using 1999 cavalier for efi hybrid?

hi, I'm pretty new to tuning. Ive done a few ls1, gen III and IV swaps, but I'm embarking on building a cool foreign car with fuel injection. I have a 1979 Toyota corolla with a 2tc engine. I have a complete 1999 cavalier and I wanted to try to adapt the pcm, harness and sensors over to the corolla. I can figure out the fabrication of the intake manifold, throttle body, map, tps, iac, knock sensor, iat, cts, and fuel system. I'm just hesitant as far as the crank sensor and cam sensors. I believe the reluctor is 24x on the cavalier so i was thinking of a fabbed setup, but on the cam sensor I was wondering if there was a way i could send the signal from a efi toyota distributor to the pcm. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

i believe you can take the position sensor return wire off the distributor and send it to the cav ecu. only problem is if the oscilloscope pattern is different the cav ecu wont accept the new input. If the pattern is different you will end up with a custom modification like the crank sensor. maybe machine the back of the cam and bore/tap it so you can bolt a reluctor on the back side if there is enough room for it. weld a small bung to the valve cover for the cav cam sensor then wire it up like cav factory. in that case you would have to position correctly like the crank reluctor. real pain in the but.

im not familiar with the two different cam patterns though. maybe planethax has seen the cam signal on the oscope before.

thank you for your reply. the cam sensor is bolted to to the side of the cavalier cover so i think i can calculate the angle if i must at the junkyard, because the cars are everywhere. I think I may have a better chance with welding a bung on the front of the 2tc timing cover and figure a way to dowel and bolt a reluctor on the front side of the cam. I am anxious to work on it because I feel I know these computers better than any others Ive dealt with.

Also another question. Is there a way to make these computers a true fuel only stand alone? Where I can delete cam and crank sensors completely and just rely on map, o2, and other sensors for fueling. I could still use the crank sensor to run the coils with them makeshift crank trigger wheel, but the cam sensor is frightening me.

1; You have not stated whether you are looking at a 2.2l or 2.4l
2; I would use 2000+ Pcm as IIRC pre 2000 you can not disable Vats and would need the Lock Cylinder and Cluster.
3;If cam sensor fails or not present you would run in Batch Fire

I have all sensors and parts from a 2.4l currently, but most of them that I looked at were identical part numbers for the 2.2l. I can definitely get a 2000+ computer. How would I run batch fire? I'm so excited right now, because the cam sensor is solely my biggest concern. Thank you for your time!

I will have to check on it again as it has been a while but IIRC with out Cam input the Pcm defaults to batch fire.
( Fires Injector 1& 4 at the same time and 2&3 at the same time instead of individually)
For example, unplugging the Cam sensor on you 2.4 the engine will still run well but be in batch fire mode and possible a rougher idle.

ok, thanks again for your time :)

batch fire that's cool.

are you planning on boost by any chance? i know a lot of toyota guys outsource ecu's when looking to go boosted.

If i can get the car to run with this os I'm definitely going boost:cool:

Alpha n system in the cavs will take a lot of patience to get dialed in. Planethax would be a great source for you when he has time to help.

Hope you find this a good solution. Toyota guys would follow you for the price of conversion.

I would not use a jbody ECU for this. Should be much better options. These ecu's are way more limited than a GM V8 ECU.

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Originally Posted by JMHZ2401

I would not use a jbody ECU for this. Should be much better options. These ecu's are way more limited than a GM V8 ECU.

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You are right. I looked at a file from the repository and there are way less calibrations possible. Im sure I can make it work, but worst case scenario is I will have to use megasquirt and all I would have to do is splice and connect to their harness. I was looking forward to this particular ecu, because of the availability of the parts and I really like obdII diagnostics

You can boost it fine but its going to take some work and as u saw less parameters to adjust.