update on 5 speed/306 swap! pics of trans!

[johnunit]

I'm sort of on both sides of this argument, but you buy a good scantool for 2-300 and you're good for any car in the forseeable future.
I'll probably be getting a scangauge for my next car, and it'll be years before a car comes out that it's not useable on.

[Crownvicman289]

Well it all depends on how much of a change you make. A 600cfm carb will run pretty well on a mild, low displacement v8 (lo-po 302) all the way up to a 393 stroker, with the stock jets. Granted the 393, is going to be starving for fuel on the upper end, but it will still work ok as a daily driver until you can get around to it.

I'm glad you took this all the right way, but damn did you make a lot of work for me! IMO, running a stock jetted 600cfm carb on as many engine combos, mild as they may be, is the same as running the stock tune on a slightly modified car. I like to tune. I'm not the best at it, but I can sure clean a lot up over stock. I haven't ponied up for dyno time to learn how to find MBT timing, but it's definitely on the to do list. Carb'd, EFI'd, or what have you I'm going to want to tune it any way I can. My truck, a '98 GMC K1500, was tuned with EFILive within the first month of me owning it. Cost me $800 for the stuff to do it, but I have no regrets. Even with stock everything, that truck absolutely woke up. Crown Vic was carbed and when I got back from Japan, I'd figured out how to tune, so I recurved the distributor and rejetted the carb with great success. I subsequently EFId it with even greater success. I tuned my MR2 by modifying a larger AFM (airflow meter) to work on the wrong motor, the reclocked the tension spring and set the bypass to achieve non-turbo AFRs. The engine responded tremendously and ran faster in CO with that than it ever did back at sea level. I was amazed. So you see, a properly tuned car is something I'm quite passionate about. A stock car with a stock tune, IMO, is not a correct tune as far as I'm concerned because there's a lot left on the table. Most of the people who rant about carbs > EFI won't admit that they can do nothing more than set idle screws, that's what drives me nuts. They don't know how to troubleshoot simple OBDI EFI and assume because their dad had carb'd trucks growing up that they are vicariously carb experts. I've been quite shocked by peoples sigs on here for that matter with horribly low dynos and unusually slow 1/4 mile times. I can only attribute it to a tune that needs a really good once over.

Sometimes it isn't about moving parts as it is about intermittent sensors, connections, etc. When you consider that nearly every ground, connection, wire, solenoid, sensor, injector, etc, etc, even the ecm, are potential failure points, I stand by my original statement. As for troubleshooting, I'm going to point out that I started out in industrial electronics. I've custom built the controls and wiring harnesses for cnc machines that were 28 feet wide, and had 72 toggle switches and 18+ push buttons and 82 relays in the manual override section alone. I've worked with plc's, relays and pretty much every sort of transducer (scalable and otherwise) used in industrial applications up until 10 years ago. Troubleshooting is second nature to me and I've been working on cars for over 20 years.

Having said that, I still prefer the simplicity, and reliability of a well tuned carb.

Despite all the additional things that can fail, few of them ever do. They merely get replaced as the owner starts shooting from the hip instead shooting with the Fluke to rule them out.

[QUOTE=GoodSamaritan;644840]If you grab a used intake for 50-75$ off cl, and then buy a new carb on sale from summit for 230-275$ that's pretty dang cheap.
Granted I'll give you the price being similar, when you get used parts. But let's look at replacement parts.

CARB - My local autozone has a complete rebuild kit on the shelf for an edelbrock 1406 (i keep using that as an example, because i am familiar with it) for around 45$ Summit or Jegs usually have that sort of stuff a tad cheaper. That will take care of pretty much anything that will get out of whack short of physically wearing out the shaft, or linkage.

EFI -After a brief search on autozone for the cheapest common crap they sell for my 89 wagon, here's what I've found.

MAP sensor $39.99
O2 sensor $39.99 each
Tps $32.99[/EFI]

Here's where I have to be careful not to build an artificially optimistic case for EFI. Parts stores will never get my money for an O2, TPS, MAP, any of that. They're pocket sized and the junkyard typically has these items. The O2s are the only real consumable item, though the TPS is a plausible failure with its moving electrical contacts. Genuine Ford parts, be it junkyard or brand new, is all I'll touch for this stuff. How often do you have to rebuild your carb? Once every eon or 2 I hope. Same with the aforementioned parts. Neither one is terribly expensive to upkeep.

I get sick and tired of EFI guys looking down their noses at carbs and portraying them as stone age technology, only used by people too stupid to understand EFI. Let me tell you, I've run more cable, and troubleshot/built more control systems than anyone on this site that I'm aware of.
At the end of the day, I still prefer a carb on most of my project vehicles.
As for it not being the 1960's, just because a technology is old, doesn't make it worthless. . .Now for 99% of guys the new stuff works great. You don't have to pay as much attention to what you're doing so you don't nick yourself. But the old tech isn't totally obsolete just because it's been superseded by something new.

