' 83 302 (5.0) CFI
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' 83 302 (5.0) CFI
' 83 302 (5.0) in a Lincoln Town Car (its still a Ford, you know) I'm not familiar with this CFI injection (its like the GM throttle body injection) and has "non-adjustible" timing, I understand it has a sensor on the front of the engine, near the harmonic balancer that provides a signal for timing, Anyway.... This engine lacks power, it has only 65k miles, has been completely tuned up, runs good, good mileage, but has no pickup, to the point I'm afraid to pull into traffic sometimes, and it seems to have a "dead area" when pushing the accellerator down, not a flat spot like a carb, I don't want this boat to do wheelies, but short of building a carbuerated engine with a standard distributor what can I do?? Thanks!!! Rick
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' 83 302 (5.0) CFI
I guess I don't really have an answer for you, but I had an 83 Crown Victoria with the same engine you have, that was the most pathetic vehicle I ever owned. It was so under powered. The only thing I could ever find wrong with it was a vacuum leak at the intake manifold, I fixed that and had high hopes of it running better but no such luck. This car was so under powered the cruise control would kick out by its self when driving in hilly country, the trans would downshift properly and everything, it was in perfect tune, it was just a guttless wonder. And man I sure spent a lot of time under the hood touble-shooting, it NEVER got better, I finally sent it packin' this one really soured me on the 302.
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' 83 302 (5.0) CFI
I'm not quite surprised to hear these problems. I have a 14000 mile 83 crown vic that is showroom mint. It was a great uncles car, I got it for $500 through family. I have had nothing but problems with this thing. The list of replacement parts includes coolant temp sensor, intake air temp sensor, fuel pump, COMPLETE tune-up, and more. the car still has no power, pops through the exhaust (on decel), and stinks. When I first brought it home the intake air temp sensor was unplugged (Profanity Removed?)If I was sure I could get the trans to shift properly I would put a carb and an MSD on it right now. Any help would be appreciated.
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' 83 302 (5.0) CFI
Jerry, I agree completely these cars were big P O S! My car was nice also, rode and drove great, beautiful car also, but this car was only about 2 years old when I bought it, had to keep it a couple more to pay it down enough to GET RID OF IT!! I had all kinds of diagnostic work done at my local Ford dealer and they could never come up with anything, as I mentioned above I found and fixed the intake vacuum leak my self, but no help. After I was done with mine I would have about paid someone $500. to take it. I think that was the only auto I've really HATED! Good luck!
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' 83 302 (5.0) CFI
Guys, Thanks for all the replies, this comfirns what I've felt it would all along, theres nothing you can do to increase performance on THIS type of 302, so I'm (because I'm in too deep to back out now) going to put an aluminum 4v intake on mine with a 450 cfm Holley, and an old distributer (the point type) with a Pertronix electronic conversion, and just in case you're wondering why so small a carb, its because I've found out recently that a common 600cfm is way too much for a stock 302, I just installed a restored Autolite 480 cfm on my ' 78 302 in my F150, and its so much more responsive than the 600cfm Holley that I was running before.
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' 83 302 (5.0) CFI
If you don't mind, could you post your parts/progress with this conversion? If it works out I would be interested in doing the same thing to mine. It may also be good for others with this obviously poorly designed system. Mine runs but it's good for nothing right now because I wouldn't trust it to the end of the block.
Thanks, Jerry
Thanks, Jerry
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' 83 302 (5.0) CFI
I'll be glad to post parts & results on this conversion, this involves installing a fuel pump ecentric, and a mechanical fuel pump, too, so I've got to get my van going before I down my Lincoln for a while.
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' 83 302 (5.0) CFI
So what you are all saying is that it is like chevys injection, it sucks. I have worked on my neighbors '84 Crown and we have it to the point that it pulls OK it will do a nice burnout and it cruses at 85 all day but it still doesn't have much power (the cars had bad cats that are aften cloged, which is often why they seem really slow)
If you want it to run right you will eather have to go to a carb (not that hard, it has a intake that accepts a 2bbl holley and you can get a dist off a older 302) or install a real FORD EFI off a newwer car. DOn't wast your time with the cfi, Chevy owners don't.
If you want it to run right you will eather have to go to a carb (not that hard, it has a intake that accepts a 2bbl holley and you can get a dist off a older 302) or install a real FORD EFI off a newwer car. DOn't wast your time with the cfi, Chevy owners don't.
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' 83 302 (5.0) CFI
Rick, be sure to check your block to make sure you can install a mechanical fuel pump, I may be full of it , but I was thinking the hole for the fuel pump didn't go through the block on my old Crown Vic , it was like there was a dip there and maybe even bolt holes but it didn't go through. Also as some of the other posts mentioned about bad cat converters, mine was ok on mine because that was about the first thing I checked, because thats just about how it seemed like they were stopped up.