Hi,
I recently pulled the wiring harness from a FI Samurai at the junkyard and I plan to install it in 88.5+ Samurai or an early Samurai with an 88.5+ dash.  My question is, will the carbed 88.5-89 instrument cluster (non-tach) work with the FI wiring harness?  

I know that the VSS will need to be installed in the speedo, but is everything else plug and play in regards to the instrument cluster between the non-tach 88.5-90 carbed and 90-95 FI Gauge Cluster?

Hey Jonny, I believe you need the new instrument cluster, but I'm not sure
if it is just for the VSS or if there is something else in there that you might
need also, I think SkyhighRanger would be a good one to fill in the blanks
for this one. What I hear is swapping round vent to a round vent and square
vent too a square vent cluster into the same body vent style is plug and play

Wild

it is 'easier' w/ the correct cluster but it has been done...there are posts on zuwharrie.com w/regard to wiring

I would think it would be straight forward.  The only additional trace would be for the VSS.  If need be, I could separate that wire from the harness and wire it up to the VSS.

if only the vss- yes; one side to grnd, other to ecu

if non-tach to tach...is where it gets a little more involved.

Yes, I've read that the Samurai FI system (USA market) does not have a engine speed sensor for the tach.  Therefore, you cannot install the tach from an 88.5-89 dash into an FI Samurai and expect the tach to work.

All I want to do is run the 88.5-89 instrument cluster w/VSS added with the FI wiring harness.  The gauge cluster looks identical between the two, but I imagine there is another trace for the VSS that may or may not be present in the 88.5-90 dash cluster.

just wire the vss 'stand alone'

just wire the vss 'stand alone'

Yep

As said, add the VSS to the speedo (or just swap the whole speedo assembly into the older cluster...it should fit right in).  Then wire out the VSS on the instrument cluster.  You will have to do a "stare and compare" on the 2 clusters, to see what traces need to be jumpered, or to see how you can wire the VSS to the appropriate wire in the cluster plug (there are several options for wiring it...just do whichever one you feel most comfortable with and looks the easiest).
The CEL (check engine light) wiring should already be in place in the EFI harness and cluster plug, to match up with the 88.5/89 cluster.

I had always thought there was more to swapping the 88.5/89 cluster into the 90-95 samurais....because I had compared the cluster plugs before, and I thought there were several wires out of order.  But recently, I looked at 88.5/89 cluster plug wire colors and compared them to 90-95 wiring diagrams and they appear to be pinned out the same (I haven't looked at one of my EFI samurais cluster plugs yet, to verify what I am reading on the wiring diagram is correct).

So are you looking into swapping the whole EFI system and harness into an 88.5/89 samurai?  As long as you got the whole wiring harness (both engine and dash), the coil, ignitor (behind the coil), complete intake manifold, airbox and intake tube, distributor, and ECM it should be a pretty straightforward swap.  Tank and in-tank fuel pump is nice, but you can run a high pressure external pump instead. 
I swapped all the EFI stuff into my 87 samurai and kept the 87 tach cluster (many more wiring mods to get the 87 cluster to work with an EFI harness).  It came out great though and everything works perfectly.

Yep, that is my plan-to swap it all over into an earlier Samurai.  Might even swap it into a 86-88 as I could easily swap out the dash cover from one of my parts Samurais.

I also have a stock 1994 Samurai that I can double check to make sure everything is there and in the right place.  Thanks for the list though.  I also plan to grab all the fuel lines.

I plan to go the junk yard tomorrow and grab the rest of the stuff.  I figure that I can always use the KickTrack stuff (coil, distributor, intake, etc) if somebody has already pulled it off the Samurai.  The vultures have already started to pick it apart. 

The main fuel line (from the tank to the filter and the filter to the engine) is good to have too.  No other fuel lines are needed off of it...you can just use the existing older samurai ones.
The trackick stuff is not directly swappable with eth EFI samurai stuff (well, the intake will bolt right up), but the wiring plugs for the coil and distributor and ignitor will not plug right into the trackick stuff...at least from what I have seen.  You may be able to modify the wiring and get it to work though.
There is also a sensor or two on the EFI samurai intake that is not there on the trackick intake.  One is the blue sensor that sits on the top and towards the front of the intake that has two bigger vacuum hoses on it (can't remember the name of it, offhand)...one goes to the airbox lid and the other to the intake, IIRC.
Oh, and the fuel pump block off plate is nice to have too, off the EFI samurai.

Thanks for the points.  I know that there are some differences, but wasn't aware the the dizzy was different and that the intake had different sensors.  I plan to grab the other stuff tomorrow if possible.