No more speed density!!!

JohnnyGMachine · Apr 28, 2009

Well, this weekend my buddy John and I completed the mass air conversion on my 88 GT. I know the 88 isn't a 4-eye but the conversion was thoroughly documented with many photos and written documentation for those wanting to do the conversion. This is the same car I bought almost 100% stock that I promised my wife I wouldn't modify and just drive as my daily driver. Oh well.
The throttle body was wore out, the vacuum hose to the Map sensor was dried out and leaking causing idle issues, and the injectors had seen better days. So the Mass Air conversion, larger injectors and throttle body was making sense right?
The conversion went smoothly and the car runs like new. It's insanely responsive compared to before. I love driving the car again. Besides the basic mass air conversion, upgrades include a polished 70mm throttle body and EGR spacer from Accufab, 24# injectors, and 73mm C&L Mass Air Meter housing. To make the ram tube work with the stock air box I only had to trim off about .75" to make it mate up nicely. I'm ordering silicone couplers and new clamps today from Hose Technologies. Please disregard the duct tape around the mass air housing and air box....we finished this up late Sunday night LOL! I could find 3" and smaller silicone hoses all day long but I needed a 3.5" size. Now I'd have put a K&N conical filter on but with the ram air hood it would be right by the opening and I wanted to be careful as not to suck any water into the engine if it rained hard. I want to make the ram tube work with the stock air box because I am ordering the under hood ducting kit from Cervinis to go with the ram air hood I have from them on the car right now. Updated photos and info available soon.

I love new parts - check out the size difference!

Getting more aquainted with the GT...

-John

87foxstang · Apr 28, 2009

Awesome Makes me want to do that now. So the respoince is alot better than the SD huh

S&B · Apr 28, 2009

very clean , good job

strtrcr50 · Apr 28, 2009

Purty throttle body. BTW, did you open up the intake behind the egr spacer to match the 70 mm setup?
87stang, I was very happy with my mass air conversion too. I did the conversion by using an 89 harness and an a9p. Hardest part was wrestling out the old harness and getting the new one in. I believe it was JKRichker who compared it to wrestling an anaconda. Something that is funny now, but not that night. Second hardest part was finding out that a wire in the connector under the mass air sensor had to be moved over one pin because I put an auto harness and computer in a stick car.

JohnnyGMachine · Apr 28, 2009

Ya know I didn't mess with the intake opening because I was doing the conversion this weekend and I was sick as a dog. After pulling up part of my carpet and splicing wires, soldering, modifying the air intake tube and not finding ANYBODY that sells silicone molded couplers I had to stop somewhere. Besides, I will probably be changing out the intake and heads soon anyways. Man, I was supposed to leave this one stock!

strtrcr50 · Apr 28, 2009

JohnnyGMachine said:
Besides, I will probably be changing out the intake and heads soon anyways. Man, I was supposed to leave this one stock!

LOL. My wife originally bought into that too. But now she knows there is a shortblock being rebuilt, twisted wedge heads with HS TF specific rockers, gt40 intake, 284hr cam, and a s trim with an 8 rib pully kit going in to fix my "oil pressure problem" She does, however, know that it won't make a huge difference in the way the car drives or the gas mileage it gets. "This is all parts I had lying around. It would cost me more to do it stock"

JohnnyGMachine · May 12, 2009

Just a few new pics of the car and the completed conversion. Car runs REAL good, no issues at all other than I can't keep my foot out of it!!! Love the HoseTechniques couplers and T-bolt clamps. Also took the car out for some at speed pics.

Man with new shiny parts under the hood it really makes me want to redo the motor!

85_SS_302_Coupe · May 12, 2009

That's a good lookin car. I don't even like those hoods but it looks great on that car.

I'm curious though, why don't more people run speed density with Megasquirt? Is it the price or what? It's all the rage with the Merkur 2.3T guys.

NIKwoaC · May 12, 2009

Man, that car looks good. You must know somebody who can take great pictures!

When do we get to see the write-up?

Mustang5L5 · May 12, 2009

JohnnyGMachine said:
The throttle body was wore out, the vacuum hose to the Map sensor was dried out and leaking causing idle issues, and the injectors had seen better days. So the Mass Air conversion, larger injectors and throttle body was making sense right?

Actually if the car is stock and wouldn't be seeing any mods, you should have left it SD. It would be faster

Seriously.

But car looks awesome!

JohnnyGMachine · May 12, 2009

Well that's the idea of doing the MAF conversion - I can't leave stuff stock. I got a spare set of aluminum GT40X heads I was gonna sell but I think I'm going to have a little work done to them, convert 'em to stud mount and bolt 'em up to a fresh 306 shortblock and stuff it in this car. I'll just go with a mild cam to keep it streetable and pass emissions. I really like the BBK SSI Intake so I may go with that unless I find a really nice GT40 Intake - the one with the tubular looking runners. Can't do all that with the speed density. What makes it worse is I have a buddy who is a dealer for Vortech and would probably hook me up with a new kit at his pricing. How could I say no to that?
Before I did the conversion I really thought about it. I just like the fact that if I want to modify it I can and it's not a problem I can just do it now.