I've had both, and I'll say again that my old 1406 Edelbrock ran damn near as smooth as EFI. It never stalled and even when it was below freezing never fell on its face when you poked the gas, it just worked. The only reason I ditched it was because I didn't feel like rejetting once or twice just to drive from CO to MI. The vapor locking didn't help much either. My pro-EFI argument on here is because people assume EFI can't "handle" engine modifications. Well with a retune it can do so quite nicely, so the grounds that most people base a carb's superiority on is worthless. It's ignorance and laziness, either too stuck in one's ways to learn something different or just too dumb and/or lazy. I'm not saying this applies to everyone, but IMO the majority of car enthusiasts see EFI tuning as black magic when it's nothing more than drive, record, cut, paste, repeat. There's not a whole lot of brain power involved in re-writing a VE map at all, but people are so intimidated by the process as a whole they make it out to be something it's not. I'm not even suggesting we agree to disagree, but I do think before preferring one or the other someone should have fully exploited both. I don't doubt I'll tune a few more carbs in my day, and I look forward to learning how to tune different types, like I said I like to tune and what good is a tuner who can only tune 1 thing? Maybe I'm just fucked in the head, because I definitely put in a lot more hours than some of my friends who claim to be enthusiasts. At this point, I don't even consider the upcoming 5.0 swap a project, more of a necessary evil or a maintenance item. My friend couldn't even muster the motivation to slap PI heads on another bottom end, degree the cams, and drop the motor in to sell a car for a profit. He had the car in pieces for months and eventually sold it in pieces. I just don't get it. . .

[1990LTD]

you got an MR2? bastard....

[1987cp]

Most of the people who rant about carbs > EFI won't admit that they can do nothing more than set idle screws, that's what drives me nuts.

Can't speak for specific instances, but I wouldn't be surprised if you're right in a lot of cases.

[GoodSamaritan]

My truck, a '98 GMC K1500, was tuned with EFILive within the first month of me owning it. Cost me $800 for the stuff to do it, but I have no regrets.

$800? For that, I could pick up and exploder 5.0, a new intake and carb and still have money left over for new bearings and a vac advance distributor.

I'll say again that my old 1406 Edelbrock ran damn near as smooth as EFI. It never stalled and even when it was below freezing never fell on its face when you poked the gas, it just worked.

Exactly why I love those things. Set them up once and forget them for the next few years. I just slapped a used one on my P30 stepvan. Runs like a champ and I haven't touched anything on it other than the idle speed screw, thus far. (where the !@#$% is my vac gauge?)

The only reason I ditched it was because I didn't feel like rejetting once or twice just to drive from CO to MI.

I've never been to CO, so I don't know how the change in elevation effects a carb. Here in ky, the elevation varies quite a bit depending on where you are. I can go a mile or so from here and be 600ft lower than I am here. Even so, my carbs don't seem to mind.

The vapor locking didn't help much either.

You can't really blame that on a carb. Granted it is partly due to the lower fuel pressure, but it's easily solved by rerouting your fuel line. Or if you're lazy, get one of those fuel filters with a center tap on it and connect that to the vent line going back to the tank. (not recommended for tanks with an air tight gas cap) Even if the fuel boils, the pressure has somewhere to go other than back through the pump.

My pro-EFI argument on here is because people assume EFI can't "handle" engine modifications.

Not without retuning. Often the car will act nuttier than squirrel crap.

Well with a retune it can do so quite nicely, so the grounds that most people base a carb's superiority on is worthless.

Please tell me, how much money do you have invested in equipment to do this? I presume it's cheaper now than it used to be, with usb, and a laptop. Last time I looked into it though, it was not cheap.

It's ignorance and laziness, either too stuck in one's ways to learn something different or just too dumb and/or lazy.

I will admit to a bit of laziness, but then again, I do this for my own enjoyment. I deal with complex electronics for a living. Maybe that's why I prefer a good carb.

I'm not saying this applies to everyone, but IMO the majority of car enthusiasts see EFI tuning as black magic when it's nothing more than drive, record, cut, paste, repeat. There's not a whole lot of brain power involved in re-writing a VE map at all, but people are so intimidated by the process as a whole they make it out to be something it's not. I'm not even suggesting we agree to disagree, but I do think before preferring one or the other someone should have fully exploited both.

I'll admit that I haven't done much in the way of EFI tuning. I have however, done more than a little plc programming in my day. I can see the advantages... I still like my carb though.

