1985 mustang gt

[four_eyes]

Hey guys. I've joined a few forums trying to find a crowd friendly enough to help me out. I'm about to purchase a 1985 Mustang GT Cobra (it's really a GT, but Cobra tag was added in Canada for absolutely no reason), and I want information about the engine. It's an automatic, so my research tells me it's the CFI HO V8. What is CFI, and how does it differ from the 4V HO V8 offered with the manual transmission of the same year? (Some web sites say the 1985 Mustang GT was a EFI HO V8, but others say CFI. What gives?)

Thanks!

 

[Bad92GT]

CFI is a throttle body mounted on a sort of 4V intake.. (this is as far as i know about it anyway) and in 85 the main option was to have the carb'd 4v 302's.. so you might have a rare GT if it happens to be fuel injected

 

[MyBad70]

what he said, lol

those cars were only like 175-180 hp.
ive only seen one of these cars ever.

 

[four_eyes]

wow thanks for the replies guys. i'm finally getting some help.

i've google'd cfi but can't seem to find anything to explain exactly what it is. i know ford was working on a new efi 302 in '85, and i thought they had released it, but only with auto transmission, while the carb'd 302 was with the manual (it wasn't until the next year that efi took over - carb was no more). but then i went to a few other sites and they were calling it cfi, thus beginning my confusion!

for pete's sake, i can't even find out what cfi stands for.

 

[mattmcdan]

Central Fuel Injection

 

[four_eyes]

thanks mate!

now that i know it's fuel injection, i have a few other questions:

1) how is it for modifying?
2) if it sucks, how costly / difficult is it to convert to carb?

 

[Bad92GT]

shouldnt be that bad to convert over.. its a simple deal with going carb'd from anything

 

[four_eyes]

could you possibly direct me to some articles i could read to learn how to do it? i'm somewhat of a newbie to mechanics, but i'm eager to learn.

 

[8950HO]

thanks mate!

now that i know it's fuel injection, i have a few other questions:

1) how is it for modifying?
2) if it sucks, how costly / difficult is it to convert to carb?

CFI sucks and nobody modifies them.
There`s nothing you can really do with them.

 

[Hissing Cobra]

You'll learn all you need to know if you sign up at www.foureyedpride.com . There's a lot of smart individuals over there and they can give you a lot of information concerning your CFI. Everyone here is right though, if you're looking for performance, CFI isn't the way to go.

 

[spiff]

Where are you at exactly? I think we may be looking at the same car...

 

[retro50]

The cfi set-up sucks. It is a two barrel throttle body mounted on a stock two barrel intake manifold made for carbs. Throw away the whole system and put a 4v carb and intake on it. You can use the original fuel pump and lines if you put in a regulator on the feed line and still run the return line back to the tank. Also get the right T.V. Linkage for the transmission. Should be a fairly simple swap. I did mine over 10 years ago but I forgot alot of things when I did the swap. I still have the car and the fuel system still works great.

 

[billison]

ok, i own a cfi car, DO NOT BUY IT!!! you can NOT mod cfi in anyway, the engine is flat tapped NOT roller, so just to start out you have a aod, that has to be converted to carb or efi just to be able to be modded, If you want a roller motor you have to buy one and put it in. But if you like a slow, hard to mod pita then go for it, unless you plan on pulling the drivetrain....just my thoughts and i'm in the middle of finishing my 85 cfi car.

 

[Snikt89GT]

Having owned a CFI car before I can say that it totally sucks. You would have to either change it to carb or a standard EFI setup.

I could never get my CFI car to run or idle right

 

[billison]

cfi=crappy fuel injection

My cfi car backfired and sputtered still i pulled all the cfi stuff and put in the carb

 

[four_eyes]

Spiff: I live in Innisfail, Alberta.

Concerning the car, it's a 1985 Mustang GT with CFI setup. The owner is asking $4900 for it (canadian dollars), and it has 76000 original miles. Very attractive, but going by what you guys are saying, CFI is not the way to go. But if converting to carb is an easy task, it's probably still worth it... I think. There is another '85 for sale with 4V carb, but it's twice as much, though I don't know why, because it's got way more miles on a rebuilt motor.

Now I'm not so sure what to do, but I am glad that I'm a stickler for research and planning, otherwise I might have jumped the gun and bought a mistake.

My only other question is: how much would it cost for me to a complete carb conversion?

 

[four_eyes]

Spiff: I live in Innisfail, Alberta.

Concerning the car, it's a 1985 Mustang GT with CFI setup. The owner is asking $4900 for it (canadian dollars), and it has 76000 original miles. Very attractive, but going by what you guys are saying, CFI is not the way to go. But if converting to carb is an easy task, it's probably still worth it... I think. There is another '85 for sale with 4V carb, but it's twice as much, though I don't know why, because it's got way more miles on a rebuilt motor.

Now I'm not so sure what to do, but I am glad that I'm a stickler for research and planning, otherwise I might have jumped the gun and bought a mistake.

My only other question is: how much would it cost for me to a complete carb conversion?

 

[spiff]

Spiff: I live in Innisfail, Alberta.

Concerning the car, it's a 1985 Mustang GT with CFI setup. The owner is asking $4900 for it (canadian dollars), and it has 76000 original miles. Very attractive, but going by what you guys are saying, CFI is not the way to go. But if converting to carb is an easy task, it's probably still worth it... I think. There is another '85 for sale with 4V carb, but it's twice as much, though I don't know why, because it's got way more miles on a rebuilt motor.

Now I'm not so sure what to do, but I am glad that I'm a stickler for research and planning, otherwise I might have jumped the gun and bought a mistake.

My only other question is: how much would it cost for me to a complete carb conversion?

Cool Four eyes, I live in Airdrie. Yeah thats the exact car I was looking at I am pretty sure, and I have a post thats probably on page 2 right now about it, Its got T-Roofs and everything, right? It looks good but I'd really want to check if it was really 76,000km. Although, We do have the 6 space odo's here in Canada. If you're planning on a whole new shortblock and stuff it would be a perfect roller I suppose.

Did you phone whoever is selling it, is it private or a dealer, because its on 32 ave in its autotrader picture, I can tell from the buildings in the background

 

[four_eyes]

Spiff: Cool man, we live like an hour apart.

Yeah we must be looking at the same car, and no I haven't contacted the owner yet, but I'm pretty sure it's a private sale. Once the bank clears my loan I'm gonna go check it out... but to be honest, I'm pretty hesitant about making an offer on it. The consensus is that CFI sucks, so...

If you have msn, add me: [email protected]

 

[billison]

i'm not sure about the differnce in money in canada, but i'd not pay much for a cfi car, 2000 american tops, if it's super clean, and in super good shape and cheap maybe, and only if you want to drive it as it is, but if you want upgrades at all, i'd probly go a differnt way, like said befor, you have to beef up the aod, you have to put a 8.8 rear in it"comes with a 7.5" and then do the carb swap, if you need good info on the cfi to carb swap go to carbdford.com and look under the tech stuff for the swap, the guys over there know alot