I did document the whole swap with many photos along each step, wrote everything up in a lot of detail. Info to be available soon.

Thanks for the compliments guys - John

RARE NOTCH · May 12, 2009

Nice. i just did mine with the ford racing kit. it was so easy took 10 minutes to install.

jstanger89 · May 12, 2009

nice job

under hood looks very clean. i have the cervini ram air setup on mine. one bit of advice. get some good tape, the stuff they supplied sucks a**. i've retaped 3 times. but removing soon for the paxton.

stangboy · May 12, 2009

JohnnyGMachine said:
Well that's the idea of doing the MAF conversion - I can't leave stuff stock. I got a spare set of aluminum GT40X heads I was gonna sell but I think I'm going to have a little work done to them, convert 'em to stud mount and bolt 'em up to a fresh 306 shortblock and stuff it in this car. I'll just go with a mild cam to keep it streetable and pass emissions. I really like the BBK SSI Intake so I may go with that unless I find a really nice GT40 Intake - the one with the tubular looking runners. Can't do all that with the speed density. What makes it worse is I have a buddy who is a dealer for Vortech and would probably hook me up with a new kit at his pricing. How could I say no to that?
Before I did the conversion I really thought about it. I just like the fact that if I want to modify it I can and it's not a problem I can just do it now.

I did document the whole swap with many photos along each step, wrote everything up in a lot of detail. Info to be available soon.

Thanks for the compliments guys - John

I'll be looking for that write-up with pics. I will be converting my 88 at some point...hopefully soon.

JohnnyGMachine · May 13, 2009

RARE NOTCH said:
Nice. i just did mine with the ford racing kit. it was so easy took 10 minutes to install.

10 MINUTES???? Are you saying you installed a complete MAF conversion in 10 minutes? Am I missing something here? Just getting the kick panel off, all the crap around it off, the EEC out and the wire lock out takes about 10 minutes. Did you only wire in the 4 wires from the MAF unit or did you do the other 3 wires so you won't pull codes? Gotta take the driver seat out just to get to one of the relays to splice into. Tell me you soldered and didn't use butt connectors!

Strippt88 · May 13, 2009

Mustang5L5 said:
Actually if the car is stock and wouldn't be seeing any mods, you should have left it SD. It would be faster

Seriously.

But car looks awesome!

Whew! I didn't want to be the only one who said it! Awesome car, but if the SD setup were repaired and working properly, well, the throttle response would be just as, if not, better. Having owned a brand new 88 and a brand new 90, my 88 woulda ripped my 90 apart all week long and twice on Sunday. MAF for modifications only, mostly stock motor older cars should be Speed Density. Still, thats one sweet GT!

50sleeper · May 13, 2009

Fine

To the naysayers....all I can say is every car is different....

I had a very similar experience on my 87, throttle response sucked with speed density and improved greatly after a mass air conversion even with the POS stock MAF.

Glad it worked out for you too.

1987stangman · May 13, 2009

Strippt88 said:
Whew! I didn't want to be the only one who said it! Awesome car, but if the SD setup were repaired and working properly, well, the throttle response would be just as, if not, better. Having owned a brand new 88 and a brand new 90, my 88 woulda ripped my 90 apart all week long and twice on Sunday. MAF for modifications only, mostly stock motor older cars should be Speed Density. Still, thats one sweet GT!

Yep, I just sold all the mass air stuff I collected to do the swap after my rebuild and ported heads but after doing some reading on here I decided to leave it SD!

RARE NOTCH · May 13, 2009

JohnnyGMachine said:
10 MINUTES???? Are you saying you installed a complete MAF conversion in 10 minutes? Am I missing something here? Just getting the kick panel off, all the crap around it off, the EEC out and the wire lock out takes about 10 minutes. Did you only wire in the 4 wires from the MAF unit or did you do the other 3 wires so you won't pull codes? Gotta take the driver seat out just to get to one of the relays to splice into. Tell me you soldered and didn't use butt connectors!

Ok 15minutes. the ford racing kit had a computer adapter and maf harness that pluged into the adapter. And you put the adapter on the computer and pluged in the factory harness in the adapter and the maf harness into the adapter and i was done. the car runs awesome no codes at all since doing the h/c/i and mass air conversion. The ford racing kit is the way to go if you can find one.

blackened88lx · May 14, 2009

Mustang5L5 said:
Actually if the car is stock and wouldn't be seeing any mods, you should have left it SD. It would be faster

Strippt88 said:
Whew! I didn't want to be the only one who said it! Awesome car, but if the SD setup were repaired and working properly, well, the throttle response would be just as, if not, better. Having owned a brand new 88 and a brand new 90, my 88 woulda ripped my 90 apart all week long and twice on Sunday. MAF for modifications only, mostly stock motor older cars should be Speed Density. Still, thats one sweet GT!

Yup. A lot of people say the difference is very minimal. But if everything is in good shape and it's tuned right, SD cars run really, really strong.

No more speed density!!!

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I hate my CT. :(

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