I recently paid for a rebuilt 3.1L V6 engine for my '90 RS, and the engine itself is great. I've put less than 20k on it since (about 14 months ago). However, it's rather slow and not as powerful as I would like. I had sought to put a V8 in it originally, but the guy who worked on my car said it could not be done because of the computer inside.

My question is, can this computer be taken out or adjusted to be compatible with a bigger, more powerful V8?

 

If you really gonna do a whole motor swap, it wouldn't be that hard to swap out the computer too... Unplug it and unbolt it and put the new one in...

 

yeah the comp is inside the passenger kick panel. the hardest part is rerouteing the wire harness

 

The '90-'92 MPFI f-body's use the same ECM as the '90-'92 TPI f-body's. If you do a V8 swap go with a port injection system such as TPI and swap the MEMCAL out of the ECM (need the V8 MEMCAL). Add 2 more injector connectors, and change a few wires around (EGR for example). Done.

ECM is located above the passenger feet. Drop the hush panel, look for silver box, push bottom of box toward from of car, velcro will release, pull ECM down.

RBob.

 

memcal?

 

name for the replacablepromchip in the ecm box

 

Unless your car is really nice I'd find something with a V8 in it already.

 

See I disagree with whats said above. Once you drive your car for a while, you become to like the car, you become to know the car, shes your baby, not some POS that you can trade for something else. I honeslty don't think I would trade my girl for even the nicest 1990 IROC or 1989 TTA (Be hard to turn it down, but I would) because I would feel like Im stabbing her in the back.

I guess you either have it or you dont.

 

I feel that way about my car now. There are few cars I would trade it for. But I did not feel that way about my V6 automatic 86 I had before this. I did for awhile but then I realized it was too rusty and I personally didn't want a V6 (not bashing V6's, just personal preference). *shrug*

 

It's not exactly that easy. Most of the connectors between the 3.1 and 5.0/5.7 are different, and are in different locations. If you compare the engine management wiring diagrams between the 3.1 and the 5.0/5.7 there are quite a few wires that will have to be changed, and more that will have to be added or removed from the harness.

The larger issue is that the V8 swap requires a ton of parts to do correctly. Fuel lines are different, radiator is different, front springs are different, sway bars are different, accessory brackets are different, power steering hose is different, motor mounts, transmission, torque converter, various gauges, all different. It can be done without changing every part that technically isn't correct, but it's a crapshoot at best. It's definitely a lot easier and cheaper to just buy a V8 car to begin with.

 

Exactly my point.

 

What the 2 of you are saying is somewhat correct. There is a lot that needs to be changed to swap in a V8. If you have a wreaked one sitting next to the good car that is getting the V8, all is good. It could also be argued that some of the required items mentioned are a bit iffy.

Please don't forget that the original statement about not being able to swap to a V8 was this:

"I had sought to put a V8 in it originally, but the guy who worked on my car said it could not be done because of the computer inside."

Which of course is completely false.

RBob.

 

yeah as far as parts go motor trans driveshaft and mounts me and a friend did his in a day (minus the wiring) you could always ditch the efi and computer and go with a carb


i just think your mechanic was and or is being lazy or just not wanting to get involved in doing the work but as far as everyone goes its hard to get ridof a car that you like im currently buying a 91 that is in much better shape than my 83 but i really dont want to get rid of my 83