can an 87/88 motor, computer, and harness swap into a 86?

March 23, 2011, 10:21:38 AM

heres the deal, i bought a 87 t/c after pulling the motor and trans out of mine because 2nd gear was gone and my motor was already rebuilt and the guy who did it messed up the wiring pretty bad plus the head was cracked after examining.

So after i got the motor trans computer harness and rear end out of the parts car i sped the rest of it and started taking apart the 87 motor. I took the head into my machine guy and he showed me how the valves were not seating correctly and that the spring retainers were not stock ones. so he is going to resurface it and put in one piece valves and weld in new valve seats it think, maybe a roller cam if i can find one quickly.

this brings us to where i am now. when i get the head back ill be putting the motor most of the way back together with the cable belhousing swapped onto the new 5 speed and dropping it in the car. im fairly certain that will go smoothly.

What im not sure about is if i can use the 87 wiring harness and computer in my car that is an 86? i know people repin the 87/88 computer and use the 86/earlier harness thats already in the car but i dont want to do that because a lot of the fusible links were broken or just spliced out.

sorry for the long post and thanks for any ideas.
ill have pick up soon to make it more clear

can an 87/88 motor, computer, and harness swap into a 86?

Reply #1 – March 23, 2011, 11:18:13 PM

wow 24 views and no replies. does anyone know where i can get the wiring diagrams for both computers? i thought i remembering that it was not possilble to do the swap i intend but im just going to try it and see what i can come up with. i have tried searching the forum to see if someone has done this before but found nothing.