I have a carbed 302 in my 4x4 now. Easy to work on with decent fuel mileage. I can swap in a 94 302HO model for a decent penny! Is it worth swapping over? Is there a major headache in setting this up in a non factory fuel injected setup? I know the 94 motor would be more economical. But would it be more reliable? Thanks for any advise!

 

If it were me, I wouldn't bother unless you are stepping up some displacement. There is a lot to consider with FI, unless of course you have a complete donor vehicle at your disposal....

--Mike

 

Go for it- it'll give us plenty to talk about....

 

I have the whole vehicle at my expense. My 87 GT 5.0 had a hell of a motor, but it was already setup for fuel injection. I ran it hard and still got 21 mpg! Whats a good price for a used fuel injection setup with the motor ? Thats if i was to buy it without the rest of the vehicle.

 

if you want more power use the 94 ho 302 and put a alum 4v intake and carb on it that works out good like that and best of all its not hard.

 

Going to fuelie is quite a project. I'm (slowly) putting a fuel-injected 460 into my 1977 Lincoln Mark V, and let me tell you, there's a LOT of things to consider. So I wouldn't reccomened it unless you either have a HUGE buget, or a lot of time and love of fiddleing.

 

I agree. I've been planning and slowly gathering parts to swap a mustang 5.0 efi in my truck for over a year now. If you have the complete car there, I'd say go for it. If you only have the engine, you have a long road ahead of you, gathering all the sensors, switches, and fuel line accessories etc. Go to some search engines and forums and do lots of reasearch before you pick up a wrench. I've been working on mine a piece at a time and still have a long way to go. The factory efi set up should give you a little more low rpm torque, better driveability, and fuel mileage, but I don't know if it's worth all the extra cost vs just doing a cam and intake swap on what you have.

 

Well, here's another thing to consider. If you do have a fuelie engine, but not the whole doner vehichle, it's probably a better choice to go with an aftermarket engine management system.

For my project (a 460 from an '89 F-450 Super Duty into a 1977 Lincoln Mark V), while I did get the whole harness and computer when I bought the engine, I did decided that getting the stock setup to work without having a doner vehicle would just be WAY too much of a headache. Fortunetly, there are plenty of aftermarket options.

The best (although most expensive) option is what i'm doing, using an Accel DFI system. For $1600, Accel sells a digital fuel injection kit that will work on ANY tuned-port injected V-8 engine (the also have 6-cyl and 4-cyl kits). It comes with the wireing harness, all the sensors, the computer, and a cable to connect their engine computer to a laptop or desktop computer. See, the whole point of the Accel system is usually tuneability; it gives you control over ABSTOLUTLY EVERY SINGLE TINY ASPECT of how the engine runs, and more (it will even control a three-stage nitrous system). But the main advantage of it, for me, is the fact that it's compleatly stand-alone, and will be a hell of a lot easier then getting the stock engine setup working.

So that's an option that will greatly reduce the trouble you go through, abeit at a bit of a price tag. But it also removes one of the most comment complains people have about fuel-injected engines: lack of ability to tweek them.

 

In some cases this would be a good idea, but for complete drivability, the factory PCM's offer the best of both worlds (performance and ecconomy) with aftermarket tuning.
A guy came to my house, that specializes in aftermarket engine management tuning (Accel, FAST, Big Stuff, etc...), to help me dial in my transfer function a while back, and we used SCT software that I have on my PC. I took him through the entire database and he couldn't believe how many tuning options there were for a stock type EFI system. There is much more to tuning than timing and fuel, and that is where a tuned stock EFI system will shine for a street driven vehicle.
Now for a weekend warrior that sees limited street duty and more strip/off-road duty, then the aftermarket systems are the way to go.

 

I will study more about fuel injection more. For the mean time i will put my money on carburetion. I don't know near enough about FI to jump out and buy a donor vehicle. I guess i could shoot for a goal in a few years. Probably better off researching FI and buying vehicle already equipped? Like the 92-96 body style. Thank you for your knowledge and personal experience.

 

Blurry, do you have more information on this software of yours?

The biggest reason that I want to go with an Accel system is so _I_ can do the tuneing, that I have control over the engine, and if somthing breaks, or the engine isn't running right, or somthing is wrong, I'm much more able to diagnose and fix it then with the stock unit. I don't want to have to keep sending the system out, or chipping it, or having someone come out every time I tweek somthing.

In fact, the only real reason that I decided to go with a fuel injected moter for my Lincoln was that it would give me even more control over the engine, and much better real-time monitoring then carbs ever could. Although, if there was a way to hook up one of my laptops, and achive this sort of real-time monitoring, control, and tuneability with the stock ECM, I'm all ears. Also, with an aftermarket I figured it would be easier to not have to deal with trying to get all the EGR BS and things working. This engine will only need to meet emissions standards for 1977, and as long as there's not raw fuel dripping out of the exaust, I figure i'm alright there

(The other issue is that while I got the harness for the engine, and the ECM, I didn't get whatever connectors are needed to actually connect the harness to the ECM, and I think I might be missing bits of the harness anyway. I figured it was just going to be easier to start from scratch)