5.0 HO intake/carb options

[BackcountryBroncin84]

Hi,
I have a 302 ho out of 91 lx mustang I'm wanting to swap into my 1990 b2. The motor didnt have the fuel rail, injectors, or any wiring and ive had no luck at the junk yards and everybody on craigslist wants way to much for the injector and mass air harness and computer so i was wanting to swap to carb for simplicity and maybe save a little money.i hear a lot people talking bad on carbs but im thinking its just a matter of setup and tuning.I'm gonna keep the motor stock mostly maybe put a cam in it for low end grunt but nothing crazy. I've heard the motorcraft 2100, the gm quadrajet , and holley avenger can be good offroad carbs probably gonna try the 2100 first just wandering if it would work well with the ho and what intake should I use... old 2 barrel , new dual plane , or 4 barrel intake with 2 barrel adapter. The motor will have a np435 behind it and I'm building it for trail crawling no wide open mudding or anything like that. Thanks

 

[yankdownunder]

I've not done any offroading with any of these, but I've had a Holley 4160 600cfm 4bbl vac 2nds on a Edlebrock Performer, a 4160 on a Weiand low 4bbl, and a Carter AFB on the weiand.

I'd always wondered why Weber never made/designed a 4bbl carb, they did. The Carter had the unmistakeable "W" on the side indicating that it was a Weber [design anyway]. Even though Edlebrock says that their tuning kits are made for their "Performer" carbs alone and may not fit other simmilar carbs, they are basicly the same. I've kicked myself for not switching to the AFB sooner after going through all of the Holley tuning proceedures. Love that design, which Edlebrock makes with a truck/offroad tweek [not sure what they call it].
The Edlebrock "Performer" intake [equal length runner] was overly complicated and did nothing more for performance/efficency. Weiands 4bbl low would be good for a semi stock engine.
I would do the basic port match/pocket port cleanup on the heads. This is free hp and mpg. There is no real good reason not to do this.
The cams that I used were a 204/214 [not sure what the lift was on this, but under.500] flat tappet in a 9.3-1 "low" compression 289, and the "HO" 202/202 .444 lift roller in a late '80s HO5.0. Both cams delivered a good increase in performance over stock, good idle/high vacum, not much stress on the valve train, good economy, low end torque, match the Weiand low and the Performer well. These would both be considered on the low end of the performance scale, like an RV cam. It'll still smoke 'em off the line and bark 'em in 2nd.
These cams would run out of breath before about 5,000, but I'd usually lifted long before the cam gave up. If you drive like most people, idle to about 3,500 is the place you want to make power, the wife and kids were screaming [real life red line] by the time I'd gotten to 4,000, and the cam still had some leg left.

 

[bobbywalter]

if you have all the stuff for the 2100 just run that. great place to start.

wont be too bad all around, but you will be limited.

the vast majority of people are quite fine inside of those limitations though.

 

[gsp]

find a used edelbrock air gap manifold

 

[dangerranger83]

I'm running an edelbrock 289 performer intake and edelbrock 500 cfm on my H.O. 5.0

Other then I need to tune the carb better, both work great for DD.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

 

[BackcountryBroncin84]

Thanks for the info building frame right now , when the body goes back on I'll be diving into the motor next

 

[DragOne]

I have run my DD '87 std cab 2wd using a '76 ghia donated 302, C4 auto since 1997. I use the weiand steath intake and a tuned carter 625, 1-5/8" hooker headers, 2.5" H-crossover using the trans recess because of clearance concerns, so fairly far back not to the liking for the hp people but seems to be ok in the tq, using dual 3 chamber Flowmasters using the stock engine cam. Not a power hitter by no means, but finally got tired on me. Picked up a crate '90 HO 5.0L, thinking about the E303 cam though using the above mentioned intake and exhaust. I am still learning on what others have liked or not. Thanks for the post

edit: Normally a 21 mpg ride hwy

editx2: I would not recommend rubber mounted pads. The '87 runs/ran a 6" tall K&N filter, with the rubber engine mounts, I had to chain down the engine to keep it from going through the truck hood.