CFI Swap

[L1011tristar17]

Hey all. I was getting ready to drive my Lincoln a couple weekends ago, but once I started it up it was knocking really bad and smoking, so the motor is probably toast. My buddy had an '83 Town Car he was parting out and I knew it had a good motor. I bought the entire motor, accessories, and wiring harness from him for $450. So, how do I go about swapping the CFI system into the '89?

[Brown_Muscle]

Your 89 I assume had the stock SEFI system correct? Please do yourself a favor and just transfer everything from your old engine ( assuming it was running well besides the mechanical failure) to the one you bought. CFI is not a good system, and your "modern" fuel injection is so much better. If you have both engines out it will not be terribly difficult, and is plug and play once you put it back in the car

[pantera77]

:^)

[Hearsesrock427]

Your 89 I assume had the stock SEFI system correct? Please do yourself a favor and just transfer everything from your old engine ( assuming it was running well besides the mechanical failure) to the one you bought. CFI is not a good system, and your "modern" fuel injection is so much better. If you have both engines out it will not be terribly difficult, and is plug and play once you put it back in the car

This x1,000,000.

While it may seem easier in the short run to just swap motors, the reality is that CFI units are notoriously difficult to keep running right. Even if they're running good when you start with them. It's only a matter of time. CFI is particularly sensitive to vaccuum leaks, and seeing as how most of these cars are running their original lines. Hence the "only matter of time" remark. Hardly anyone here runs CFI. It's either carb, or some form of MPFI, almost universally because of reliability. RyPow's slick silver '85 Town Car is an exception, not the rule. You don't want to know how much time and money the previous owner spent keeping it running nice before Ryan bought it..... odds are highly in favor of your engine being the same way.

Remarks on the '83:
Was the '83 running good before it got junked? If it was, you've either got a good motor to pull parts from to fix your SEFI motor, or some more time to drive before CFI drivability problems start popping up after you swap the '83 motor in.

Remarks on the '89:
We need to find out why it was acting up the way it did. So let's do that!

Did the car fire right up, and stay running? If it did, you probably have good compression on all 8 cylinders. Do a leakdown test/compression test to confirm.

What color was the smoke? White means overheating, black means oil burning, and blue means valvetrain issues.

Did the red engine light of death turn on, and stay on? If yes, cause could be main bearings, could be overheating, could be both. We need to determine which one. More questions!

When was the last time you had your coolant flushed and/or cooling system inspected? If your cooling system was working fine, then it's your main bearings. If not, THOROUGHLY flush the coolant, and check back.

How's your oil pressure? If it's low or nonexistant, then you will have knocking, regardless of how good or bad of shape your main bearings are in. BUT there's a way to test. Hook an oil pressure gauge up. See what the readings are at idle, preferably after reaching operating temp.


Seeing as how you'd have to take off the intake plenum to get to the main bearings anyway, this is the time to swap in an A9L computer (D9S computer from a Lincoln Mark 8 will also work, but I've heard issues with performance tuning), and elimainte the lopo knock for good. Be sure to switch the spark plugs on the distributor to the HO/351 firing order once that's done.

TLDR/summary:
You may not need to replace all that much on your '89 engine. Only replace the stuff that needs replacing with parts from the '83 motor. I'm guessing main bearings (1-5 firing order for 240,000+ miles has probably taken its toll on them by now) and possibly cooling system and cylinder heads (This is just based on what you've told us in this thread. I'm assuming the worst here.) . Check coolant, oil pressure, and then check compression. Keep us posted!

Gurus, please correct me if I'm wrong with any of this. I want to help, but I'm still learning.

[pantera77]

You guys should really check the date.

[Hearsesrock427]

You guys should really check the date.

I was wondering why you had such a non-technical reply!

Oh my fucking....

No.....

I didn't just......

Yep, Brown_Muscle and I fell for the April Fool's joke. HARD.

[DerekTheGreat]

I was wondering why you had such a non-technical reply!

Oh my fucking....

No.....

I didn't just......

Yep, Brown_Muscle and I fell for the April Fool's joke. HARD.

I fell for it... I was reading that thinking "I had a CFI car... Who the hell would willingly put that in over SEFI, let alone replace a LoPo with another LoPo!!!"

[gadget73]

you're a day early for the original post.

[L1011tristar17]

you're a day early for the original post.

Interesting how it says that. I posted it just after midnight EST but I guess the site is glitching again?

[miamibob]

Is this site using CST or they never "sprung ahead" for Spring???

[gadget73]

NFC. Might be a timestamp thing on the server end. My posts here show up an hour early too. Timezones and DST are set per-user and mine are correct as far as I can see. Back end is OK too, it defaults to eastern time and DST on. The server itself may be wrong.

[VicCrownVic]

Hmm, the timestamps I see are showing correctly. I see Today, 12:07AM on the original post.


Time zone and DST are configurable per ID.
Go to Settings in the upper right then click General Settings on the left and there will be a "Date & Time Options" section. Check that your Time Zone and the DST Correction Option are set correct for your location.

Edit: helps if I read, gadget already checked that on his but it still may be useful for others.

[gadget73]

I forced DST correction and now it works. Apparently automatically detect doesn't work for me.

[miamibob]

Neither one worked for me but I'll try it again by forcing it and seeing what happens.

[miamibob]

This is a test post so I'll follow up with results.