88yotarunner

OK guys I am chest deep in a 4.3 swap. I bought a 95 astro van with a vortec cpi. Everything is going good so far but I'm getting ready for the wiring part of it. I know they sell a wiring harness kit but can it be done without purchasing this kit? Has anyone done a write up on how to wire in the 4.3 to get it to run? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot!
I hope I'm not with this thread.

88yotarunner

Oops. Oh yeah it's going into an 88 4runner using the stock 5 speed. Thanks again.

RevNL

I swapped a 5.7L TPI using the stock wiring harness. It wasn't all that difficult but it was time consuming. Basically, I went through the donor car 1 wire at a time and removed everything that wasn't engine related. When it was done, there really wasn't much left. Just take that out of the donor car, put it in the Toyota, and hook up the 5 or 6 leftover wires. But you'll have a lot harder time than me if you've already pulled the engine. I made sure the engine would run with the harness completely pulled out of the engine bay before disconnecting it from the engine.

Probably the most confusing part was the power distribution. GM and Toyota are completely different. I left both sets in place. The original Toyota fuse block on the passenger side fender hooks to the battery terminal. The GM fusible links that power the ECM connect to the starter solenoid.

I really don't think it's worth $600+ for a Painless wiring harness, especially considering both I've used in the past were defective. I invested a few nights and a fair quantity of beer into recovering the OEM wiring from the Camaro.

88yotarunner

I thought I had the install in the bag. I guess not. I bought the bolt in motor mounts from Advanced adapters and when I tried to slide the motor in tonight I could not get them to line up to save my life. I have an 88 runner and am using a 95 4.3 vortec cpi with stock exaust manifolds and stock astro van engine mounts. I have not done the body lift yet but the body is not hitting. It's just not sitting on the toyota mounts on the frame. One side will line up but the other is not even close. What am I doing wrong here? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

88yotarunner

Thanks RevNL for the help. I got the toyota and chevy chiltons manuals and see what your talking about. I thought that was going to be my only real hurdle but getting it in seems to be alot more challenging than I thought.