rhank88

I have an 88' GT that was changed over to a carb motor prior to my purchase. What would it take to change it back over to fuel injection and is it worth it?

Also, the ac was taken out. How much of a pain and how expensive would it be to put it back in? I don't have any parts.

AdderMk2

tll be more expensive to put the A/C back in, than puttig EFI in the car. Especially if you plan your mods and buy an H/C/I now. Tat way you wont have to worry about buying parts twice!

67mustang302

Is there something wrong with the carb? If it;s not running right it just needs to be tuned most likely.

sn95_331_GT_ yellow

unless you need to out the EFI on to pass smog id just leave it on.

the fox ECU's are barely a step up from a carb anyways...

67mustang302

It depends on the carb too. If you have a crappy one then it'll be cheaper and easier to convert to a good carb than to EFI.

rhank88

It has a Holley 670 street avenger carb on it (I purchased brand new) and I had it tuned not long ago with a new msd distributor and 6AL box. It put 240 hp on the dyno sheet and about 275 tq. Was flattening out because of not enough air.

My thought with the EFI is that it would drive smoother and maybe the exhaust would smell as bad. I might be way off on the second thought, but I'm learning as I go. The best thing probably would be to keep it a carb and work on making it look nicer, etc. This was one of those "only needs paint". I found later that it needed more than was told and that some of the engine stuff done to it, wasn't in fact done to it based on the dyno sheet.

Hard lesson learned, but I'll own it.

67mustang302

You'd need a pretty monster engine to lose measurable power through a 670cfm carb. It likely just needs to be tuned better, and NOT dyno tuned. Carb's respond notoriously inconsistently on dynos.

What do the plugs look like? Is it running poorly? And do you know exactly what was done to the engine?

rhank88

I don't know what was done to the engine. It was supposed to be a 331 stroker with a ford racing x-cam. It had a heavy lope but when I had it tuned he said it had what he called "fuel lope" which apparently means it was way overfueled. He said it seemed like it had a stock cam or a b-cam maybe. It has GT40P heads and an air gap intake. I put a custom cold air intake into the fenderwell.

It seems to be running okay, but the exhaust smell can be pretty bad. I haven't driven it too much since the tuning because I've been messing with non-engine stuff in the driveway. Going to be putting a new clutch cable in it here shortly. Have Ford Racing headers, MAC off-road xpipe to a MAC cat back on it now.

Sucks that it may need to be tuned differently. Hate to have to spend that money again.

So what is different in how they tune on the dyno opposed to without?

67mustang302

Carburetors are load sensitive, sometimes extremely load sensitive. Dynos don't load the car the same way as when it runs in the real world. As a result, it's quite common for carburetors that are dyno tuned to be off, sometimes WAY off. Especially your carb, being a vacuum secondary...depending on the type of dyno used, the secondaries might not even open all the way.

Best bet, look at plugs and tune for best plug and drivability. I'll bet your plugs are all sooty.

What's the timing at?

rhank88

I forget what he said the timing was set to. He said stock is about 20 and I am pretty sure it was 10-12 different from stock. If that doesn't make sense than I am obviously not remembering correctly.

I'll have to pull the plugs next time I get some "daddy time" and see what they look like. How difficult is it to tune this myself? I'm pretty much a novice, so it is probably not a good idea for me to "experiment" with it.

Sounds like I might need to take it to a different shop that has experience with tuning carb's not on a dyno. What might I expect to pay for that?

And thank you for your feedback on this. It has been very helpful.