Thread: So it starts...Gen III 5.3 Vortec into 51 Chevy

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Sounds like a smart and fun build, with lots of good stuff to be learned!

Well, ran into a few snags, the harness for the motor was missing too much to be modified so now I have to find one.

My question for this is do I have to find a drive by cable harness or can one off of a DBW motor be modified to fit my application?

Also going to put my tank together, just got my sending unit since they sent me the wrong one the first time

I believe that the drive by wire harness will work. It will just have extra wires you don't need. I think I recall you had wait4me do your computer, to be sure, give him a call or email him with your harness question. Glad to see you are making progress. What tank did you decide to go with?

Pat

Well, turns out the car had a tank off of a G-body monte carlo, so I just ordered another monte carlo tank but for the fuel injected version and then ordered the sending unit for that tank

You can use a harness without the drive by wire if you just swap your throttle body for an earlier version. They're all over e-bay for dirt cheap. I have a 98 Camaro wire harness, ECM and manual on how to make your own harness on E-bay if you're interested. Look up item #220221408245

I think I would have painted the engine compartment and firewall before installing that in there.. Sheesh..

Alright well got the new tank in and plumbed the fuel system finally

Also got the cooling system hooked up and am working on the tranny cooling lines currently, I got a external trans cooler to help keep the trans a little bit cooler since it is a bigger trans than the th350.

I yanked the PS pump, since the car does not have it and went to the parts store for a smaller belt and rerouted it, seems like it'll work, its pretty solid in there and everything is spinning the right way.

I also fabricated up a K-member for the new trans so now the motor and trans are in there nice and solid.

Dropped the driveshaft off at the shop to get shortened about 1/2 an inch so that should be ready to throw on today or tomorrow

Got my ECM all tuned, now I just need a wiring harness to hook everything up, still gotta find one.

Only a few things left before firing this beast up:

-gotta hook up shift linkage to trans
-wiring harness
-throttle cable (probably get one from Lokar)
-install driveshaft
-and whatever else pops up when those are done

Originally Posted by MR. 427 Chevy

I think I would have painted the engine compartment and firewall before installing that in there.. Sheesh..

Yeah, I wanted to, but I got too anxious to put the motor in oh well

Looks like you are making great progress. Good luck on finding the harness, I'm sure there are plenty of them around especially if you start with a truck harness. I think you will be very happy with your end result.

Pat

Its getting close now, maybe I can fire it up this coming weekend depending......


-gotta hook up shift linkage to trans------Check
-wiring harness-----Just ordered a painless one, should get here this week
-throttle cable (probably get one from Lokar)------Check
-install driveshaft------Check
-and whatever else pops up when those are done------o2 sensors, need to put 2 of them somewhere, one on each side of the exhaust.

so did you decide to buy a new Painless harness instead of using the stock harness?

Well my harness that came w/ the motor was cut up too bad and missing too many connectors to reuse. Whoever pulled the motor just cut it all up, and I couldn't find any harnesses separate out here and if I did, they were too expensive and I would have ended up spending more to rework it than just getting a painless.

So I just went ahead and went with Painless

Got a present today from the delivery man.
-Hook up harness this weekend
-hook up o2 sensors
-hook up guages, and it should be ready to go

Cool! How much did that set you back?

Originally Posted by falconvan

Cool! How much did that set you back?

Ummm....

$575