EFI CONVERSION!!!!?!?

Find a cheap complete donor

Most of it depends on your skills and your willingness to tackle the harness. The majority of the money I spent was for the $600 donor car, which came down to a little over $400 after I sold the tranny and scrapped the car (88 Cop Vic). I spent a few hundred more on the rest of it, fuel pump, filter, lines, fittings, gas pedal, wiring supplies etc. I'm sure there's someone here who has done it cheaper. Do the fabrication/modifications yourself, and ebay for most of the parts and you could save a lot of money as long as your donor car is complete.
I wouldn't recommend piecing it together, because with a donor you get all the small stuff other want to throw away like the throttle cables, brackets etc. Get a new fuel pump and troubleshoot any engine problems before you pull it. I got over 20mpg after the swap, I believe it was about 22-24mpg.
 
Parts and their costs as follows
160 fuel pump
185 fuel line and fittings (25 ft tube,3 ft braided, an fittings for fuel rail & pump)
75 injectors, maf and throttle body
20 2 other throttle bodies
70 A9l Computer
70 Main wiring harness
10 Upper and Lower intake
10 Lower intake with injectors fuel rail and injector harness
10 Injector Harness
20 Gas pedal
100 fuel filters (2 billet aluminum paxton filters and 1 summit aluminum pre-pump filter)
30 Distributor and fuel rail
45 EFI coil
30 Cap and Rotor
45 Plug Wires
14 MSD Wire harness for TFI Module *****Not Required
50 MSD 6a box *****Not Required
35 AN flare tool *****Not Required unless you use an fittings on aluminum tube

$979 so far and I still need an alternator that can feed the efi computer and a throttle cable and some more an fittings.

You'll notice some duplicate items were purchased because buying used parts is a crapshoot and sometimes end up with junk.

Keep in mind that many of these things were selected because I wasn't going to build the fuel system twice. So I built the fuel system to be able to support 500-600 boosted hp. I would think you could get a pump,lines, and filter for well under 100 vs my almost 500.

Also I purchased the following for the boosted version once we get it running.

250 42 lb injectors
150 Pro M 80mm Blow-through maf calibrated for 42's

Going fast sure isn't cheap.
 
AHHH ok im confused on where to start.. can someone please guide me through this.. like where could i find an EFI. what cars could i take them off of that will work for my 289?? where do i look for one at?????????????????????
 
By donor car I mean the car you will use for parts, strip all the parts you need from it and then take it to the scrap yard. I used a 1988 Crown Victoria Police Car. Many people use 89-93 Mustangs. The Mustangs have a Mass Air EFI system which is better suited for future engine modifications since the computer compensates for the changes. Crown Vics use a Speed Density EFI system which by its design cannot compensate nearly as well for changes such as a different Cam, heads, intake, etc.

I like the the crown vic setup because 1. they are easier than mustangs to find cheap, and 2. because the intake points to the drivers side making the throttle cable very easy to route and hook up. The mustang intake points to the passenger side but I haven't heard of anyone having problems with their mustang throttle cables, I just chose the crown vic because I knew where I could get one at the time. I converted the Crown Vic to Mass Air since I'll be installing a new cam, heads, intake, throttle body, injectors, and mass air meter soon.

The computer system Ford used in the 1980's and 1990's was called EEC-IV. I suggest you google for EEC-IV or EEC to find out more about the differences between Mass Air and Speend Density and also to find out which cars each system is found on. If you have not swapped an engine from one type of car to another, or two cars with very different wiring harnesses and different underhood layouts, I highly suggest getting a donor car. That way you can pull everything you need off and if you have room to store the donor car during the swap then you can always go back and look at it to see how things were hooked up before you stripped it.

Get wiring diagrams for both cars before you start. I spent most of my time during the swap working on the wiring harnesses and studying the diagrams. This can be the most intimidating part if you choose to do this yourself, but it's not too hard if you work though it slowly and methodically.

email me if you have further questions
 
oh ok. i see. i get it now. thanks rollins. if i have problems ill email you.. thats crazy you got 22-24 MPG. sheesh. i was thinking about EFI upgrade cause i use my 67 daily.
 
i get about 13-17 (depending on how i drive) with a '73 302 with a 2bbl holly carb...was wondering, is that low, avg., or good? (daily driver, mountins everywhere)
 
Alarus said:
i get about 13-17 (depending on how i drive) with a '73 302 with a 2bbl holly carb...was wondering, is that low, avg., or good? (daily driver, mountins everywhere)


My cars got a 400+HP 331 EFI, However Its still got the 3.00 gears in it and a 5 speed(3.73's are going in soon) My highway mileage is always 25-26mpg. Its really quite amazing. it gets better mileage than my wifes nissan. I dont drive it much, Ill bet Ive filled the tank 2-3 times in the last year.