wireing under the hood for 87 cutlass with 307 to a chevy350
- Thread starter bryguy39
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Well on my 82 I just used the wiring on the driver side of the engine bay.its the alternator,starter,ac,and distributor.but I am no expert I've just read every post on this forum in the past year
It depends. Do you plan on using the computer? The A/C? Cruise Control? or do you just want it to start and run? If start and run without a computer is what you need, you will need to either swap to a Chevy engine harness or extend all of the wires for the starter and move them to the passenger's side. Just don't eliminate the fusible links, they are there to prevent electrical fires. The battery will also have to go to the passenger's side if it is not already there, and you will need the battery cable retainer clip for the engine block to keep it from shorting out and starting a fire. The ignition works with one wire (pink one in a white connector) if you have an HEI.
My solution is detailed in my sticky in the Engine Swap forum. I have A/C, am adding cruise, and even used the computer when I did my car initially. I just swapped out the engine harness for one from a Chevy 305 powered car of the same year as mine. I also added the gauge package and had to add a wire or two to the bulkhead connector of the GP harness I used to make it compatible with the Olds dash harness's gauge wiring, but I don't have details of that. The temp wire is the same, as is the oil pressure gauge sender, but the tach wire was different as was the oil pressure light. I never finished the oil pressure light though as I didn't see a need to. It will probably get done next week when I dismantle the front end of my car to finish up the details.
My solution is detailed in my sticky in the Engine Swap forum. I have A/C, am adding cruise, and even used the computer when I did my car initially. I just swapped out the engine harness for one from a Chevy 305 powered car of the same year as mine. I also added the gauge package and had to add a wire or two to the bulkhead connector of the GP harness I used to make it compatible with the Olds dash harness's gauge wiring, but I don't have details of that. The temp wire is the same, as is the oil pressure gauge sender, but the tach wire was different as was the oil pressure light. I never finished the oil pressure light though as I didn't see a need to. It will probably get done next week when I dismantle the front end of my car to finish up the details.
The easy way then is to find a same year Chevy engined G body and pull both the computer and engine harnesses as well as the cruise harness.The cruise harness must be for the same cruise system you have now, be it Cruise Control I or Cruise Control II. If it is the CCII setup, you will not have the big translator box with the speedo cable going in and out of it on the driver's fender well. Remember: There are 4 separate harnesses. Lights, Cruise, Computer and Main Engine. You need all 4 in order to make it all work properly and reliably. The only alternative is to splice and lengthen/shorten the factory harness for the Olds engine, but that WILL lead to trouble down the road. Invariably, the splices come apart or the wiring rubs on something it shouldn't and shorts out, etc. if you go that route. Be sure also to grab any small brackets, line clips, etc. that the harness attaches to when you find your donor harness. You want a clean donor harness that has not been chopped up and spliced too. You will also need to proper transducer bracket for the cruise control in order to make it all happy and joyful together.
ok let me ask you this, whats the positives for using the computer? i want the heater/ac/radio/all lights and such to work. what does the computer do? i dont have electric windows or locks. im putting in a very detailed 350 chevy so i dont want 5000 wires hanging around but i dont want the dummy lights to be on on the dash. let me know,thanks bryan
I did not use the computer for my installation. The computer has no control over the cruise or the A/C, unless your car was originally a 442. Seeing as it is an 87, you will need the VSS to operate the factory cruise control. However, it is an optical sensor that is behind the dash and reads off the back of the stock speedo and not under the hood. The cruise computer plugs into the VSS translator box just like the ECM, but does not receive any data from the actual engine computer itself. On my car, the engine bay is not detailed to look nice, but rather to look stock as it was the easier and MUCH cheaper route. (I call mine either "The Ugly 350" or "The Pizza 350", because it was originally built to be used for pizza delivery.) The A/C wiring should only consist of the compressor plug and the solenoid plug in the engine harness. There is also an A/C harness as well that plugs in to the engine bay harness. This will not need to be changed however as all G bodies used the same one no matter which engine they came with.
All the computer does is control the ignition timing curve and the MC solenoid. That is it for it's functions. It makes it's determinations from the MAP, O2, CTS, TPS and BAR sensors. If you choose not to run the computer, you can delete all of these things as well. I would caution you though to still run a 1976-85 non computer Quadrajet as it will make it easier to use the TV cable, A/C idle speed solenoid, and cruise control with stock parts.
If you want it to be pretty under the hood, it will cost extra, as with anything pretty in this hobby. I would try to find a street rod parts supplier that makes a cruise control kit and adapt it to your car. It will look nice, be expensive, but be functionally equivalent.
As for the dash lights, the only one that will be lit is the Check Engine light. Pull the bulb from it and it no longer stays lit. I plan on using an RPM activated switch with my CEL and making it into a shift light, but that's just me. The rest of the lights will still work on their original senders as the computer has nothing to do with them.
All the computer does is control the ignition timing curve and the MC solenoid. That is it for it's functions. It makes it's determinations from the MAP, O2, CTS, TPS and BAR sensors. If you choose not to run the computer, you can delete all of these things as well. I would caution you though to still run a 1976-85 non computer Quadrajet as it will make it easier to use the TV cable, A/C idle speed solenoid, and cruise control with stock parts.
If you want it to be pretty under the hood, it will cost extra, as with anything pretty in this hobby. I would try to find a street rod parts supplier that makes a cruise control kit and adapt it to your car. It will look nice, be expensive, but be functionally equivalent.
As for the dash lights, the only one that will be lit is the Check Engine light. Pull the bulb from it and it no longer stays lit. I plan on using an RPM activated switch with my CEL and making it into a shift light, but that's just me. The rest of the lights will still work on their original senders as the computer has nothing to do with them.
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