Hey, I wanna swap out my 3.8 for a carb 302. I want to get a carb becuase personally I love carbs, and the way the look and run. My question is how challenging would it be to swap the 3.8 for a carb 302. I am wondering because I have a good feeling that its gonna be a ***** due to the fact that I will be going from FI to carb. Anyways, I just wanna know the difficulty of this swap and if it is fully worth it.

Thanks.

 

Good luck doin it. My recommendation would to be go with a pre computer 302...good luck either way.

 

x2, i would just go F/I on your current engine but if you like a challenge, go for it

 

why waste your time. to convert over to a carbd 302 it will cost at least $2500 and you still have a carb'd 302 making about 200 rwhp (unless you use aftermarket heads and nice cam)

the 3.8 can give alot of power with some work,research and effort. the 302 IMO is inferior to the 3.8 in design and the only thing it has going for it is it's 8 cylinders that america goers nuts for. if they ever developed a V8 off of the 3.8 it would have supplanted the 302 in a heartbeat.

anyways if you want to do the swap try V8 boards there are some guy's there that have done the swap and believe it was the best thing they ever did. also check out www.mpsautosalvage.com for parts

good luck. your gonna need it. i can't help ya with making it federal emissions legal. you will have to write to your congressman for that

 

I think its funny you said that if "they" ever made a 3.8 derived V8, it would replace the 302. Well it did! Many people don't know this, but the 4.6 block is just a 3.8 block with two cylinders grafted onto it. Of course other things were done to the motor, but thats how they made the 281. Crazy huh?

 

wut!? show me the link

the essex 3.8 is a push rod with a 90 degree design, copied from buick which is more like the windsor V-8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Essex_V6_engine_(Canadian)

 

*SLAP*

 

The displacement man, DISPLACEMENT![8D] I guess I worded it wrong, BUT..... the 4.6 has the same displacement in cubic inches as an Essex with two extra cylinders would. Its basically a super modded Essex block. Heard it on McGuire's(spelling?) Car Crazy and got bored one day in chem class and did the conversion because we were using the formula.

 

its not even close its a romeo block

 

What? Two extra cylinders, an extra cam, and the necessary changes to engine components to accomodate the previously mentioned changes make it not even close? Just because it is a Romeo block doesn't prove anything. And although I understand I'm not exactly giving "solid" evidence of the block grafting, but you're not doing that either. I know what I saw on Car Crazy and they've never seemed to BS their way through episodes. You should try doing the math as well. The numbers aren't exact, only off by a few inches/tenths, and we all know how much Ford likes to round numbers.[8D]