efi or carb?

[turbo cat]

i vote screw the 302 and drop in a turbo 2.3 now thats cost effective and when they look under your hood a 2.3 motor matches the stickers. Alot of emmissions will not pass motor swapped cars or trucks. The viehicle must have the original engine in place to pass. Now if you dont have to deal with emmissions then go for it and drop in a 302 but if you dont go efi youll leave alot of performance on the table.

 

[Psychopete]

youll leave alot of performance on the table, if you don't have a properly tuned carburetor.

Fixed above...

Pete

 

[baddad457]

carb if you want to wait for the truck to warm up and have possible issue starting when cold. Or efi turn key and go

I'd like to watch you drive my 89 then. Get in her and crank it up. Then tell me what's under the hood. You will have a 50% chance of being wrong.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Same way with my 78 1 ton.

Pump the gas twice and 3 cranks she starts.

Doesnt matter if its 100* or 0.

If the batterys arnt dead, she'll start and run as smooth as EFI everytime.

Most people who hate carbs have only experinced them after they are already 15 years old and out of tune.

later,
Dustin

 

[Will]

...what would be the best, easiest, and cheapest way to do this, carb or efi?

thanks, dalton

To answer your question, the best is to use whatever is on the engine you get. Changing it will cost more than using what is on it.

 

[greasydonkey]

go efi.

when i built my 5.0 4x4 stick ranger, i originally went with a varb because i was not able to get the 5.0 EFI intake to clear the heater box (the TB aimed right at it), so i gave up and put a carb on it. last winter i was walking through the junkyard and saw a 5.0 HO cougar there and noticed that the intake curved forward 45 degrees and looked like it would fit. so i yanked the whole setup out of the cougar (cam, intake, wiring, sensors, and computer) and then yanked the carb and intake and cam off of mine (it was an 86 grand marquis motor, roller, but not HO). then i ordered a wiring harness manual for the 91 cougar from HELM and sat down and figured out what the computer needed and what it didnt. keep in mind that i have never done anything that extensive on wiring before. two weeks ago, after letting it sit all summer from being too busy at work to finish it, i cranked it up and it started.

its not quite as difficult as it sounds to put efi in it, but if you wanna keep your a/c, you will have to use the 91-93 cougar/thunderbird intake, or the identical 94-95 mustang gt intake.

after pulling the 65,000 mile carbed motor out of one of my oldies last year and seeing how hard carbs are on cylinder walls, i decided i would never build another one. pull the heads off a 200,000 mile efi motor and then pull them off a 75000 mile carbed motor....the carbed motor you would swear had more miles on it

 

[Ozwynn]

isn't the wireing on the 95 almost plug and play. with the EFI you have most of whay you need already in the truck. get a 95 F150 engine/trans and it should be simple to wire it in. there will harder parts to the swap thn the wiring.

if you can do it go EFI ............ 100x better throttle response. much better for smooth power when you spray the fuel in instead of dumping it in. I had a jeep with a 401 and big ass cam (never knew the grind because I didn't build the motor) and the fuel pump (holley hi pro) couldn't keep up with the feeding habbits of the Holley Truck Avenger. Holley Projection4 (like a 4bbl TBI for dumbies) solved all the problems with it being under fed. After it got the Projection it was a happily fed engine.

 

[88gt]

Hey, as far as passing emmissions, if you take the emmissions sticker off the vehicle the donor motor is coming out of and put it in you ranger inplace of your original sticker, it will pass inspection. The problem comes when the sticker and the motor dont match. if they are the same, you are golden! and id say, go efi. easier to super/turbo later downt he road and the monkey at the garage can actually diagnose a problem with it before they replace everything on the motor to figure out what is wrong.

 

[projectAtoB]

i dont understand when it is said that ford efi is easily tuneable. haha i know i didnt spell that right. early 5.0 computers are not easily tuneable you have to have a chip burned. Am i right? they arent just plug in your labtop and change settings. and a efi setup that you can do that with is expensive. i agree efi is much better as far as fuel economy goes. works much better for a street car or truck but 5.0 fuel injection is not plug and play changing settings.

 

[Will]

If it has a mass airflow meter then it is tuneable with zero effort. The computer measures the amount of air coming in and adds the right amount of fuel.

I don't feel like looking things up right now but I think around 1987 Mustangs got MAF meters. Earlier ones, and trucks, kept the speed density system which basically assumes the mass and adjusts it by the rpm and manifold pressure and probably temperature. Those are not tunable because they don't know you changed a hardware part, but they work damn well and the system is still in use.

 

[baddad457]

Hey, as far as passing emmissions, if you take the emmissions sticker off the vehicle the donor motor is coming out of and put it in you ranger inplace of your original sticker, it will pass inspection. The problem comes when the sticker and the motor dont match. if they are the same, you are golden!

Sounds like you've got the typical "genius" government employees doin the emissions testing where ever you're at. Bet they're Obama supporters too.

 

[projectAtoB]

i think you missied what i was talkin about. A computer system fixing itself isnt tuning. your not doing anything with tuning if the computer is making changes. And even in the later MAF that you are talkin about. without having a chip burned your not gonna get the full benifit of the parts you put on. you have no control over it. you can tune a carb with hand tools to make up for added parts. im not putting down fuel injection by no means it is way better for a street car. its just not cheap whatsoever and you cant tune it like a carb. unless you have an aftermarket fuel injection system that allows you to do so. ford fuel injection isnt one of those. I will be the first to admit being wrong so if i am, someone tell me. i Know im not a genius.

 

[constant_projecttruck]

go carb for sure. Its way easier for you r first swap and if your like me (I'm 17 and just finished my 305 swap) your swap looks better with a big 700 cfm carb sitting on top with a chrome air filter.

 

[koda6966]

I'm a year older and want to do the same swap. If I were you I would go with EFI.

Sure it's harder and more expensive, but in the long run it will be simpler to take care of if I'm not mistaken. I've heard some horror stories in relation to MPG that involve carbed 5.0 engines.

 

[baddad457]

go carb for sure. Its way easier for you r first swap and if your like me (I'm 17 and just finished my 305 swap) your swap looks better with a big 700 cfm carb sitting on top with a chrome air filter.

Putting that 700 cfm carb on a 305 was WAY OVER KILL. You've lost power there, nothing gained at all. You're 17 & have a lot to learn about carbs. A 450-600 cfm carb is all it'll ever need. Replace the 700 with a smaller carb and you'll find power you didn't have before in the lower rpms.