I have a 85 f150 with a inline 6 with a carburetor? Step son finally blew it up. Lack of oil .... Piston rod broke off , and went through side of the motor.
Found a replacement motor. one problem its a EFI . Guy says its the same block. Was having a friend swap motors around. went to tear it apart. found old motor mechanical fuel pump ( mounts to side of the motor ) EFI doesn't have a location.
Question . Do I have to stick with a carbureted motor ? or can the EFI motor be modified to except a carburetor? Found the EFI motor for $450. Looked around at a couple rebuilt blocks $1300.
Any help would be appreciated !!!

 

The 300 is exactly the engine I'd want in a school/church owned airport van that will only ever be driven by car illiterate people. It's the kind of engine you can run out of coolant, refill and be ready to go. I hope your stepson has been made aware how impressive it is that he managed to throw a rod (usually cast piston skirts go when you hold them at 4k for extended periods of time).

An EFI short block will work but you'll either need to drill out the fuel pump boss or use an electric fuel pump. You can drop the carb head on an EFI short-block easily

An EFI head will work but you'll need to dial back the timing. The EFI head bumps the compression by about 0.4 and has a chamber design optimized for burning faster.

The carb head is missing a bolt hole so aligning the EFI exhaust will require a lot of patience and/or a helper.

EFI exhausts are a significant upgrade over the stock log and IMO it's worth dropping in an EFI long-block and converting it to carb just for those.

You can usually find a running EFI 300 takeout for $50-250 on CL once every 6mo where I am. Around $1/cu-in they pop up much more frequently.

If you can get a 96 block go for that. They have a much better piston. With a stock head and carb'd intake you won't be able to hurt it. With that piston a stock engine can't breath enough to spin fast enough to hurt itself.

 

so a EFI block with a carb head will work?
Can you help with deciding on a electric fuel pump ?
Sorry for the questions. I have to try to explain to my friend doing the work. He is Cuban . loves working on cars , and I'm trying to give him some side work. He is just use to bolt together projects , and not interchanging items

 

Carb head will bolt on with no problems. At that point just pretend that it's a carb'd engine with a screwed up fuel pump boss.

Google "electric fuel pump for carb" and you should find a variety of options. There's tons of after-market pumps and builds that use OEM parts to put an electric pump on a carb'd vehicle.

Don't half *** the wiring. Use heat shrink and loom as appropriate.

For wiring I'd use a relay and use an oil pressure switch off a 87-96 as well as the starter circuit to ground the relay. That should prevent it from being driving without oil while not making it too hard to start.

 

K.
Thank you. I will run it by him. If theres anymore questions I will post