My SEFI HO SBF swapped 92 Crown Vic. Also how to 5.0 SEFI swap your Aero Vic inside.

[Crownvicman289]

Car started life as a bastard block with a main knock. Upon disassembly (back in 2001), a rebuild was ungodly expensive, so the 4.6 was abandoned in favor of a free 289 that I subsequently had rebuilt and carb'd. First the AOD was junk, then the pig of a C6 sucked for performance, so a T5 was finally swapped in. A 2002 front setup was added from a cop car, as was the rear HPP setup from a '93. This made the car handle and stop noticeably better, but it still had a nasty habit of crop dusting everything in sight and stinking to hell and back making it impossible to drive with the windows down. A valve seal job fixed that up, so it was time to do the EFI swap. Here's how it looked just before.




At TDC this is where my rotor pointed, so I snapped a pic for when the crank was inevitably rotated during the swap.



See, it is a 289. I had to use the carb lower gaskets because the coolant ports were a bit smaller. The ports on the EFI lower almost extend beyond the 289 heads!



A little silicone on both ends to hopefully get a good seal.



This was the easy part. After this pic, I swapped these injectors for some yellows off a 4.6 with their better spray pattern.




For some reason this is where the pics stop, but I'm going to add all the wiring info to this thread that I have. The harness was by far the most time consuming part of the swap and yet it was so easy. I got caught up trying to decide which direction I wanted to go. An 87 SD EEC now controls the car and the mileage thingy. With both coolant temp sensors, my digital idiot temp gauge works again along with my Summit gauge, no more vapor lock, easier starts, better idling, and the car absolutely hauls ass now. I'd tuned it with a wideband and recurved the distributor and this still blows it out of the water! I hate carbs just as much as I thought I hated carbs, only reason I didn't go EFI back in 2001 is because I was a n00b and the carb swap with 289 was a little bit much. It was my first car and the first time I ever turned a wrench. More to come. . .

[Crownvicman289]

Ha! I lied. Here's a pic of the distributor differences, EFI is longer with fatter shaft. I didn't bother swapping gears since there will be virtually no miles put on it before I swap in the Exploder engine.



Said Exploder engine patiently waits on the engine stand. I'll snap a pic under the valve cover, it's unreal. Also not the massive amount of crap in there, and I already sold $2500+ worth of crap!

[gadget73]

Cool. Oh, just in case you didn't already know, TDC on an EFI motor does want the rotor pointed to the #1 slot on the cap. They tend to run slightly odd if its put somewhere arbitrary and the wires set to match. Carbs don't care.

[87gtVIC]

Sweet/ NIce work. SO you wanted to get all the issues flattened out with the 289 HO SEFI then just plops in the Explorer?

[P72Ford]

Nicely done!

Maybe I should have gone this route with my car...

Nah. Down the road I have a swap planned, and it'll carbed anyway. That is ultimately why I am doing the fuel system how I am at this point.

Did you always have an Edelbrock carb on it? I used to love them, until I messed with Holley carbs. They are very easy to adjust and play with, but I will never view them as a performance carburetor again. I've swapped them for Holley's in a few instances (305 Chevy, (2) 350 Oldsmobiles), and even the 'out of the box' Holley tune up beat the hell out of the tweaked Edelbrock. And when you get to playing with the Holley, the results are so much better.

Lucky for you, now you don't have to woprry about any of that stuff anymore.

Can you confirm that those are shorty headers (and not long tubes)? Because from the pics, I really can't tell.

Have any pictures of you 5 spd swap? Pedal assembly, etc?

[86VickyLX]

What year explorer is that? That'll tell me which heads you have. Also, any internal modifications to said explorer motor?

[gadget73]

Did you always have an Edelbrock carb on it? I used to love them, until I messed with Holley carbs. They are very easy to adjust and play with, but I will never view them as a performance carburetor again.

I've never had one of those Carter AFB carbs that I thought ran as well as it could have. They always run OK, but seldom better than OK. They also seem to be a rich running carb to make things behave properly, so most of the time the fuel economy is kind of crappy. I have a set on the boat and while they are so deadly simple that I've actually rebuilt them while underway before, I'd happily trade them for something that would actually start properly.

[Crownvicman289]

Cool. Oh, just in case you didn't already know, TDC on an EFI motor does want the rotor pointed to the #1 slot on the cap. They tend to run slightly odd if its put somewhere arbitrary and the wires set to match. Carbs don't care.

I noticed that when I went for my first start, it was way retarded.

Sweet/ NIce work. SO you wanted to get all the issues flattened out with the 289 HO SEFI then just plops in the Explorer?

Yep, 302 has the GT40P heads. I'll lose compression with those on the 289, plus the 302 is a roller motor and with the HO cam it'll match the firing order.

