efi to a carb dist

faststang90

10 Year Member
Nov 5, 2007
522
16
49
baytown texas
i have a guy that i work with and he has a 64.5 mustang that he going to put a 302 in the car. the motor was a efi but he is going to a carb. what year mustang came with a carb and has a roller type cam. was a 85 the only year with the roller cam. i had a ford f 150 that i had a 347 out of a mustang in and the dist gear got ate off because of the roller type cam
 
About the only factory distributor you'll find that's set up for use with a roller cam (steel dizzy gear) AND a carb'ed setup is the '85 Mustang GT with manual (T-5) transmission. You must specify manual transmission at most parts houses because the AOD cars in '84 and '85 were non-roller motors with CFI instead of a carb. Otherwise, there are some aftermarket distributors you can use that would work with a stand-alone ignition setup, but they will cost you a lot more and not really gain you anything in terms of performance.

From there, you can grab a Duraspark ignition off any older carb'ed Ford and use that for a stand-alone ignition (doesn't need an ECM, just the Duraspark ignition box and related connectors), or you can possibly bastard-rig an HEI ignition module off a GM to work. Do a search on Yahoo for "CFI to carb conversion" and you'll find an article on there with all the necessary schematics and part numbers. (It's a really straightforward hookup, only about 4 or 5 wires involved.)
 
The hot setup if you have the cash is to get one of those HEI conversion setups with the ignition and coil all built right on the distributor. It makes for a super clean and super easy installation.
 
The hot setup if you have the cash is to get one of those HEI conversion setups with the ignition and coil all built right on the distributor. It makes for a super clean and super easy installation.

Don't forget "super-expensive." :D

I'd like to plug one onto my '84, but I don't wanna blast away that much dough on an ignition that won't gain me anything but ease of installation ... and since a Duraspark or GM HEI isn't that hard at all to wire up, meh ... can't justify it, myself. But the option's out there for anyone with the cash. :shrug: