1976 Trans Am Resto-Mod

[ryeguy2006a]

I finally did enough research on the wiring for my car that I was able to start eliminating wires from my ECU and cleaning up the wiring harness. My goal is to make the engine ECU a stand alone harness. There are many companies that do this, but most charge around $500 to do. I have spend around 120 bucks for the Bussmann relay box and all of the metri-pack connections for a factory style feel.

I have decided that I will utilize the hole in the firewall that is behind the passenger side cylinder head to route the ecu inside the car. I think it will make for a cleaner build. I will also put my fuses and relay box inside as well. I plan to mount them behind the center console similar to where they were mounted in 1981 where the CCC was located.

I started by pulling the pin retainer caps off of the two large connectors that go to the ECU.





I got the factory Pin-outs online and took out the pins that were no longer needed, there were about 20 pins that I was able to take out of both connectors.



You can see all of the pins that I pulled back from the main bundle of wires.



Now, I am not sure why this was done, but the cam position sensor, had an extension connector with another 2 feet of wiring? So I de-pinned the connectors, and put the correct Cam Position sensor end on the pig-tails.



Here is where I am currently, and I am starting to bundle the wires and recreating my harness. I need to finalize the layout and hook-up the fuse and relays to make everything work correctly.



And here is a pile of wires that I was able to delete for the system.



That is all for now. Lots more wiring to come.

Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

I got some more wiring done today. I cleaned up all of the wiring in the engine bay, and routed the harness through an existing hole in the firewall. The ecu is going to be mounted in the on the trans hump. All of the wiring is final in the engine bay, and I still have a bunch of wiring I need to do inside the cabin. Here are some pictures from today.























All for now. The rest of the updates are going to be slow, since I will be doing the wiring nightmare. Not really, the wiring shouldn't be too bad, there is a lot of support from people that have done the swap before.

[Takid455]

look into F6 wire loom from wirecare.com. awesome stuff. Really cleans up the rats nest.

[eroc022]

MCMASTER CARR carries the same stuff... and it looks good, fyi, find a way to get an acutal mount there at your tunnel or you will be dealing with a computer sliding into the footwells....

[qnitro]

your a braver man than me...wireharness = SCARY

[Grim]

The stock F-body manifolds are 98-99. I am going to remove the EGR ports from the manifolds in order to clean up the look.



Thanks man. I appreciate it. Do you have a build thread here?

Why?


Taking the egr off will kill the economy. EGR does not hurt performance at all. When you floor it the EGR closes giving full power. It only opens at steady cruise. It delutes the air charge and then the O2 sees it as a rich condition and leans out the fuel. Taking it off could cost you as much as 20% fuel economy.

Great build thread. Really nice work.

[eroc022]

Why?


Taking the egr off will kill the economy. EGR does not hurt performance at all. When you floor it the EGR closes giving full power. It only opens at steady cruise. It delutes the air charge and then the O2 sees it as a rich condition and leans out the fuel. Taking it off could cost you as much as 20% fuel economy.

Great build thread. Really nice work.

I dont fully believe that, otherwise gm wouldnt have gotten rid of the majority of the external emissions systems... the intakes were cleaned up, etc.... and with a proper tune you can have the engine running clean enough for no egr needed...

[Grim]

I dont fully believe that, otherwise gm wouldnt have gotten rid of the majority of the external emissions systems... the intakes were cleaned up, etc.... and with a proper tune you can have the engine running clean enough for no egr needed...

Will it run clean without it. Yes but it's a larger fuel charge then is needed to maintain speed.
What motors are you talk inning about? Variable valve timing? Does the same thing as egr. Lowers the o2. Just a different way if doing it.
Most people fail to learn how a EGR works and have a very wrong idea that they rob power. When working correctly they do not hurt performance in the least. Leave them hooked up and save gas.

[ryeguy2006a]

your a braver man than me...wireharness = SCARY

So far the wiring hasn't been too bad. There is a lot of support on the web for these swaps. I will post up some details on what I am doing.

[ryeguy2006a]

Why?


Taking the egr off will kill the economy. EGR does not hurt performance at all. When you floor it the EGR closes giving full power. It only opens at steady cruise. It delutes the air charge and then the O2 sees it as a rich condition and leans out the fuel. Taking it off could cost you as much as 20% fuel economy.

Great build thread. Really nice work.

Thank you for the compliments! As for deleting the EGR, it is more for aesthetic purposes. I think that a cluttered engine bay is unsightly. I am routing all of my wires to that it hides as much as possible. And as far as fuel economy, if it really hurts me as much as you are saying I may hook it back up. There are so many people out there that have had the EGR deleted and tuned appropriately that are still getting mid 20's in mpg. I am not too concerned at this point, but might take it into consideration if it becomes a problem. I have HP tuners and can turn it on or off without costing anything but time. I didn't ruin anything when I deleted the system, so if I want it is just a matter of installing the components again and re-pinning the ecu.

[mdes0]

Cars is looking great man. What did you end up using for a trans cross member? I'm transplanting LS with manual 6spd out of an 06 GTO.

[70Uglybird]

Egr delete will not effect fuel economy noticable on and ls. If done it multple times and 2000 plus didn't have Egr from the factory with a slightly different cam.

[ryeguy2006a]

Small update from the weekend. I straightened out some more wiring. If you noticed my lump of wiring from before, I couldn't live with that. I needed to straighten it out and lengthen a few of the wires to get more of a straight shot for the wiring.

Before




During




After




Now that I have the wiring straightened out, I need to figure out the next step of my wiring which is my relay/fuse panel. I first need to figure out where I want to mount it, then route the wiring to the fuse panel. I am trying to replicate the factory wiring, by separating circuits in order to make it easier to trouble shoot malfunctions.

All for now.

Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

Cars is looking great man. What did you end up using for a trans cross member? I'm transplanting LS with manual 6spd out of an 06 GTO.

I am going to flip my factory crossmember and weld in a new mounting location, or if I get ambitious I might make my own.

[monteboy84]

Will it run clean without it. Yes but it's a larger fuel charge then is needed to maintain speed.
What motors are you talk inning about? Variable valve timing? Does the same thing as egr. Lowers the o2. Just a different way if doing it.
Most people fail to learn how a EGR works and have a very wrong idea that they rob power. When working correctly they do not hurt performance in the least. Leave them hooked up and save gas.

False.

Sure, EGR doesn't hurt power, but removing it also doesn't hurt fuel economy. Yes, if you just remove the mechanical components your economy will suffer, the key is to correct the tune for EGR delete and your fuel economy will be just fine. I had planned to keep mine intact, but when I went to F-body manifolds with a truck intake, it became apparent that custom EGR plumbing would be required, which is not something I wanted to spring for. After much research I came to the conclusion that I shared at the beginning of this post: Removing the EGR has zero ill effects so long as the tune is corrected.

Very nice build btw, love the bird.

-matt

[oldguy]

Hi Rye Guy.

I saw you were having some thoughts on your shifter placement and the auto console. I posted up what we just did that should help you greatly. It starts at post 87. I could post the link, but just search by my user ID.

[ryeguy2006a]

Thanks for the tips OldGuy. I will check it out.

[ryeguy2006a]

I am making progress, but it is much slower than I thought. I am taking my time with the wiring as I really only want to do it once.

I finally finished the wiring for the engine. I had to take the wiring harness out and lengthen a bunch of wires to allow the wiring to lay straight rather than bunched up as pictured before. I hopefully installed it for the last time, but time will tell. I still need to Loom the wires with covers, but I am not going to do that until I am 100% sure that the motor runs without any issues. Here is the finishing up of the wiring.



Here is a plug that I wired in to allow for easy removal of the harness if it became necessary. This harness will route all the wires to the relay box.





And now the harness is finally installed!

Now, I started to think of what console I wanted to run. I bought an auto console for the swap, but wasn't sure if that was the look that I was after. Then for fun, I took the center console from the Camaro that I parted out and put it in place just for fun. To my surprise it actually fit quite well, and didn't look bad at all. I actually really like the way that it looks. I am going to either redye it black to match the rest of the interior or possibly wrap it in leather to give it the original texture.









I really like the way that it looks, and it feels really comfortable. I really like where everything it located using that console. I will have to bend the shifter slightly, but gives a great feel overall.

Now it was time to start on the relay/fuse box that I bought. It is a very compact unit, that I want to place somewhere where it will be easily accessible, yet completely hidden. I thought about the glove box, just not sure that I like that.



Then I thought that if I am using the 97-02 center console, it would fit nicely below the upper console cover. It fits down in their and would allow for easy access if needed.





Although I haven't finalized the placement of the relay/fuse box, I still wanted to start wiring it up. I started off with my computer, diagrams, pinouts, tons of waytech wiring and a lot of luck. I haven't finished with all the relays, but the fuses are all finished.







And that is all from the weekend. Not too much visual progress, but a lot of solder wire and time. I still need to figure out where exactly I am going to put the relay/fuse box and then I can finally place it. I also need to build brackets for the ECU, new console, and relay box. Along with about 100 other things.

Cheers,
Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

I have decided that I am going to use the 99 center console. It fits really great and will give the interior a little custom feel. And having cup holders won't hurt either.

Anyway, I got tired of wiring so I took a break and focused on other things. I started out by fitting my headers to the engine. I bought some mid-length *Mac headers. They are originally for a 98-02 Camaro so they had to be modified to fit. I had to notch the subframe in order for the passenger side to fit.



Once it was notched it fits great. The picture makes the header look closer to the sub-frame than it really is.

The driver's side needed to be bent in towards the engine around 1 1/2" to clear the lower control arm mount. Now after wearing myself out by trying to pry the headers with a long bar and a torch, I realized that I need to work smarter and not harder. I put a ratchet strap around the motor/trans and slowly tightened the strap and heated the headers to make them fit tighter to the block and away from the lower a arm mount.



It is hard to see, but you can see there is about a 1/2" gap between the header and LCA mount.



And here is the motor with both headers on!!





I also had to notch the frame to let the Alternator fit. Since I slid the motor back I didn't have much clearance. I cut some small sections out and will weld in some steel to fill in the hole.





I also finished up my transmission mount. I ended up flipping the cross member and cutting the mount off and re-welding it on. It fits great and I ended up putting it on the farthest stock mount on the sub-frame. So I didn't need to drill any new holes. This has been the easiest part of the swap so far! With the transmission crossmember finished, and the subframe notched for the headers I now have the the final placement for the motor.

It has been over 6 months since I have laid down a bead of weld so be easy on me. But by the end I got the hang of it. Just like riding a bike.









And the finished product.



I still need to patch up the holes that I made for the alternator and header, so that will have to wait for another day. I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Ryan

[srh3trinity]

Strong work!