system and nothing seemed to work right. The harness was labelled, but it had also been hacked up pretty good. There must've a short somewhere because it caught fire and screwed everything up. I realize this isn't typical of TPI swaps, but I got so frustrated after that fire that I ditched it and made money selling everything on ebay. It seemed like everytime I turned around, there was something else I needed to complete the swap. The junkyard didn't have crap, and I had to buy a lot of new parts at the dealership (this was before I knew about GMpartsdirect.com). I think that I probably could do the swap now in a weekend, if I had everything I needed, and I am definitely wiser about everything that I need, but that doesn't mean I was lazy then.

 

Did you read the TBI to TPI swap conversion I wrote up ? step by step to repin the TBI harness to TPI.

-- Joe

 

I was under the impression that he was unsure if he was capable and had serious concerns about attempting this modification and wanted input from both sides of the coin. I didn't "shoot it down" I simply stated valid (IMO) points against doing it. Everyone has there own opinion and we don't agree on this. No big deal. I wouldn't and you would woop-T-doo. Not every idea needs to be supported, even if you like it.

Jamesmc03;
If you like the car I would consider it as I stated above if it's a labor of love, do it. If not you may be in for a lot of work/expense and Murphy likes swaps like this, so just don't think for $400 you will be running optimal on a car that has a motor and computer that aren't matched and expect the unexpected to pop up. I like my TPI car, and it would be a big improvement in your car, but it will be a big job and would cost you a bunch to have it done for you.

Good luck,
Charlie

 

Hey Zeph,

Do you have a p/n on that Holley fuel pump, and list of stuff and prices on what you used for a fuel pump setup?

I'm going to do the conversion too, and I found a severe lacking of a Tech Article to swap in TPI in place of a carb... I don't mind writing one, and I really like the clean install you have.