ZD30 to TB42 Conversion

[PatrolOz]

Hi all,

Last weekend my timebomb finally blew up, wasn't doing anything radical, just cruising on the highway and boom, going home on a tow truck. So, going through the process of insurance but just incase that doesn't work out my cheapest option is to fit up a carby tb42 but wanted to know if my auto will still work or will I need to do a manual valve body mod? The other thing is would the tb42 fit the bell housing of the zd30?

My wanting a carby tb42 is because its very basic old school

[jff45]

The ZD30 bellhousing will fit the TB42 block no problem. The auto will work as it did with the ZD if you retain the ZD ECU with the ZD TCU.
Just don't go arbitrarily snipping wires off the ECU until you're sure you really don't need them.
You'll need to retain the TPS on the accelerator pedal (unless your TB42 was auto and has a TPS on the carby) and just add a cable.

You'll also probably need a digital tacho converter to bypass the ZD ECU.

I'd also check if you can legally swap a TB42 carby engine into a ZD from an emissions point of view..

[PatrolOz]

Thanks so much for your input John, could you please explain "You'll also probably need a digital tacho converter to bypass the ZD ECU".

[jff45]

The TB42 would not supply the same signal as the ZD crank angle sensor so it needs a signal converter, like a Dakota Digital SGI-8E, which also converts the 6 cyl pulses for the 4 cyl ZD instrument.
The Dakota produces the correct signal to feed directly to the dash bypassing the ECU.
This is commonly done for most ZD30 -> TD42 conversions.

I have one for my TB45E -> TD42T conversion.