I don't doubt I'll tune a few more carbs in my day, and I look forward to learning how to tune different types, like I said I like to tune and what good is a tuner who can only tune 1 thing? Maybe I'm just fucked in the head, because I definitely put in a lot more hours than some of my friends who claim to be enthusiasts. At this point, I don't even consider the upcoming 5.0 swap a project, more of a necessary evil or a maintenance item. My friend couldn't even muster the motivation to slap PI heads on another bottom end, degree the cams, and drop the motor in to sell a car for a profit

. He had the car in pieces for months and eventually sold it in pieces. I just don't get it. . .

I used to put in a lot more time on my rides than I do now. A lot of it is work, family, church, etc. I just don't have the time that I used to be able to devote to it. Even when I do get a little free time, there's always something else competing for it.

[Crownvicman289]

$800? For that, I could pick up and exploder 5.0, a new intake and carb and still have money left over for new bearings and a vac advance distributor.

That's the going rate for the equipment to tune OBDII GMs with EFI Live's software, stuff isn't cheap. On the flip side, it will tune most OBDII GM vehicles which have an amazing amount of adjustability. Despite that, it's only as complicated as you make it. You can get deeper as you learn more, while reaping the benefit of what you did know how to tune.

I've never been to CO, so I don't know how the change in elevation effects a carb. Here in ky, the elevation varies quite a bit depending on where you are. I can go a mile or so from here and be 600ft lower than I am here. Even so, my carbs don't seem to mind.

Even at 3000', mine ran pretty decent. I adjusted the idle screws and idle speed, but that was it. By the time I got it running there, it was time to leave (SD). I could tell it was a little rich, but driveability didn't suffer. When I rejetted in CO, I must have dropped 3 sizes then started getting creative with the needles and springs shooting for an ideal to me curve. 1500' isn't even worth rejetting for let alone 600', so if your elevation changes are within that range then you'll never have an issue.

You can't really blame that on a carb. Granted it is partly due to the lower fuel pressure, but it's easily solved by rerouting your fuel line. Or if you're lazy, get one of those fuel filters with a center tap on it and connect that to the vent line going back to the tank. (not recommended for tanks with an air tight gas cap) Even if the fuel boils, the pressure has somewhere to go other than back through the pump.

Though my setup wasn't ideal, I'm still going to blame the carb partly. I've heard of others having the same issue. The fact that the fuel sits in the bowl until it's burned doesn't help at all, if there were a way to circulate it it would help. I had an AFPR on my fender, so it did get recirculated there, but from the FPR to the carb is was a dead end. Warm starts always sucked too for some reason and again, I wasn't the only one.

Not without retuning. Often the car will act nuttier than squirrel crap.

Not so. Though the AFR curve and timing curve can be thrown off quite a bit on a MAF car, to the driver it will still seem fine. Unfortunately, he's blissfully ignorant of what he left on the table just because the motor is so tolerant of a wide range of AFRs and still able to be smooth, though not ideal. This is why you see dyno slips of untuned modified cars with WOT AFRs in the 14s.

Please tell me, how much money do you have invested in equipment to do this? I presume it's cheaper now than it used to be, with usb, and a laptop. Last time I looked into it though, it was not cheap.

Depends on what you want to tune, EFI Live for the truck was $800. I can make that back if I can manage to tune peoples' cars for a small profit. I have a spare wideband right now because the car it should be installed in full time isn't assembled. When it is this Spring, I'll have to buy another wideband to be transportable for the aforementioned tuning for profit. As for the MR2, I just hooked up the wideband and mixed and matched stuff I had in the garage to make the frankenstein AFM, so that was free. I plan on setting the AFPR on the Crown Vic so cruise is stoich to minimize the learning curve for adaptive fueling, but I am also considering a MAF swap (have a 95 Stang MAF in the garage) so I can use my SAFC to tune WOT AFRs if I have issues with the speed density setup. AFPR changes are able to be tuned out by the computer, so I'm just going to try to help the computer's learning process now and hope for the best. That has the possibility of costing me $30 if I have to pay for a computer locally. I won't pay for one over the internet unless the car runs really, really, really badly and even then I'd sooner unplug the O2s, reset the EEC, and ride it out on an AFPR tune with no adaptive fueling until I got a deal. The Corolla has a standalone that I got for $800, so as you can see the tuning process has the ability to be really cheap or really expensive depending on the vehicle. The new cars can be even more expensive to tune, but since it's something I hope to make a profession out of, it's something I'm willing to pay for. Moates Quarter Horse is like $300 for the whole shot, maybe $400 with software, but I think some versions can be had for free. It's been awhile since I researched it.

I will admit to a bit of laziness, but then again, I do this for my own enjoyment. I deal with complex electronics for a living. Maybe that's why I prefer a good carb.

I used to be an aircraft electrician and that had the opposite effect: the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn and the more complex projects I wanted to tackle.

I used to put in a lot more time on my rides than I do now. A lot of it is work, family, church, etc. I just don't have the time that I used to be able to devote to it. Even when I do get a little free time, there's always something else competing for it.

