A pic of your engine bay and the motor helps a lot!

 

Vacuum tubes ...LOL

 

3 wires for the alternator
1 wire for the temp gauge (green)
1 wire for the oil pressure gauge (may be tan)
1 wire for the distributor ( GM HEI)
1 wire for the A/C compressor

so....7
8 if you count the ground wire

Starter should be pretty obviuos

 

If you’re doing away with the emission equipment then much of the hose and tube plumbing and some of the electrical goes away. You really need a decent manual with diagrams it’s hard to talk anyone through this if they don‘t have pictures and drawings of these systems in front of them.

Bogie

 

where do i get my hands on an applicable manual, should i just find the one for the model of the el camino? i dont know if it all changes because im not using the original engine.

 

You're going to get bombarded with information here. Don't let it overwhelm you. Every person here has been in your shoes. Ask every question. There are no "stupid" ones.

The photos will tell the story. You're going to get plenty of information outside of the engine install too. The increased power of the 383 (377 from the build sheet) would put the factory original transmission/rear end combo on the endangered species list. I'm sure a picture of the transmission and rear end will be helpful, too.

Congratulations on the purchase. You're going to love it!

 

very needed reasurrance thank you, when you say endangered species are you saying it wont handle the power?
ill put some pictures on here of the engine bay on here when i get back to the shop but for now this is all i have

 

You have a carb on the 86 305 so all you need to do for fuel supply is a line from fuel pump to carb and a fuel filter, but engine may already come plumbed from the fuel pump. Don't cut off extra electrical wires/connectors in the wiring harness. Just tape over them with black tape - you wont have that many extra. Just use the ones that someone else already mentioned and route exactly where it went on the 305. For vacuum lines, take close photo of emissions label with hose diagram and let us know if you want to retain the evaporative emissions for the fuel tank. No real downside. Pay close attention to TV cable hookup and adjustment if you want transmission to live any time at all. Install engine in the car and start asking questions.

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X 2 on what 1979Malibu said. My good friend swapped a 383 into his '86 'Camino and loves it! With headers, it runs 12.2s with a 4:10 gearset and leaves me in the dust at the track. It did however produce an 1/8" crack in his bellhousing that needed to be addressed.

 

Well, if you unplugged it from somewhere then you should probably plug it back in the same place you took it out of.

 

Does it have an auto? If it has a (weak) 86 700r4 I would be looking for a new transmission or rebuilding/upgrading it to handle the additional power.
Or just run a manual with a correct tailshaft/gear to match your speedometer.

 

Does it have an auto? If it has a (weak) 86 700r4 I would be looking for a new transmission or rebuilding/upgrading it to handle the additional power.
Or just run a manual with a correct tailshaft/gear to match your speedometer.

its auto, it has the 2004r in it but its <100k miles, that said i am worried about it.

 

86 will have a 2004R there OK But it wont live long behind a strong 383
You will need to upgrade a few hard parts inside. 1-2 band, sun shell, direct clutch housing/input shaft comes to mind

Everything with the computer, harness wise, comes from the area of the right front fender. The Computer is behind the glove box. Take a look at it and you will that harness as it comes out.
You will need some hepl I am sure.
Dont cut or gut anything without knowing what it is , what it does and where it goes/comes from

 

its been suggested that i swap the input shaft in the trans by others. is this something i should seek to sort out before breaking in the engine? either way popping open the trans is most likely above my pay grade, how would you go about this?

 

The 83 camaro I did a 383 swap last year has all the computer and stuff. I actually used a few wires that ran from the computer harness to integrate the factory tach in the dash and also the fuel pump wiring for the in tank pump for the Fi tech.
It worked out real well.Also the wiring for the overdrive in the transmission was left. Most everything else I cut and removed.
A few of the wires comingle in behind the dash.It was a lot to sort throught.
In the End it all worked well and ran good, gauges ,fuel fump etc all good.

 

Get a color factory schematic even if you need to pay for it. Libraries sometimes carry old car manuals in the reference section, you have to make copies, these aren't loaned out.

 

Even a fresh stock rebuild on the 200-4R would have problems holding the power of a decent 383, it was never designed with that much torque in mind.....and a 100K miles used 200-4R doesn't stand a chance of surviving long.

Good trans once some of the light duty internal hard parts are replaced with stronger aftermarket pieces. The stock trans will fail long before the stock rear will unless you are putting drag slicks on it starting on Day 1 of the 383.

 

Most everything will need replacing on the inside. The 200R4 was put behind inline sixes to low power V8’s. While it has nice tight gear ratios compared to the 700R4 it in stock form is nowhere as strong and the 700R4 is not considered a strong transmission to where it needs a lot of beefing to withstand a 383 even a mildly built 350 for that matter. So yes you need to study up on this there is a lot written out on the web. There are many shops building well beefed 200R4’s as well as the more truck geared 700R4. The big difference in gearing is the 700R4 has a semi-granny low which has a big ratio jump between first and second. If you drive mostly in city stop, creep, stop and repeat or if you haul cargo or tow the 700R4‘s grunt low is very helpful. If you want best eighth and quarter mile performance and don’t make the El Camino work like a dog from stop light to stoplight then the a built 200R4 is a better choice. Either of these trannies are geared pretty close from second through fourth. For both of them beefing for power and real world working loads is pretty much replacing everything but the cases with aftermarket performance parts. AAMCO kind of tranny shops ain’t gonna get you there.

Bogie

 

I suppose you could always drop it down to third if that happens.



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You can build the 200-4r to handle it, but they were designed as a small, low-friction, gas-saving thing to put behind wheezer 80s Olds 307s only making 125 hp. They were also used in Grand Nationals and other higher performance vehicles, but with a specific build code (usually containing a "Z" in the three letter code). I'm not an expert on them anymore, but I recall that it's not just a different valve body, but a different case itself. The valve body is re-routed and the labyrinth in the case is different. Someone correct me if that's wrong.

I'm just wondering if a more appropriate trans is in order. The THM200, TH350, and 200-4r all share the same length and output shaft configuration, so they're all a direct swap as long as the trans crossmember gets moved to an appropriate spot to match where the mount is. Also, if you do that... grab the shifter parts too or you'll end up with a shifter lever that either doesn't throw far enough, or throws too far and you only get reverse through 2nd. Unfortunately, the only one that can really be built to take the 383's torque is the TH350 which means giving up OD. Of course, with the added torque, losing a ratio and re-gearing the back isn't necessarily a bad thing. I've built several Caddy 500s that I intentionally used a 2-speed Powerglide because there was so much torque that a TH400 was kind of tire-smokingly useless in first gear.

But any trans is possible. 700r4 is longer, but possible to get a driveshaft from something that is the right length, or getting one that is too long can be easily shortened.