I am a traditionalist - old school - but if you drive to high altitudes often and live closer to sea level (or the other way around) the fuel injection will work better. It will compensate for the altitude changes and keep the car running right with the changes in altitude. If you drive within a few thousand feet of your home altitude then the carb works well. A carb is a lot easier to trouble-shoot if problems occur and is less expensive.
I had both, carb and efi on my mavs I like EFI better i never had an issue with the system If it's installed right it will run like it was on the donor car, and trouble shooting these older system is not that hard and parts are available everywhere and cheap. Now if I was going to build a super power plant i would go carb.
efi or carb i run a correctly tuned holley 750 on my built 5.0 and average 21-23 mpg at 65 mph. fuel injection would be cool in an old car though. I'm a fan but it could get pricey unless you get a complete motor from late model mustang with everything you need.
Fuel injection the best all around for a fun daily driver.I have had my car scince 1984 first 302 installed in 1985 13.90's 1/4 about 13 mpg modified more and tuned better in 1987 and 88 collage and more experiance helps 13.10 16 mpg next engine built in 1999 12.60's 16 mpg engine hatted pump gas high compression it took 5 years to put 17,000 miles on it sold it 2005 stuck 302 in it as a daily driver never raced it done with that decided in 2006 to go fuel injection found engine and did research saved money installed in june 2009 runs great 19 mpg. You do not have to intall mustang gas tank I used my stock one removed the tank and cleaned soldered in radiator drain plug bungs for fuel return ran a MSD external fuel pump used factory gas outlet on fuel sender runs just fine. I do own an auto repair shop and have been doing this for 23yrs 11 years of it self employed helps.
I plan to install aftermarket fuel injection and an AOD trans as part of my Comet project. Just makes sense to me and I will learn about the new technology as a result.
If you want info If you need any info or suggestions give me a call or drop a line 530-527-3142 or e mail kusstum@yahoo.com thanks Donnie
well i'm going with a 97 mercury mountaineer motor along with the 4r70w tranny, accessories, and the eec V. The block is in the shop now getting freshened. Still researching on the heads i want to use. keeping the same f4te cam. might go up to 1.7 roller rockers. going with gapless top rings. and going to use a tweecar r/t to reprogram the mountianeer uses a gt40 style intake and i will use a 75mm throttle body and maf. doing jmod on the transmission now. my suspension work is almost done too, so i will be all new suspension
I would love to convert to EFI if I could find a affordable source. I've been studying the subject but I still get a little confused trying to figure everything out ahead of time. like finding the right cpu and being able to enable or disable features or systems that I may not have which the cpu controls... my 289 isn't as trouble free as I would expect from a 40,000 mile engine... oil consumption (uses 1 quart per 500-1000 miles), only 16 mpg... etc... so yeah efi and maybe a 5.0 roller while I'm at it...
i picked up my engine / trans / accessories / ecu in one package for $550 dump another 2500 in for new parts and capability to reprogram i should be at the 3k mark for a rebuilt engine with overdrive tranny.
i didnt want a efi system. in my search for my first car i wanted to be able to learn and do it all myself not have to have someone there to reprogram the car and all. plus i can smoke anyone at my high school with their little civics and 240s. nothing better then a carbed ford v8
ford fuel injection.com has a great harness...but it's $500 you can get something for the egr that fools the computer. Other than that, it's not a huge deal. Just don't wire up a check engine light, and it won't matter if you pop codes or not. the egr one is the only one you have to worry about at all. As for the computer, just use a stock computer from a fuel injected mustang. btw, 16 mpg's is average for a 302/289....and all my 302's/5.0's all burned about a quart of oil a week...that's the nature of the beast. For the harness, id just get a stock fox mustang harness and modify it yourself, that's what I'm doing...there are drawings up all over the place that show you what to do. I've been playing with my 66 mustang now for months since it's been running, and I've gotten back into carb's after a 15 year break on them. I must say that it's been sort of fun learning how to tune a carb'd car. when I say tune, I mean for performance. I'm having to learn total advance vs initial vs mechanical, then how to recurve the dist weights and springs, then how to jet the carb up and down for performance, and put on different springs for the secondary's....wow. It's really a blast doing this old school tuning. the nice thing though with an EFI engine is that you set initial timing, and that's IT, the computer does everything else. The stock mustang computer is good for a lot of HP and a tune is really optional until you get into SERIOUS HP, like 400-500+ I'll also say that I'm getting very sick of carb's tempermental attitudes...the cold starts, the backfire through the carb when cold if I don't give it enough gas, the occasional stumble, fart and whatever. my 66 will stay carb'd for now, my maverick gets efi. EFI is so consistent, it really allows you to finally forget about all the basics like getting it running consistent, and actually lets you ENJOY the car to it's fullest and concentrate on mods, rather than just keeping it tuned for daily driving.
Huh? The only time any of my engines used that much oil was when one had a stripped oil pan plug. You need to find someone that knows how to build an engine...
it's probably different with the vintage motors... I'm speaking of the 5.0 roller motors. they had weak oil rings...all the factory 5.0 engines after they get a few miles on them burnt a quart after about every 1k of driving...
