Hey all,
Quick Backstory:
So around a month ago the transmission in my baby decided to say goodbye, and living out in Alaska made it hard to justify spending over $1000 just to get a stock transmission after shipping. Luckily I found someone selling a 84 Fiero that was part of the way through a 3800 II Swap. (yay someone else's headache). The body on the car and mostly everything else was shot. But, he had already installed a 3800 Series II out of a 1997 GTP in it. He also included a 1999 GTP ZZP ECM. And seeing that my 1985 Fiero GT was in outstanding condition it felt like a no brainer to buy his setup, and finish the swap into my car.
Now I'm pretty good from a mechanical standpoint, but when it comes to wiring I'm rather green, so this has been an absolute headache to do. After Changing all the gaskets, and rebuilding the wiring harness, i finally put it into my car today. Before going through the trouble of hooking up coolant lines, brake lines, ect. i decided to wire it up and give it a crank. That's when things went downhill.
With the key in the run position all the dash lights come on, and the audible chime sounds. The Fuel pump primes for a few seconds. When the key is turned to the crank position the coolant temp gauge pegs, but nothing happens, no crank, no click, absolutely nothing. I swapped the starter off of my Fiero and onto the 3800 as mine was relatively new and in visually better condition, so i find it highly unlikely that its a problem with a faulty starter, and more likely that my dumb*** missed a crucial step.
Here's where a few of my questions and concerns come in.
1: E3 C500 Connector is a pink wire that is said to run to the ICM as a power feed and splice into the pink wire on the ICM/coil. I've read a lot of back and fourth of different people saying to wire it into the ICM, and some saying not to and that it's unnecessary. For that reason I did not wire it up at all. I'm crossing my fingers that where I read it was "unnecessary" was wrong, and that is the root of my issues.
2: My car was a 4spd Manual, the donor Trans is also a 4spd Manual. After reading into it, i did not route the large yellow wire (A4 C500) to anything. I did however route the purple E2 wire directly to my starter (as well as a full 12v connection direct from the battery). Is there anything I've missed in that? is the yellow wire suppose to still route somewhere?
3: there is a few other wires that i did not route cut or mess with, mainly ones that from what im aware of are just gauges. (don't get me wrong, at some point in time i would like to route them, but having all working gauges is low on my priority list at the moment.)
Here's the ones that I did not route:
C500 Connector
---------------------------------------
C1- Backup Lights / 12v Trans
E-3 12V to Coil / ICM
E1- Backup Lights Return from Trans
A-4 Starter IGN Control (automatic trans)
C2 - Coolant Gauge
C3 - Tach
-----------------------------------------
C203 Connector:
N - A/C Relay
R - VSS Low
D - A/C Request
E - Oil Press
G - Speedo
I believe everything else has been run as far as i can tell. Are any of these that I did not run something that could cause a No Crank Malfunction?
Now how about fuses? I've read some places that you have to swap fuses on the Fiero for this. I have not swapped any fuses. The only fuse related thing I've done was add a 10A fuse for the ECM 12v Power cable.
Again, I'm not very experienced with the wiring side of things, and this project has been overwhelming. I do appreciate all the help and posts I've read about this however. You guys are a god send.
The only other question I've got is if I decided to say **** it and just buy a harness, where can i get one these days? I see a lot of people on these forums say they make them, however, those posts are nearly 12 years old. I'd love to try my best not to purchase one, and just fix this mess up a bit. Alaska Shipping is a *****.
Thanks in advance guys, Eric.
[This message has been edited by Nugeat907 (edited 07-16-2025).]
