Hi,

I am restoring an 1985 F-150 for my father in law. He currently drives a rusted out '77 Chevy pickup. This is going to be a surprise gift; he has no idea that I'm building him a truck.

The 302 in the truck is fuel injected. I'm going to put in a new (rebuilt) shortblock and heads and put on a carburetor intake manifold. I want the truck to be carbureted for two reasons:

1) The engine bay is in bad shape and I have no idea how many of the sensors/electronics are missing or broken.
2) My father in law likes to work on his vehicles so I want to give him something that he can fix if it breaks.

I have a few questions about this:

1) I know that I will have to add a fuel pressure regulator to get the pressure down to 5-7 psi. This should work with the stock fuel pumps, correct?

2) There are a lot of wires/connectors in the engine bay for the fuel injected system and electronic sensors. My Chilton manual doesn't do a very good job of describing all of these connections. I need to know what I can cut out and what I should leave. I still want the truck to have functioning dashboard gauges (temp, oil, batt) and I want the heater/AC to still work. Does anybody have any suggestions? Where can I find more detailed info?

3) I've worked on engines a bit, but I've never done this type of conversion. If anyobody can think of something that will help, please let me know. Any problems that I might run across?

Thanks,
Sal

 

Hello- Welcome to FTE! I have moved your post to the specialized forum we have here for your question. Check out the list of tech forums we have on FTE. There is a wealth of information and expertise here to help you. There are a number of links in my sig below to help you also. Have fun!

 

As far as the fuel delivery, look for a mechanical fuel pump from a carbed 302. It should work. The wiring... well I'm not so sure. You might have to get a new wiring harness and go from there. But I'm not entirely sure. Good luck.

 

We did the same thing to an '86 F-150 last Winter, learned most everything on FTE. We used a mechanical fuel pump and bypassed the electric one.
Most of the wiring under the hood can be removed or taped out of the way. Look for diagrams on the electrical forum.
You will probably need to exchange the FI type dist for a duraspark type dist and duraspark moduel from the early 80's. It all plugs in near the master cylinder. Finding the plugs to use and the plugs to ignore is the hard part. None of our dash gauges, lights, wipers, etc were effected by removing the computer wiring. Even the horn still works, even though I took out the horn relay with the computer box. Still haven't figured that one out.

 

hello I have sorta the same question I have a 1987 ford f-150 302 and I am going to rebuild it and stroke it to a 347 right now it is fuel injected but a lot of people are telling me it is easier to just put a carb intake on it. reason being is that im swaping the engine into another ford truck that has a 300-6 in it. Well im going to get a 4bbl carb for it and I was wondering will it run better or worse than EFI saying that I mean that if the carb is tuned up right. Also will there be much difference in the fuel mileage? and lastly what kind/size carb would youns recomend for it. its going to be stroked to 347 and duel exhaust with k&n air filter.

Thanks for any help youns can give me.
Myron

 

We used a carb because I'm somewhat familiar with a Holley 4bbl and don't know much about fuel injection...yet. Installing an intake and carb isn't that hard. Most people say fuel milage is a little lower with a carb, but ours is a "grocery getter" truck, not high performance. Good tuning makes a difference, ours gets about 17MPG either way. We have a Holley 8007 (only 390 cfm) smallest 4bbl they make. If yours going to be a 347, then you'll probably want a higher performance carb.
You might want to ask someone about the transmission and axle ratio. A 302 and 300 will interchange, but a 300 is supposed to be a low speed/high torque engine. While a 302 runs at a higher RPM to its horsepower. The truck may be geared for a 300-6.

 

yeah I know I have a donor truck and im going to put the rear end off of it on the other truck too.

 

go here www.fordfuelinjection.com

 

EFI to carb is basically what I did with the V8 swap in my 89 Ranger. A CFI injection system ( that's what the 85 has, isn't it?) already uses a Duraspark dist. ( I think) For the fuel either use a return style regulator for the electric pump, or do as I did and install a new one on the frame rail ( Purolator 30 gal/hr electric low pressure $25 at Advance Auto Parts) but to do that I pulled the intank pump out, removed the check valve from the return line, cut the wires to the intank pump and reinstalled the intank assembly.And then used the return line as the new feed line. Plug the old feed line. You'll need to run new fuel line as well, the hard plastic EFI lines don't splice easily. Also had to run a power wire from the coil hot wire to the impact/collision switch (you don't want the fuel to run after a wreck) to the new pump, the old hot to the fuel wouldn't energize after I cut the power to the computer, apparently it goes thru it. As for the rest of the underhood wiring, I just tucked it out of the way, there's too much to figure out there. Keep the gauge wiring (temp, oil pressure) and alternator.

 

how about an 89 with a 300 6 cylinder fuel injection ,going to carb whats needed??