morepowerjoe

I read all through the repining thread, but I still wanted to ask a few questions about it.
1 Anyone that has done it sucessfully, think it was really worth it?
2 I have a 91 RS 305 TBI. I also have a 91 or 92 Camaro TPI System. The harness, intake, ecu / memcal, and all the misc except for the block itself. For this would I be able to just pull out my TBI harness and replace with my TPI harness and ecu.
3 And can I delete everything like egr, smog, ect, and still pass an emission test? Someone told me I could.
4 Are the cams, heads, and compression ratio the same in the systems?

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

All i know you wont be able to pass smog that way, as of the harness and the rest i have heard that you could i am also wanting to do that swap i seen a harness and ecm i need but i don't want to buy until im sure it would work. So im gonna subscribe for i could also find my answer, if you like you could also pm dyno don i heard he has done many of this tpi swaps, but he said its not a cheap swap.

FYRCHKN

I am about to do the same exact swap. The only part that I don't have is the memcal, so I may never actually do the swap since I can't find one ANYWHERE.

morepowerjoe

Yeah the parts are getting really hard to find sometimes. That's why when I found the system I have I jumped on it. Can't you use any MAP memcal, and have it burned for what you need? 90-95?

battman

iTrader: (2)

I have done the swap on my wifes 92RS, I converted it to 730 ecm, I bought my memcal from acdelco online parts.

The swap is quite labor intensive and if you dont have all the TPI parts from a 90-92 it can get kind of expensive finding all the little parts needed. one thing I would recommend is triple checking your work when repinning the ECM, I got all of my connections right the third time checking. as far as performance, I noticed a big improvement in the SOTP. If I had to guess it was a 20 - 25 hp increase from the stock tbi. My wife even could feel a difference lol.

morepowerjoe

But since I have a 91 or 92 harness I don't have to re-pin anything right?

battman

iTrader: (2)

If you already have the TPI harness, you would just swap out the TBI harness for the tpi harness. Then you would need to swap in a high pressure fuel pump, aquire a TPI throttle cable and TV cable for the transmission, and swap the knock sensor for one for TPI.

morepowerjoe

Cool. So do you know if the other stuff is the same, like the heads, and cam?

battman

iTrader: (2)

Heads and cam are different,lower performance. but it will still work, and you will get a performance increase, just not as much as would with TPI heads and cam

morepowerjoe

So do you know if it will run good on the stock tuned memcal I have? Is that what you did? Thanks.

morepowerjoe

Whats the difference between my heads, and cam compared to the tpi stuff?

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

the tbi head is a puny cam and the heads i am not sure about that one

battman

iTrader: (2)

if the memcal is a stock 91-91 305 memcal, yes it will work fine. TBI has swirlport (junk)heads and a even smaller cam than the TPI

morepowerjoe

So would it not be good to put in a good cam without changing the heads?

johnny090881

iTrader: (1)

nice, info that i'm looking for to. I got the MAF sensor type of TPI unit with wiring harness and ecm, the only thing is that the ecm is off a auto transmission so i'm guessing i would have to get a new prom chip, right? I know that the throttle cables are different what about the fuel lines will they have to be replaced as well and as far as the fuel pump I don't have the stock fuel pump I was told it was off a SS car, I really don't buy that but it fit in the fuel pump carrier and all but is that right?

morepowerjoe

I'm pretty sure you can have your memcal / chip programmed for a manual. That pcm for less place is where I'm fixing to get one from. The fuel lines I hear can make it but I think the tpi ones are a little longer. But I don't see why you couldn't use a compression fitting to lengthen the hard lines. Not sure what the psi rating is on them. And you need the tpi pump for sure. It's a lot higher pressure than the tbi one.

thomas1976

If your goal is more power, you may be better off sticking a LT1 or similar cam in your stock LO3, tpi fuel pump and tune it with EBL.

The exhaust and tune that came on the tbi third gen's are the main reason they dont make 200fwhp.

morepowerjoe

Now if I put an lt1 cam in would I be able to run the stock tune or not? The reason I ask is that I want to get the stuff to burn, but I have a fear that I might take a while to get to know what I'm doing and the car is our daily driver right now. And I'm really not worried to much about increasing the power, it moves good enough for a street car, but I'm mainly concerned with fuel mileage, dependability, and just getting as much life out of the engine as possible.

thomas1976

Dos not sound that way, why do you want to modd it if it "moves good anough"?

Full exhaust improves MPG by it self, EBL if you tune it, even better both combined.

Now if you add the LT1 cam, it will be demanding fuel to push you around 230-250fwhp, at this point a VRFPR will be a good idea to not waste fuel under normal driving circumstances.

You do not want to keep the stock tune, skip the "stuff to burn" and upgrade to EBL flash, the stock EBL LO3 bin will run the LT1 cam easily, the task will be making as much power as possible, not having it run.

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

How much is that EBL flash i have heard lots of people talk about that

thomas1976

http://dynamicefi.com/

Though if you like TPI better, the TPI ECM is not bad, and has some really cool gadgets/tools too.

http://www.moates.net/

morepowerjoe

That sounds awsome! Thanks for the post. Now what else can you tell me? I assume your using it. I have a 86 Camaro with a 350 olds, 10.1, big cam, ect., is this something I could use to run that? I was thinking of retro fitting the tpi fuel rail to my intake and using a tbi throttle body. Do you think someone like myself without any ecm knowledge could get the hang of the system pretty quick and get it up and running. Or would it be a lot of trial and error?

The only reason I am even into doing a tbi to tpi swap is because I have always read how much better mpi is then tbi. Better fuel atomization and all that stuff.

Sorry for anyone following the post looking for the tpi swap stuff, I know I'm going off topic now. I just think the ecm programming is the biggest obstacle when modifying fuel injection.

