We are keeping the original 302 Engine. The previous owner had the engine rebuilt with a hot cam, an Edelbrock manifold, a Holley 4bbl carb, and aftermarket fuel delivery. When we brought her home I was not impressed with how rough she was at idle. I contacted Burt at Carter’s Automotive and after explaining how I wanted her to sound and drive he recommended an RV grind cam, increased compression pistons, and electronic fuel injection. To get fuel into Donna’s engine we will change over to throttle body Electronic Fuel Injection. The system is easy to install and contains the computer within the throttle body, which reads speed, O2, and distributor advance and then adjusts the fuel mixture. To get flame into the cylinders we will upgrade to an Electronic Distributor and hotter coil. Finally, to get the hot discharge gases away from the engine we will replace the stock exhaust headers with Tri-Y Exhaust Headers connected to 2.5″ Magna-Flow Exhaust. The original 302 made about 220 hp. With the rebuild and upgrades we might get to 290 hp which is close to the Boss 302. We intend to do the following:
- Engine rebuild by Carter’s Automotive, RV Cam and increased compression
- FiTEch GO EFI 4 – 600hp Master Kit on Stock 4bbl intake manifold
- PerTronix Flame-Thrower Distributor & Flame-Thrower Epoxy Filled Ignition Coil 40,000 Volts 1.5 Ohm
- Doug’s Headers: D690YA 1 5/8″ Tri-Y Headers
- Magnaflow 2 1/2″ Street Series Stainless Crossmember-Back System
The upgrades to the engine require more fuel at a higher pressure. Donna’s gas tank holds 16 gallons and her external fuel pump delivers 6-7 psi of fuel pressure. We will replace the original equipment with a baffled, 22 Gallon EFI Fuel Tank and in internal High Pressure Fuel Pump which will deliver 58 psi of fuel pressure. We will also add an Inertial Cutoff Switch to cut power to the fuel pump in the event of a collision. Luckily, Ford puts these in all new cars, so they are plentiful and cheap. We bought one with the mounting bracket and pigtail off eBay.
- Used Ford XF32-9341-AA Inertia Cut-off Switch and Bracket
- Used Ford WPT-446 Pig Tail
We are keeping the original C4 Transmission. Her transmission gear ratios are 2.46 for 1st, 1.46 for 2nd, and 1.00 for 3rd. We thought about changing to an AOD (automatic overdrive) to get the 0.67 over-drive gear, but after doing some research we decided there were too many changes that would have to be made and many people had varying degrees of success. We intend to do the following:
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B&M Holeshot Torque Converter 50448, 2,000 rpm Stall
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Complete Rebuild (Oregon Performance Trans Kit), Red Raybestos clutches, Black Alto Kolene steels, Kevlar bands, “C” code servo, and TransGo Stage 2 shift reprogramming kit