I'd like to try tuning a Holley, on someone else's car of course, because I doubt if I'll ever own another carb'd vehicle and if I do I'll just convert it. Since I live in CO (6000'), driving home would require a rejet or 2 which is too much of an asspain on a road trip with the wife. That, the stink, the inconsistency with temperature, and the propensity to vapor lock are what drove this setup. I'd wanted EFI for a long time anyway but didn't acquire the necessary skills until I pulled off my first EFI swap in Japan back in 2005. This is EFI swap #5 for me now. granted the aforementioned EFI swaps didn't start as carbs, but the wiring was the same deal: swapping in a motor with an incompatible harness. I enjoy EFI swaps, but not the way I've done the last 2. I'm headed to FL in a couple weeks and these 2 I've done since January have been driven by the pressure to pull them off before my class started this week as there's a lot of other work to be done before I leave. That said, the time will come when I catch up on the car work I have to do and can simply enjoy the efforts I've put into them. The car has unequal length BBK shorty headers that will be up for sale when I pop in the 302. Lemme see what I can dig up on the 5 speed swap. It's a T-5 from a 1993 Mustang, aluminum Spec flywheel, King Cobra clutch and fork, adjustable quadrant and cable. With that, I bolted on an aluminum driveshaft from a 2002 P71 since the engine and trans sit 1.25" farther back, the exact amount that the P71 shaft is shorter than the civilian car.

[Crownvicman289]

What year explorer is that? That'll tell me which heads you have. Also, any internal modifications to said explorer motor?

Intake is a '97, motor is a 2000.

I've never had one of those Carter AFB carbs that I thought ran as well as it could have. They always run OK, but seldom better than OK. They also seem to be a rich running carb to make things behave properly, so most of the time the fuel economy is kind of crappy. I have a set on the boat and while they are so deadly simple that I've actually rebuilt them while underway before, I'd happily trade them for something that would actually start properly.

You hit the nail on the head, that transition to step up comes on too soon when it's jetted stoich for cruise so it goes lean and bogs just before it steps up. You can't lean the step up out enough for it to fatten up to just stoich again either, because I tried that with the 5" springs. I think 6" springs would have done better, but they're not an option. When I tried getting creative, I ended up with what felt like 5" springs still. And hot restarts are miserable, the car is so much better now.

[86VickyLX]

Ok cool so stock bore and stuff on the motor itself.

[Crownvicman289]

Yep, 302 is unopened aside from the intake. I'll pop the heads off for valve springs/seals, cleaning/inspection, but under the valve covers is clean cast iron without the slightest hint of yellow/brown so I expect to see crosshatch on the cylinders. I'll pop a couple bearing caps off and hopefully the cleanliness under the valve covers is indicative of the condition of the entire motor. I'm too lazy to take pics, but not too lazy to wrench. I installed my 1990 LTC lip today in hopes of it helping out the summertime cooling, we'll see in 2012. I a pic of the pedal bracket to give an idea of what I did for that. It's my stock brake bracket with a Mustang tube welded on top and the switch I'm pointing at was removed, I'm assuming it was for ABS? Whatever it is, i don't miss it.



You'll see I removed the vacuum dump valve for the cruise control, and below look next to the cruise control servo with a blue plug: it's a vacuum switching valve that performs the same function as the original dump valve. It also now serves as BOO (brake on/off) for the impending MAF EEC that I'll inevitably need for the 302. I've already got a 70mm (94-95) MAF w/pigtail, BOO is wired in, VSS is wired in, I have the spare EEC pins, and I have a power wire all ready for it so that should be a painless swap.

[gadget73]

yeah there are 2 brake pedal mounted switches for abs. one is for the taillights, and the other is something for the abs brain. I forget exactly what it does though.

[Crownvicman289]

When I was googling the switch, the only info I found on it was on BMW's. It tells the brain how far the pedal is depressed. This is assuming this switch does the same thing as it does on BMW's. Did I mention I got the remote start working? All I had to do was move a jumper for the tach signal, it was set to low and I couldn't figure out why and then it hit me: the tach signal on the 4.6 came from the cam angle sensor, not the TFI or whatever they called it.

[Grand Marquis GT]

Would it be possible to keep the cruise, and hook up the clutch switch? That way, the cruise will kick off when you hit the clutch too

[Crownvicman289]

I've thought about that, but I buzzed off the clutch switch thingy when I did the pedals because it was in the way of something. I'd have to start from scratch on that one. Even so though, I don't know what I'd hook it to to get it to kick off the cruise? The Fox Mustangs didn't have standalone cruise and the clutch switch was wired to the EEC which had no influence on the cruise, so I really wonder how they tied that in. BTW the cruise works a lot better now that the servo doesn't have to overcome so much return spring tension. You'd never know it was a vacuum cruise canister.