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

I just like the look of tpi but to do the swap to tpi seems complicated for me with no experience on engine swaps.

thomas1976

So you want to swap your 86 TPI car to TBI and your 91TBI car to TPI.
I would keep the EFI sistems were they are, re read and use the "search" to find out how to improve each sistem.

Yes EBL is availeble with port mode, there is no adapter harness and requires following the instructions and repinning; is the link in post #21 not wrorking on your PC? The TPI ECM can be turned into something similar, post #21.

Post #17. EBL is the easy way to drive TBI to Performance Land, some of the big homework has already ben done, plug play.

"fuel atomization" The tbi myth's of using bigger injectors (mainly because a fuel pump swap is more laborious) and cold T stats, gives it the wet bullet.

Also keep in mind, the tbi children's budget is in general more fun to """hot roadding""" it then driving to 250hp Performance Land.

morepowerjoe

No, no. I have two 86 Camaro's, one iroc with a 305 tpi, and one with a carbed olds 350 that I put in because I bought it wth a 305 that had a engine knock. And I have a 91 Camaro, tbi. I would like to bring the olds engine to the modern world somehow. I have a full extra 91 tpi system and almost a full 91 tbi system as well. Thanks for the links.

I was originally thinking about putting the 91 tpi system on my 91 Camaro that currently has tbi because of all the good things I've heard about it and since I already have it just sitting on a shelf in the garage. Battman answered one of my questions about the swap. But one of the other ones was is the heads and cam the same between tbi and tpi. So I looked them up at the local auto parts, the heads for a 91 305 have the same part number for tbi and tpi. The cams on the other hand were different.

battman

iTrader: (2)

The heads that came on my 87 TPI 305 have a different casting number than what was on my 92 TBI motor, both are centerbolt valve cover heads.

thomas1976

I suggest you read all the "sticky threads" in the TBI and TPI forum.

morepowerjoe

Ok thanks.

morepowerjoe

So will an ecu from another car put in mine still work even with vats? Or does the vats in the ecu have to match the key in my car?

battman

iTrader: (2)

The ECM does not use the keys value for VATS, it only looks for the VATS signal if it enabled in the PROM. The key value has to match the vats module in the car. Now the vats madule sends a signal to the ecm that the proper key is inserted and will allow it to start.

morepowerjoe

Thanks for the info. I think I'm gonna do the swap real soon.

morepowerjoe

I'm really thinking about starting the tbi to tpi swap today. I would feel a lot better about it though if I could get some more info, because I will be running the stock 91 tpi chip for now.

First off the only injectors I have are the ones I took off my other camaro, venom 21lb. Will they be ok or will I have idle issues?

I'm most likely gonna get my fuel pump from o'reilly. Should I get a 350 pump in case I do future mods? Will it hurt anything?

And will the stock fpr be ok for now?

Thanks guys.

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

Have you done the swap yet if you have were you able to turn it on since it has the VATS

morepowerjoe

No I actually found out I had some bad rings in the engine. So I'm swapping in my olds 350 and keeping the tbi for now. I'm posting the swap in the engine swap section.

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

Ok once you do the tpi swap can you please tell me how you did it and how hard it was i am thinking of putting a tpi since i already have the complete tpi system except the ecm and harness and i cant sell it

morepowerjoe

If your engine is stock and runs good, then it will work perfectly. But if you have any problems right now, it will just transfer over to the tpi. I piece together a whole tpi system for a 86 Iroc and only really had one problem. I practically made my own harness just following the diagrams from alldata. But I priced out the swap for mine and I got up to like $600 in parts real quick. There is a lot of little things you can miss that will nickel and dime you if your not carefull. But if you got the dough, then go for it because it's not hard at all and there's not alot of labor if your used to working on these cars. Oh and the engine I used in the iroc was a 91 tbi engine. I only had problems because I modified too many things without getting a custom chip.

slrvette

iTrader: (1)

I doing something close to this swap starting this weekend. I'm going TBI to HSR.
Its my understanding that since I already use the EBL/Flash that all I have to do is send my unit in for the multi port upgrade. Then just parallel my existing two injectors to make 4 injectors for each side. Add in an IAT and I think I'm good to go. Its gonna be a speed density system. If I'm missing something here let me know.
thanks

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

Well i am gonna want to swap in a 87 L98 i rebuild only that i found out that i can't put the harness and ecm i have so i wanna check if it would be cheaper to swap in a tpi than having to buy a new injectors and other things i need to make my car a 35tbi what also since i am wanting the most economical and which one would give me the most power

morepowerjoe

You need to re-read your post because I can't really understand what your trying to say.

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

Sorry i posted in the wrong thread on what i posted. What i wanted to say here was that my engine is runnning good right now but i don't know how to reppin the wiring harness so i am thinking of just buying one from a 90 do you think it would work on my 91

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

I been also quoting how much it would be and that makes me think if either to stay with tbi and mod it or spent alot of money to swap to tpi

morepowerjoe

To be honest, knowing what I know now, I would just mod the tbi engine or replace it with a 350 would be the best thing to do. But that's just my opinion. After all my recent research it seems like the best things to do are cam, heads, headers / exhaust, fueling, and custom chip after those mods, but you might need a chip on most of those mods unless thier mild. There's really no reason to just switch to tpi unless your just set on it. I have this opinion now because I have been researching it for a while now, and a lot of people are making good power with tbi. May be just get things that would transfer over to a 350 for now in case you ever go that route. The headers and better cam would probably be a good start.

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

Thats what i been thinking too but since i have a complete tpi system in storage and its polished but i can't sell it, so i was thinking of swapping it to my car. Do you know of what cam would be good for a tbi

morepowerjoe

There's a whole section of tbi mod stuff here. You just got to go read it.