Running a Chevy Vortec 5700 standalone

I purchased a Vortec 5700 which came out of a truck from one of the US Airbases here in the UK.  I wanted it for the 4L80e transmission, but I got the whole lot for a good price.

One Sunday afternoon I decided to get it running. The following few pictures show what I started with - which even included the dashboard!

After being in denial for a little while, I realised that the easiest way to pick through the loom was to strip all the insulation of and follow all the wires. There was a large bulkhead connector that went between the engine bay and the interior - I didn't have the wiring diagrams for the inside of the car - so I traced each cable one at a time to be sure that it wasn't needed before cutting it out


Through some research and looking at the circuit diagrams that I obtained via Repair Procedures , I determined that there’s not really much to it. All you need is permanent 12V to Orange and Red.  Switched Ignition Live to Pink and Ignition Start to the coil of the Grey starter Relay (Purple wire in this drawing I think).   The thick red cable is from the starter lug (12 feed to loom)

This is known as the early "black" ecu with a service number of Service Number 16244210. Jet sell a programmer for it (se below) - also there is a later "silver" 411 version which can be tuned with HP Tuners using a base calibration from a 2001 GMC Savana or Chevrolet Express van

Here’s a Video of it running: