1981 cutlass calais ecm

[cutty651]

im putting in a new painless wire harness and before i do i was just curious why the 1981 calais that was diesal originaly and now switched to gas dont have the ecm box behind the kick panel and my parts cutlass supreme which is a couple years newer does is this something that is needed or is just a newer upgrade or what please if somebodey could help thanks. and is their a better wire harness for my cutlass out their than painless

 

[81Regal]

First off Welcome to the site.
Second you answered you own question, diesels didn't use an ECM. Whoever swapped the diesel out for a gas engine prob used an older non computer HEI distributor and carb.

 

[cutty651]

thank you 81 regal very happy you reply and thanks for the welcome i think im going to love this site lots of questions about my cutlass i have a 1981 cutlass calais with t-tops and a hardtop cutlass supreme for parts so thanks again.

 

[79loserbluebu]

What kind of Painless harness? I just got my 60608 wired and operating in my Malibu with an LS engine. It was expensive but looking back it was definately worth it. I don't know if I'd rewire the whole car like I did unless I had to, but the instructions were great and they give you more than enough crimp connectors if that's what you plan on using. My advice would be to get a solder gun that feels comfortable in your hand and some heat shrink. It will turn out much cleaner and you won't have to fight the wire when putting it back into the wiring loom. Also the braided loom Painless sells is nice but you can get it much cheaper and other places.

Just some friendly advice throw some pictures up of your project

 

[cutty651]

the painless wire harness that painless told me to get is the 18 circuit universal muscle car kit #76410201 and is $387.99 and i bought heat shrink tubing and the gun and i got my parts car for like a map so i remember how it went back in thats why i asked about the ecm cause my didn't have it and parts one did so i wanted to make sure before i put back together it wasent something i needed i didn't think i needed it since it came from factory without it thought mabe it was upgrade in the future or something and was it hard for you to install the new harness or was it painless and i also bought braided wire loom for all the wires for a clean install and i was curios did you need to buy seperate ground wires for that kit i was reading somewhere that you need to buy a ground kit to ? thanks for the chat finally someone to bullshit with about g-bodys cutlass,regal,monte carlo love em all thanks

 

[cutty651]

i forgot to ask you if youre ls1 engine went in with out any extra modifactions or was it a easy swap i would like to put one in my cutlass just not sure how to go about it since their are so many different ls engines witch one do i get dont need to be real fast just good runner and clean right now i got a 307 olds but that definitly gots to go so any advice before i buy one and on the painless harness did you need another kit for the ls1 engine or does painless harness hook right up to it thanks again