CFI Cam

[VicGuy]

Can an 85 Vic with CFI handle a bigger cam at all? I would like to get more power out of my car once I get rid of a miss which I think is one of the injectors acting weird, but I don't want to remove the CFI. It starts and runs nice, I would just like to be able to turn the tires a little.

[Nathan in MI]

You might want to look for an '85 HO 302 cam...they aren't exactly great, but they'd be better than the lopo cam. If you want to keep the CFI, you're basically limited to gears and exhaust. I'm guessing you've got 2.73s now--that'll prevent you from "turning the tires" very easily. Depending on the style of driving you do, you may want to switch to a 3.27:1 or 3.55:1 axle. Dual exhaust will net you around 10 hp; possibly a bit more if you use a decent performance muffler.

Oh, by the way, welcome to GMN!

[mrltd]

Waste of time and money. The restriction is the intake, heads, and exhaust. Put some nice true dual exhuast, some gears, and a shift kit in it.

[85crownHPP]

there are "HO CFI" parts, but as others have said the CFI puts a low cap on your power potential and for all the work involved, you may as well convert to multiport efi...

upgrading the exhaust and gears will give you some pep, which will be seriously amplified once engine mods are done...

[VicGuy]

Thanks for the welcome.
This is my daily driver, so I really don't want to do anything too involved right now. I can do a cam in a day on the weekend. If I use a CFI HO cam, do I need to use a Mustang Computer? Gears and exhaust is in the plans. I was thinking of finding a good low rise 4V intake and using a 2V adapter plate for the CFI.

[VicGuy]

Is the Mustang CFI higher CFM than my Vic unit?

[mrltd]

I doubt it and CFI just kinda sucks for any mods...

[phayzer5]

I put a set of e7's under the CFI induction when i first started modding my car. It helped a bit but im not sure if its really worth the risk of breakign all the vacuum lines

[gadget73]

Better heads, a mild cam, and a dual plane 4bbl intake under that CFI unit should help. The heads on the car aren't horrible though to be fully honest. Exhaust, gears, and the cam+intake swap and I bet it would perk up nicely. Still won't be a screamer but it would be better.

[85crownHPP]

there's supposed to be a bigger bore CFI unit that was a late production thing and got axed with the CFI as a whole, so good luck finding one. If you look at a CFI unit up close you can see a clear bottleneck in it... if you can have it machined out and bigger butterflies installed I bet its the same thing...

the main limitation is supposed to be that even the bigger injectors can only flow so much fuel, making so much HP. Even if MPFI injectors work, you'd never find a computer to run them.

[mrltd]

You'd need some HUGE injectors. The stock injectors are 48lbs/hr

A megasquirt would control it fine. If everything is balanced and matched well, the stock ECM might work too.

[Tiggie]

The stock intake sucks balls. I'd try a mild 4-bbl intake with an adaptor to the CFI like you said.

[VicGuy]

there's supposed to be a bigger bore CFI unit that was a late production thing and got axed with the CFI as a whole, so good luck finding one. If you look at a CFI unit up close you can see a clear bottleneck in it... if you can have it machined out and bigger butterflies installed I bet its the same thing...

By late production do you mean '85 Mustang or '85 baby LTD or '85 Crown Vic?? Which would have the larger throttle body? Since the LTD and Mustang were HO motors, would the computer and throttle body help with the HP rating or was it just the HO cam?

[85crownHPP]

supposedly some of the 85 LTDs and Mustangs got them late in the year, but they are hard to find...
If you can find or make one, its sure to help, and you need the computer for it to run right with the different cam and injectors.