I know I won't have this much time forever, so I'm trying to knock out a lot of the more time consuming stuff while I can. I'm also hoping to learn as much as I can right now, because as I put in less time I'll probably stop learning as quickly too. The idea for me though like I said is for my projects to become more complex as the years progress, you're supposed to get smarter and better what you do not stay the same. My gripe is about laziness, you know, the guy who's single and claims to be a car guy so he's got all the time in the world but says he doesn't? What's he do? Watch TV all night or post on the internet nonstop like me? Can't wait to get home, before I deployed I remember I'd get itchy after sitting down for 10 minutes at the computer. I hope I have that same drive upon my return.

[86VickyLX]

My 84 MC bolted to a 94 booster.

Lucky bastard! Lol. Maybe the earlier Masters are different? Who knows.

[1987cp]

I used to put in a lot more time on my rides than I do now. A lot of it is work, family, church, etc. I just don't have the time that I used to be able to devote to it. Even when I do get a little free time, there's always something else competing for it.

Absolutley! Great picture of the real world for any number of people. I was watching an old Dick Van Dyke show where the woman goes on about all the free time she has during the day ... I knew instantly that had to be a joke because stay-at-home parents have about as much free time as one who works fulltime!

Can't wait to get home, before I deployed I remember I'd get itchy after sitting down for 10 minutes at the computer. I hope I have that same drive upon my return.

Oh, so you're still elsewhere? No wonder you're all itchy to get projects underway! I'm told single military guys tend to have a pretty good amount of cash flow, too, which has got to be nice. Other single guys are in the same boat as the rest of the country - i.e. happy to have any income at all - which means very little $$$ for projects regardless of how much time is available.



Next question, how'd the thread get headed in this direction? I thought it was about some guy's 5-speed swap!

[Crownvicman289]

I don't know, I started asking the same thing myself. I think I was trying to prevent the OP from making an uneducated decision to go to carb. Most people think EFI = emissions BS/expensive to mod and nothing else. Not at all the case, and since most on here aren't loaded, they don't throw aftermarket heads, (aggressive) cams, etc at their cars so its totally within the scope of EFI to run good, damn good, on his project. Much better than an untuned carb that he'd slap on, set the idle screws, and forget it. But alas, I'm rambling again. Carbs aren't as evil as I may have portrayed them above, but I think a lot of people go to them out of ignorance rather than all out performance needs being totally unaware of the tangible capabilities of EFI. Rambling again, I'll stop now.

[GoodSamaritan]

Edit, we posted at the same time.

I'll say it again. Old tech isn't always useless even though something "better" has come along.

When someone comes out with a reasonably priced kit, that has the throttle body, map, mass air, tps, etc all built into a clean looking unit, with one connection, I might change my mind. (all sensors have to be easily available, and inexpensive as replacement parts for regular cars, so they won't be a problem when the company invariably goes bankrupt/gets bought/is overrun and torched by a group of angry tree huggers/etc. Throw in an ecm with usb cable/bluetooth connectivity, free/built in software, and I might even consider paying $400-$500 for it. Until then... meh.

Factor in my decades old wagon with nearly all original sensors beginning to fail, and a planned 351w swap, and the carb is certainly MUCH cheaper.

289crownvicman, what do you use on 98+ panthers. I wouldn't mind moving a couple shift points, etc on my 99.

[CheeseSteakJim]

Lucky bastard! Lol. Maybe the earlier Masters are different? Who knows.

Until I got the fittings required for the '99 master cylinder, I was using my stock '88 MC on the '99 booster.

[Crownvicman289]

289crownvicman, what do you use on 98+ panthers. I wouldn't mind moving a couple shift points, etc on my 99.

98+ Panthers use the same stuff as the old boxes believe it or not. It's all the same hardware up through 2004, only the support (tunes, definitions, etc) differ. I hear nothing but good things about Lonnie at Blue Oval Chips. As for the DIYer, I haven't looked to see if the Moates Quarterhorse has the support for it, but I do know the hardware will plug right in. I think Lonnie uses diablosport for the hardware and builds his own tunes from there. Either way, there is no "flashing" of a -04 Ford, the unit stays plugged in or else you car runs as stock.

[86VickyLX]

Until I got the fittings required for the '99 master cylinder, I was using my stock '88 MC on the '99 booster.

Plastic or metal reservoir?

[86VickyLX]

Next question, how'd the thread get headed in this direction? I thought it was about some guy's 5-speed swap!

Th thread starter mentioned something about 4 barrel sound and feel. And I asked wtf he was talking about, and gave him some options to stay EFI. I'm sure more stuff arose about Carbs vs EFI, blah blah blah

END THE THREAD JACKING YALL'Z.

[Nick52284]

got the block down to the machine shop, i'll get pics when i get it back, yea this project is moving slowly but at least its still moving!