Background
What happens when you strap a 1 Barrel carb on a 2.3? NOT A WHOLE LOT!!!! thats why I undertook the task of putting a Turbo Charged version into my 1986 Capri. The process was not as complicated as one would think. It involves a lot more planing and a little bit more wrenching then a 87+ swap, but as always the benefits outweigh the costs.
Fuel? how do I get fuel up there!
Since the swap involves adding a fuel pump you will need to think about how you wish to put it in the tank . In my case I had gotten an 87 Parts car for the T5 and rear and other parts needed for a trans swap. I also took the 1987 Mustang fuel tank and fuel lines. One bad thing about going this route is that you will need to do something about the Fuel guage. AN 87-93 SENDING UNIT WILL NOT READ CORRECTLY IN A 79-86 FOX. To correct this I purchased a used sending unit from a 1984 SVO. It drooped right into the 87 tank and reads correctly. The next thing to go into the tank was a High Pressure/ High Volume fuel pump from Walbro.
The fuel lines out of the 87 also fit right in and gives the 2 fuel lines needed for EFI. You will most likely reuse your existing vent line
(FYI, don't do what I did and pull it out. Its a PITA to reinstall!).
Motor-mounts What the Hell??
If your ANYTHING like me, you will look at the motor mounts on your new EFI engine and then at your old engine and say the same thing I did "what the hell?" Apparently Ford in there infinite wisdom, used like 1 million types of motor mounts for 2.3's in Fox Bodys (okay so maybe its only like 3...)
Your old 1 BBL engine more than likely has 1 piece rubber mounts that flexed the sit on the K-Member. your new EFI engine should have the newer
2 piece models that consist of an upper "shock absorbing" section, and a lower k-member plate, joined by a long bolt. When you pull your Turbo power plant be sure to take the lower plates along! they are secured by 2 bolts one from the bottom, one from the top. just bolt the plates to the k-member and you should have no prob with getting things to work out. Now aren't you glad I told you??
Electrial: Wow thats alot of wires!
NOTE: I used the wiring harness from a 1986 Cougar XR7. Therefor any advice on wiring I give is based on the usage of THIS HARNESS! if you use a different harness you may have different connections to worry about.
The thing that gets the most confusing about this swap is the wiring. There are only a few wires that need to be connected to get the new
EFI engine to fire up. The first thing you should focus on is making yourself a fuel pump wiring harness. This is a fairly simple circuit and
diagrams are available on GT350R's site. I ran mine under the carpet on the passenger side of the car. Now for the Big Kahona, The engine harness itself. As i stated before there are only a few wires needed to start the engine. they are:
- a 12V power connection FULL TIME
- a 12V Start/Run connection
- a 12V Main Power Feed
- a Tach signal (this isn't Mandatory but makes the first start better since you can see if you have spark or not)
Now stay with me here, your gonna need to research the connections on your car. Some of the harness have many different connections when
compared to other harnesses. On MY harness the Full time power pickups where at the Voltage regulator and at the starer relay. The one
at the voltage regulator act as a pass-through, the line comes out of the VR into the harness then into the car (in the original configuration it went
from the voltage regulator directly into the long yellow wire that makes it way through the firewall to feed the rest of the car with 12V power)
As for the start/run signal there is no better place to look then your existing coil As for the start/run signal there is no better place to look then your existing coil wiring! you will notice as you pull out your
existing engine harness, that the Coil wiring is NOT part of the engine harness on the carb 2.3. it is a part of the MAIN harness. We can
use this to our advantage. The RED wire on this coil connection gets 12V at start and run, Just what we need to trigger the EEC power relay!
And the Green Yellow wire runs right to the tach, giving us the connection for the Tach!
On my EFI harness the EEC power relay is triggered by a 12V signal going to the coil. this means all we need to do is tap the Red
coil wire from the BODY harness to the red (or white/blue on some harnesses) coil wire in the new EFI harness! NOTE: some harness use a separate trigger wire for the relay
in this case tap it into that wire, look at the wiring digram specific to your car to determine where to splice it in.
For the tach signal just tap the green yellow wire from the BODY harness to the green yellow engine harness coil connector and you will have a tach.
The finishing touches are to run extensions for the starter relay trigger wire (small red wire) from the passenger side to the drivers side
where the relay is located in the EFI cars. You will also need to Extend the Alternator feed wire (large green wire with a fuse link, connects to starter relay) in the same manner. |
