I have an 85 El Camino with the original TBI 4.3 liter. I kept my old 350 from my old camaro that I'll be putting into the camino. Can I adapt the TBI to the 350 or would it be too much of a hassle? If its a swap that can be done with little modification, i'll do it for the reliability and fuel mileage. I should mention that this is just a hobby car to occupy my free time.

Im leaning more towards getting rid of the TBI. If I do that...are there any issues I'll be running in to? What will and wont work properly?

I posted this on a few el camino boards and got very little responce and I remembered this forum to be extremely helpful when I had my camaro.

No.. A TBI from a 305 isnt tuned to work for even a 350. You could try, But from what alot of what I have read and heard from alot of peple it won't work.

Shoot an e mail to Jim at www.jimsperformance.com He's extremely knowledgeable and a really nice guy. He did all my harness and programing work for my TPI and also does TBI

you will need brackets for acc. (alt.,P/S,.etc)
You will also need a adjustable in line fuel regulator (around 4.5-9psi) for the EFI system(fuel pump is in the tank right?)
carb it and you are good to go
also most sensors for your gauges should swap over and read correctly

Correct me someone if I am wrong!!!
But I helped a buddy of mine swap in a 5.7L 350 vortec carbed and yanked out a 4.3L TBI


It is cheaper to carb it than to try and stay TBI.....if you do.......... you have to have the computer reflashed and that costs about $100-$150 last I checked

Hope this helps
Ghost (Tom)

Talk to Tom Miller at Turbo City:

http://www.turbocity.com/

They offer retrofit kits to install TBI products on vehicles that didn't originally have it.

They also had a dual TBI system and other performance parts to hop up the TBI engines.

I dissagree a bit. All the accessories will swap over from the 4.3 to the 5.7(350). I think you could get away with swaping almost everything. You would need a TBI intake for the 350. Fuel pump would be the same. You are only talking about a system designed to run on 9-12 psi. IF it were me and I was on a tight budget I would try using the 4.3 throttle body and ECM.

Yes, accessories for 4.3 is the same as a SBC. Rocker arms, valves, all sorts of other parts too :)

Don't need a TBI intake either- a carb-to-TBI adapter plate can be used to put the throttle body on a carb intake.

About the only things you'll need to do is get a new 8-cylinder TBI-type distributor/cap, larger injectors for the throttle body to use with the 350, and some ECM reprogramming. Not a big deal as the car already has almost everything- it just has to be moved to the replacement engine.

Well, I could be evil and tell you I happen to have a complete TBI intake setup (including fuel lines, throttle bracket, the whole shebang) off my old 305 RS Camaro and that I'd sell it to you cheap. I could probably even throw in the original V8 distributor that went with it. But that would be evil. The intake manifold won't bolt to 85-down heads without modification and you will need a different chip in your ECM to make it work (a custom one). So you'd still end up spending more money to make it work than converting to carb and it still won't make as much power.