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I am goint to help a friend swap his 86 TA to a T5. Factory is has an electronic sensor in the 700r4 and we would like to keep the electronic speedo. His swap kit came with the proper gears and "bullet" for a cable drive. Can we use the cable drive parts and put this on the end? Does anyone know how many PPM the 86 wants?
cant remember is the buffer gets a 2k ppm or 4k ppm. Painless has a 4k ppm retrofit Vss that if the signal isn’t right can be corrected with a Dakota digital sgi-100bt. Ecm gets a 2k ppm optical signal.
I read the post wrong, yes the Vss is optical off the speedometer. If the t5 has a Vss on the tailhousing and he’s wanting to retain the factory speedometer needs something like this.
In Firebirds, starting in something like 85, the thing in the transmission was electronic. Not like the Camaros where the transmission had gears, there was a cable, and the VSS AND the buffer were behind the cluster. In that respect the Birds were more "modern" than Camaros. They still had gears, but instead of a cable, the VSS was in the transmission, and the buffer was ... under the dash somewhere. Maybe near the ECM, I'm not completely sure. Prety sure it was NOT behind the cluster though.
The Birds had a VSS that had a driven gear mounted on them, like this pic. The gear had no shaft but instead had a D hole in the center that went onto the metal VSS shaft. The left thing is a Firebird VSS; the right, a cable "bullet". I think there was at least one other physical style of VSS in the Birds; may have had to do with the early TPIs that used 2000 pulses per mile (2 pulses per rev) vs the later TPI and PBI setups that used 4000 pulses per mile. I think this pic is the early setup, which 86 would have used; if memory serves, the later setup didn't look "offset" like this, but rather, it more near the same size as the "bullet", with the connector on top instead of off to the side.
So yeah, the Abbott thing is definitely one way of getting it to work, butt finding the right VSS would be ONEHELLUVALOT eeeeeeeezyer and cheeeeeeeeeper. Of course that means also locating the correct gear to match whatever rear end gear the car has, and maybe change the drive gear in the trans as well, depending.
Last edited by sofakingdom; Feb 5, 2024 at 03:20 PM.
Might ask @John in RI if he has the parts a t5 Vss is a hard part to find.but I think the tailhousing needs to be swapped. T5 gears and bullets are available.
You can see clearly in my photo that those 2 parts, at least, are quite obviously directly interchangeable. In point of fact some one or another of the extension housings that I have acquired in cores, over the years of my ill-conceived attempt to continue tearing up T-5s in my Camaro, came to me with that VSS in it. Pretty sure the other one of which I spoke is equally interchangeable although it would probably take me too long to come up with one in my garage, to be bothered trying.
Yes the Firebird VSSs, including that one that I have, are VERY hard to come by on the open market, these days. More likely to find one here on this forum than probably anywhere else in this universe.
The T-5 cable bullets and gears are readily available since they were the same ones that fit Turbo 350 for all the years it existed. There are VAST numbers of those in the world, even though there have always been only relatively few T-5s. VSS gears, not so much.
JohnInRI is without doubt a good resource in this matter.
Might have to clean out my garage someday. Not too soon though... gotta prepare to think about maybe considering getting ready to look at the ramifications of laying the groundwork for eventually maybe perhaps consulting with more knowledgeable authorities regarding the possibilities of eventually evaluating the pros and cons in a deliberately hasty and well-conceived plan which must be carefully and duly constructed with due allowance for all points of view, such that we create synergy and a win-win situation... I view it immediately not as a problem, but rather, as an opportunity for a solution... we should run it up the flagpole, and I'll have my assistant call your assistant, and they can set up a zoom meeting for our delegated representatives which we can adjust as our schedules allow since this is a time to circle back and touch base, and maybe we can do lunch... [/corporate]
Last edited by sofakingdom; Feb 5, 2024 at 07:52 PM.
@midias That's the 90-92 T5 version,...... harder to find than the 84-89 style.
This is the 84-89 Version: It was first used in Firebird beginning in 86,..... but if the 86 Firebird was a non-gauge cluster car than it still used a cable sending unit from the factory.
Sorry - but I don't have any available !
P.S. You can't use the speedo gear from the cable type sending unit and will need to get a DRIVEN gear that's made for an electric T5 sending unit. With any luck, the one you've got on that 90-92 VSS will match your needs !
Last edited by John in RI; Feb 6, 2024 at 02:35 PM.
That is the correct vss. I've been trying to find one myself. No one who is parting out a manual car that I find is willing to sell just the vss. They all say it goes with the transmission. I would be willing to bet that whoever buys the transmission is not going to use the vss in their application. As for gears for 3.73 you will need a blue 7 tooth drive gear in the transmission and a red 21 tooth driven gear that goes on the vss. At least that is the info I've found on here.
Also any idea what gears I'll need for a 373 rear? And if they're still available at all
Yup,.. That's it.
No finding the gears for your 3.73 combo - they never made the proper gear for 3.73 and a electric T5 sending unit. ( 3.73 speedo gears are available for cable T5 - but not electric T5. ) Time to start shopping around for a Dakota Digital signal converter.
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Last edited by JoleneWooten; Feb 21, 2024 at 07:12 AM.
I will update when we finish the swap probably in May. We are preparing for it now. I just did an auto to manual conversion on my last build so it is fresh in my mind
Don't worry about that post midias. It's just one of those AI spambots that seem to be infesting forums these days. The dead giveaway, besides the vapid inane and pointless post content, is the random FirstLast (CamelCase) name format, particularly a completely random and unusual (like, throw a dart to pick from a list of 1000) feminine name on a forum where female users are relatively much less common among the actual human users. Not sure what the purpose of these are; maybe register and make enough posts to get access to the user database to probe it for exposed email addresses, security weaknesses, etc.
Last edited by sofakingdom; Feb 13, 2024 at 02:04 PM.
I am a moderator at two forums and the random FirstLast (CamelCase) name format has had me swinging ye olde ban hammer quite frequently lately. After a few useless posts the Spamming starts, as if anyone nowadays really would click on a link from a three post newb....
To calibrate to the factory signal we used the SGI-100BT: Universal Speedometer Interface box. We used a calibration of 0.5 that makes sense bringing a 8kppm to 4kppm. https://www.dakotadigital.com/index....od/prd1192.htm
Install was easy wire new sensor into input of box, factory sensor lines into output of box then power and ground. After that use the Bluetooth interface and app on the phone to calibrate. I mounted the box under the map pocket
Anyone have experience with the jags that run 4pac vss? It puts out a 4000 ppm ac signal and my speedometer works (minus reading 5 mph slower than actual) but my engine still stalls when I come up to stop lights or idle after driving. 1986 lb9 I swapped in a t5 out of a 1985 z28.
