hey out there, ive posted this topic before i just need some more imput, before making a final decision. i have a 1989 ford bronco, its got a fuel injected 5.0 litre v8 in it., i would love it if i could go to a carb set-up in it, i wanna know what id need to do so, a lay out of parts, what kinda wiring is involved the works. i understand that a camshaft change might be in order? how difficult is changeing a camshaft? its about the only thing i havent done to an engine? i get nervous easy lol, so anyone whos done one and can tell me what and what not to do would be great.

the efi is nice but i wanna get at least 350 hp out of it, without haveing to re-map a computer and what not, but if theres a way i cand do that with the efi hey, im open to suggestinos just need someone whos done it before

 

Ford Fuel Injection. what tranny do you have this will help us give the best option.

your current efi system will handle 300hp just fine. the issue at hand is the 5.0 itself. you can spend a whole bunch to get to those figures. you might think about just doing a 5.8 swap which is plugNplay and a far better starting point.

what are your goals/usage for the bronco. what size tires are you currently running and want to run?

 

Seconded.. 5.8 for the win.

 

Just swapping in a stock 351 will be a huge power increase. It makes no sense to dump money into building a 300hp 302 when you can get 90% of the way there with a 351w swap. A cam and exhaust on a 351w will get you to 300hp.

 

If you want a little extra torque from your nice 351W, you can always build it with a 4.18" stroker crankshaft, giving it 425 cubic inches. It could make 300hp if you glanced at it.

 

well it has the 5 speed in it, im not an automatic kinda guy, just today someone offered me a 302 out of a 72 fairlane, a 351 does sound like a good idea, but i was offered this 302 for 75 bucks, he says it turns over but it wont fire, which doesnt matter to me i was going to go through and rebuild it anyway, that way i could drive my truck and build my motor at the same time i dont think ill get the same deal for a 351, most the scrap yards around here are small and most are also owned by butt heads, so ya wont get em down past 5 bills, besides nothin beats the hollow sound that a 302 makes.
as for tires probably gonna stick with the stock size which i believe is 235/75 r-15s not gonna take it mudding, had to do a frame once dont plan on doing it again.
the reason for the power?, well i cant stand it when i get passed by these little jap cars, its out right embarassing, seing as most are 4 cylinders short of a real engine, ya know? any other info you need just ask.

 

You won't get 350hp out of a 302 using the stock heads.. carb or EFI. Same goes for the 351 but it's a WAY better truck motor and if stoplight drag racing is your thing you'll appreciate the TQ it produces. I have had similarly equipped 5.0 and 5.8 motors in my truck and the 5.8 is an easy 3+ seconds faster to 60mph.

 

again which is why i thought about buying the carbed fairlane 302, so that i can take my time, research, and slowly build the motor up right to where i want it, once im done the truck will be down for no less than two weeks while i put the new motor in
how tough are those five speeds buy the way?, ill check and see if he has a 351 thats decent, he has one thats in a mercury montego, but its seized up, think i should give that one a shot? again like i said, the motor will be completly rebuilt, bored hot tanked the works, so here are my options again a fairlane 302, turns over doesnt fire,
or a montego 351, thats seized, he also has a mid eighties 302 thats in an f-150 starts and runs but it smokes sucky options i know but i guess they're all good candidates for a project motor.

 

Buying a seized motor is a gamble. Either it's rebuildable and great, or it's totally destroyed. I'd never buy one unless it turned over freely and had some sounds of compression going on inside. If you're checking on 351s, ask him if he has any 1994 or newer 5.8s, as they're roller cammed and are an ideal truck motor. You can get 400 hp from a '94+ 351W by doing nothing but bolting on good flowing aftermarket heads with matching intake and carb, using the stock roller cam. You can also get 400 hp from a roller 302 doing the exact same thing, as CarCraft magazine did in one article. But the 302 will still need to rev a lot more than the 351W does, so you'll either need deep gearing and/or a slippery torque converter, both of which eat up fuel and engine life at a roughly equal rate.

Are you anywhere near NY? I have a 250hp 4bbl 302 with 44k miles, a 351M with zero miles, and my brother has a 425hp 460 with zero miles. All for sale.

 

so wait your saying that alls i need to do, to either a 5.0 or a 5.8, to convert it to a carb set up, is to buy a manifold and carb? someone on here told me the cam would need to be changed.
how bout the ignition? what, if anything would need to be done there?
do the 94 and up 5.0's and 5.8s come equiped with a fuel pump excentric or do i need to go electric?
what do i do with the extra wireing for the injectors and such after im done?
i also heard that wireing in the gauges was difficult, either i was talking to a novice, or someone whos anti carburetion.

thanks for all the input guys its really helping

 

