I originally did not intend to turbo my 75 (Dart 225). My plan was to convert it to EFI. A friend at work has a 86 Grand National in storage with and decided to get rid of it. The interior has already been parted out, but the rest of the car is in tact and ran well before another friend of his did some kind of damage while trying to tune it. He just told me that I can have anything off of it that I want (FREE!). For sure I was going to grab the turbo, intercooler, throttle body, injectors, and any other goodies that I think I might be able to use or modify, but what about the ECM ? What would be involved in using the distributor as a crank trigger substitute using the MSD BTM that I already have?
The other question I have is about the MAP rather than an MAF? How bad would it be with the differences in displacement, and is there any way of compensating? Remember I said free parts!
Dan M.

Dan,

These are, for all purposes, the same size engine. 3.7L vs. 3.8 will make no difference to the ECM. The difference in cam, head/intake flow, etc may make a difference, but that ECM is likely good enough to compensate as Bob D has found. You could always convert to a tunable computer later. Definitely get all sensors, including O2, MAF/MAP...

Not sure about using the dist as an ign trigger, you may need the crank trigger, but that would not be hard to rig up.

I say, grab it all!

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Dan,
The '86 turbo Buick is a MAF system so you must use the MAF sensor with that ECM (1227148). The MAP sensor in that car is only used for the digital boost gage which in my (and most others) opinion is junk. When you do your turbo use a direct reading boost gage.
By all means get the ECM. Even if you don't use it it is worth at least $50 with the turbo chip and cal-pak. That ECM will work in a batch fire EFI conversion as long as you are using your SL6 distributor for timing. However, if you want to use the ESC with a knock detector (you will with a turbo) you'll have to perform some trickery to use your SL6 distributor with the "148" ECM. I'm in the process of trying to work this out. But, in the mean time I'm using the ECM (1227065) from a naturally asperated '85 3.8L along with a MAF and injectors from a '85 Buick turbo on my turbo set-up. Everything works great with this set-up except for a tendency to flood during start-up. This is because the non-turbo ECM "thinks" I have smaller injectors, and during start-up is not getting a signal from the MAF sensor. Actually, holding the peddle to the floor puts the ECM in "flood clear" mode and the car starts right up.
Bob D

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I will not live without boost again. I just like the sound of the blowoff valve.