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Hello all, I just picked up a project car over the weekend and I was hoping I may get some great advice on here.
Like the title says, it is an 89 Cutlass Supreme, and the motor has been swapped out. Originally the car had a 2.8l v6 installed, but the owner I just purchased it from replaced it with a 3.1l because the original motor had died. In addition to changing the motor he got a new computer out of a Pontiac Grand Prix that had a 3.1l engine in it. The car does start and will run, but not very well at all. It spits and sputters a lot, and if you just let it sit there and run, usually within about 5min, the motor just shuts off. What I need is a place to start looking to get this running right.
Could the computer not be the right one and be causing the engine run badly? Or could it be they just hooked a bunch of stuff up worng? I have done a little research and from what I have found is that the cutlass used the same computer for both the 3.1 & 2.8. Luckily the previous owner gave me the old computer as well. I did try to hook up the original computer last evening and I was able to get the car started, but it quickly wants to stall out if I take my foot off of the gas. The other thing I tried was to swap out the computer chip from the new ECM to the original one. This yielded the best results so far, but it still does not run super smooth. Which this may be because I am not sure how well the original owner rebuilt the engine (One of my next tasks to complete). The only problem with the final combination is that the digital display in the center console loses it's settings every time that the car is shut off now, and it does not show the correct information when it is on. I would like to get it running better before I rebuild the motor, to make sure it is even worth messing with.
Any help is greatly appreciated! I want to try to get this running right so I can use it as a daily driver to work, my astro van sucks too much gas these days. Thank you!
Like the title says, it is an 89 Cutlass Supreme, and the motor has been swapped out. Originally the car had a 2.8l v6 installed, but the owner I just purchased it from replaced it with a 3.1l because the original motor had died. In addition to changing the motor he got a new computer out of a Pontiac Grand Prix that had a 3.1l engine in it. The car does start and will run, but not very well at all. It spits and sputters a lot, and if you just let it sit there and run, usually within about 5min, the motor just shuts off. What I need is a place to start looking to get this running right.
Could the computer not be the right one and be causing the engine run badly? Or could it be they just hooked a bunch of stuff up worng? I have done a little research and from what I have found is that the cutlass used the same computer for both the 3.1 & 2.8. Luckily the previous owner gave me the old computer as well. I did try to hook up the original computer last evening and I was able to get the car started, but it quickly wants to stall out if I take my foot off of the gas. The other thing I tried was to swap out the computer chip from the new ECM to the original one. This yielded the best results so far, but it still does not run super smooth. Which this may be because I am not sure how well the original owner rebuilt the engine (One of my next tasks to complete). The only problem with the final combination is that the digital display in the center console loses it's settings every time that the car is shut off now, and it does not show the correct information when it is on. I would like to get it running better before I rebuild the motor, to make sure it is even worth messing with.
Any help is greatly appreciated! I want to try to get this running right so I can use it as a daily driver to work, my astro van sucks too much gas these days. Thank you!
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