The first offering of a factory roller cam was the 1985 302( 5.0 ) found in Mustangs. Other less performance oriented 302s still had flat tappet cams until quite a bit later on. The 1985 Mustang 302 is awesome, because it has a high volume oil pump, forged pistons and a Holley 585cfm 4bbl on it all stock. The Mustang 5.0 came with fuel injection in 1986, along with some crappy "high swirl" heads, so avoid the '86 motors, unless you feel like swapping on a real set of heads.The '86 heads were so bad, in fact, that Ford decided to go back to the original style head in '87, but they'd already discarded the pre-86 302 head molds, so they solved the problem by using truck 302 heads. Thus, all '87 Mustang motors had "E7T" casting numbers, which means 1987 Truck.
Anyway, if you find a motor with a roller cam, you can use any distributor you want, but it's important that you install a bronze distributor drive gear, as a cast iron drive gear will chew up the billet steel that all roller camshafts are made from. The only fuel pump accentrics on a roller motor would be the Mustang 5.0s, since they were carbed, all the other roller motors will be missing the accentric and they won't have a hole in the timing cover for the fuel pump, either. A simple electric pump wired to power on with the key is the easiest solution. All the wiring for the injection system can be unplugged and the rest wire tied into a bundle. I would keep all of it in case you ever want to return to fuel injection, options are nice to have. I'm not certain if the stock ignition would function still or not. Anytime I was doing a performance carb conversion, I replaced the stock ignition with an MSD distributor and 6A or 6AL box, or if it was low budget, like my '95 300 conversion, I went with.. a points distributor that cost me a whopping $35 at Napa. heh.
Yeah, I still use carbs and points, sue me.

As for the gauges, most or all should work ok, although the tach may not. I'm not sure if your '88 (?) truck has a speedometer cable with a speed sensor built into it, or no cable at all and a speed sensor in the rear housing, in which case it's fully electronic and I'm not sure if it would work in stock form or not. If not, there are work arounds for everything.

Edit: I did a search and found a '89 bronco speedometer cable for about $14, so apparently it has a cable. That solves that.

 

carbs and points are awesome, sure they have their disadvantages but id rather do a set of points and a carb rebuild than work on fuel injection. they even have kits now that rid the distributor of its points, and replace it with a solid state module.
what would keep the tach from working, isnt it just tied into the coil? i would imagine that alls ya have to do to get it to work is hook it to the external coil on a points set up.
okay so whats the easiest way to install a new distributor in terms of findng zero position
yeah i was actually surprised to see it had a cable, had to replace the cluster cause all but the tach and speedo didnt work, thats what happens when electronic components sit for 3 years...
so if i were to buy one of the 302s this guy, judgeing by what you say the truck motor would be the best right? it smokes but it runs, gonna be torn apart and rebuilt at any rate.
but say that alls i want to do is carb the fuel injected 302 thats in my truck
i know ive asked a few times but ima ask once more just to make sure im not missing something
alls i need is:
a nice carb
a manifold
a decent distributor, wether it be points or not
a bronze dis gear
and an electric fuel pump, my truck has the 2 pump system, a low pressure pump in the tank and a high pressure pump mounted on the frame rail on the driver side in the front, could that pump, with use of a regulator be made to work? or would one of those over the counter pumps from autozone or advanced work? what psi shoul i run for the fuel going to the carb
oh yeah lol gonne need a roll of electrical tape to tie up the efi harness. i heard somewhere that the 6al box is good for gas mileage so that might be the way to go, man its gonna be a fun summer like i said if im understanding you correctly, ill prbably just throw a carb and manifold on the 302 thats in my truck.

 

f1001969mike

where do you live.

carbs are simple for sure if you understand how to tune and such. what benifits efi will have is the ability to adjust a/f ratios when traveling say up into the mountains, improved economy, increased reliability of starting in cold weather. also if there are issues you can pull codes and get a pretty good idea of where to start.

now that car motor is going to be a pour performer in a heavy truck. the cams power band is wrong not to mention 72 is the beginning of the smog days so that motor will be low on power. granted $75 is cheap but i sold a complete 5.0 out of an 88 bronco for $100. it had everything from upper intake all the way to the oil pan and was a runner. Perhaps look for a truck/bronco with the motor you want and buy it and then part the rest. you can generally make all your money back and still pocket some going this route.
what ever you choose keep us posted and we can help ya

 

true but i dont mind pumping a little in the winter and a carbed motor is easier to add power too. sure as you add power you need to adjust things accordingly like the carb and timing and what not, but with efi, if the power gets to high the computer needs to be re-mapped or something like this whole mass air flow thing, my truck has the speed density set up, aparently that set up wont react to well to 350 hp, so i was told to look into converting it to mass air
i took one look at this website and was reminded as to why i dont like buying vehicles newer than 25 years old, haveing to re-pin connectors and getting a computer out of a mustang, i dont wanna do all that
never had any bad luck with a carbed motor, oh and as for pulling codes, i went to go pull codes off my truck the first time it started acting up and it didnt read anything, i mean nothing no blinks no lights nada. but i knew for sure something was wrong, the idle was hunting real bad, i thought it was the throttle position sensor (turns out i was right) but sensors are ridiculously expensive so i wanted to be sure. took me two weeks to figure out the EEC-IV connector had deteriorated, thats when it desintigrated in my hand lol but i was finaly able to figure it out.
im old school when it comes to cars, so when a carbed motor acts up im pretty good at figureing out whats wrong. ANYWAY, so tell me is what i have listed in my last post all i need to convert it? and again i ask whats the best way to set up a new distributor ive taken one out before and reset it no problem, butive never put in brandy new one before
and is it just me or does a carbed motor sound differently than an injected motor? theres a difference in the idle to me for some reason

 

You can hear the difference with a carb because there's more intake noise, especially when all 4 venturis open up.
Kemicalburns, I agree with you that Fuel Injection is less headache in general, when it's all working good. But I like a simpler, more "hands on" approach. For years I used to rebuild Holley carbs on the side, and since there isn't much demand these days for carb work, I kind of enjoy working on them and tuning them.
p.s. I charge a lot less to fix carbs than the other guys charge to fix fuel injection.