[DirtyLarry]

Skidder,

I would venture to say you are good to go without VSS on a manual transmission. With an automatic, yes, you would need it for the torque converter lockup. Your earlier post mentioned a concern with going into closed loop. Closed loop is achieved by the engine coolant temperature sensor (ECT) and O2 sensor inputs not vehicle speed.

My 8.1L with a manual trans does not have a VSS at all. Even though the 8.1L is multiport EFI, mine is running an OBD I speed density calibration system through a Marine MEFI-4 engine controller with a protocol that is very similar to the old TBI and TPI systems of the late 80’s and early 90’s. As far as fuel delivery, the main difference is my 8.1L fires 8 injectors under a higher fuel pressure in batches where as TBI is firing 2 at a lower fuel pressure. Firing the 8 individual coil packs on the 8.1L is what is unique about the MEFI-4 controllers as they are very versatile in programming what they can control….but that is a whole nuther story.

This is one of the reasons I have chose to go with aftermarket harnesses opposed to reworking a donor vehicle harness. First, a donor vehicle TBI harnesses are getting old (last TBI truck was built 15 years ago!) and the harnesses tend to be very brittle and stiff, end connector break at the touch, etc. Second, a creditable aftermarket harness vendor such as Howell or Street and Performance, etc has already put a lot of research into knowing how to properly wire these things. Most of those companies have gone to the manufactures and purchased the original engineering layout drawings to create stand alone harnesses without all the unnecessary circuitry. For $325 a nice fresh harness is hard to beat vs. pulling your hair out trying to rework an old harness only to still have a 15+ year old harness when you are done.