Ill start from the beginning:
At a junk yard close to my home...i made a new friend. The old man that owns the yard really took a liking to me when we met. He offered me a deal for a 2.8l fiero engine out of an 1985. The deal includes everything i need (engine, tranny, mounts, wiring harness, computer, anything needed) He will even tow the fiero to my house so i can tear it all out in my own garage. (free of charge)

MY fiero is an 84' automatic 2.5 and i want to do the v6 swap to the 2.8 because there was no GT made in 84' and it would be unique and cool to do.
Since the 2.8 engine and the 2.5 both have the same tranny (automatic),
i was wondering if i could use an engine out of an 85' GT that is a manual? And bolt it right up to my automatic tranny?

He has an automatic GT but that engine has 170,000 miles on it and i don't want to spend another $1,000 to rebuild it. So....would the engine out of the MANUAL gt bolt up to my automatic transmission?

If it would bolt up the same as an originally automatic 2.8 engine, i could use the wiring harness and everything else necessary out of the automatic GT with a million miles on it since my car is automatic.

So if everything lined up, i'd be ripping the engine out of one car, and the wiring harness out of the other....any ideas?

Thanks a lot for the help.

It will bolt right up. Just make sure you get the V6 automatic flexplate

ok thanks a lot

It has been done, but it's not easy.

Since the 84 was never designed for a V6, nothing will plug in and just work.
Some of the connectors (C500, at least) are located in the wrong place.
You're going to have to do some major rewiring.

Sorry to be a buzzkill.
I'm not saying that it can't be done, but do some serious research, first.

The other is issue is heat. You have some serious potential fire issues. You need to ensure you have better venting, and the heat shields in place. It can be done, but like Raydar says, it is not completely straight forward.

Arn

What you say is EXACTLY what you need to do. Grab the engine out of the 85 and all the wiring out of the million miler. There are a bunch of C500 issues which could come up and bite you if you stay with any '84 wiring or even reworking a manual wiring harness to work with the automatic. (Oh, and either don't forget the cooling tubes out back or get yourself an '88 alternator)

I personally would use the 4-speed, but that's just me.

I combined a mint '88 frame with a tired '87 auto and converted to a Getrag 5-speed. You'd think that it would be a hassle, which it was not; however, the wiring was a pain because everytime i turned around there was more reading and re-routing to work out.

If you could start with the right wiring, then it could end up being a weekend project !!

[This message has been edited by BigB (edited 10-30-2007).]