I have a 1985 GL Wagon with a 5 speed manual, carbed 1.8L, 4 wheel drive. The car has 236,000 miles on it and is very tired.

I wanted to know if anyone could tell me if I could swap a FI (throttle body) engine out of the same model and year car. Both are manual transmisions and 4 wheel drive. I have access to the whole parts car and believe everything is still intact, except for some odds and ins I have already scavaged off of it. The FI motor looks to have less than a dozen vacumm lines, where as the carbed engine has to many to count. My current car also has full digital dash and the donor is guaged, if that would make a diffrence. Any information would be helpful. Please ask if there is any information needed.

How comfortable are you with wiring, schematics, etc?

 

GD

Questionable! I have not done much with wiring harnesses, but always willing to try. Would I be looking at changing out fuse boxes? The fuel injection on the donor car is Throttle body( I believe) and not SPI, if that changes anything. I would consider switching out the motor and keeping the carb also.

It is possible, but takes much time and labor to swap carb-FI. You must take not only fuse box, but all frontal saloon and engine wiring, also fuel pump and ignition system. After all you win at maximum 5-7 HP. I made reverse swap MPFI-CARB on one of my Subarus- it was easy.

It is mostly wiring. You have to strip out the FI portion of the donor car's harness (fuel, ignition, computer, and all relevant sensors), and piggyback it to the vehicle's existing harness. It can be a daunting task if you are not uses to it. The ecu has about 50 wires - input, output, power, ground, etc, and the majority of them have to stay. If you are not comfortable with dealing with all that and the potential learning curve to troubleshoot the installation then i sugest you swap the manifolds and use your existing carb on the SPFI block.

 

GD