The beauty of lock up, and a quality converter is that the street manners are pretty well preserved, even with a decent stall speed. You get what you pay for in converters. The Precision Industries converter that Disney referred to is one of the better ones. More torque multiplication, and no crazy slippage in most cases. If you base your converter experience off of the typical cheap converter, you'll most likely be disappointed.

 

One huge advantage you have is that you have an AOD. The AOD has two input shafts. The outer shaft is coupled to the converter and provides stall in R, 1, and 2. The inner shaft is directly coupled to the crankshaft and it controls 3 and 4. So once you shift to 3rd, there is no more converter. It's locked, like it or not.
I've been through a bunch of AOD converters and have been happy with maybe 3 of them. Two were PI, and one is my current PTC (that took 3 tries to get right). And I don't think my current PTC feels as nice as the PI ones did. If they are still around, i'd look for one of theirs.
Pete has left Hughes and I believe is working at Circle D now. He's still on the boards.

 

I will keep my eyes open for a quality unit this summer.
So I decided to order a new set of front lower control arms. I figured that by the time I got new ball joints installed on my old arms off the 85, sandblast and paint them, i would be better off just getting a new set. I checked local prices and I was surprised how expensive they were. Then I went to good old Rock Auto and sure enough they had sets for a third of the price! So I ordered a set along with a new cap, rotor and plugs. Only took three days from when I paid to being at my door! Man this thing is really carboned up! The plugs are badly fouled, I mean the electrodes are black! So at first I thought it was the egr, the car runs excellent on cold start while in open loop but when it goes into closed loop in the idle starts to oscillate a bit and has stalled a few times. Man can you smell the exhaust, she’s running way to rich! So while checking out the egr, vacuum lines, etc. I noticed yellow injectors , which unfortunately is not correct for this car. The standard output 302 engines use the mighty 14lb grey top injectors! So I am thinking the original owner put these on by accident. ( he couldn’t get the car running apparently) Do you think the pcm would be able to run the engine with the 19’s even though it is supposed to be 14’s? I have seen guys try to run 24’s on a stock fox pcm and the engine would not run near as well as this one does, so unless this car is some oddball that came with 19lb injectors, which I know it’s not, that means I have to do something about this issue. So I decided to waste a bit of money and picked up a set of 14lb units. I did this for a couple of reasons, even though I am upgrading the heads, intake and cam, along with exhaust, trans mods, rear gears and control arms, the main issue is lack of garage space. But I am trying to get my 85 booked in for a 8.5 cage this fall or early winter and I will then have garage space to upgrade this car. In the meantime I want to drive this thing. The car is burning through gas as is so I need a fix so I can get some decent fuel economy this summer. I know it is a waste buying these injectors but I need it running correct even if for just the summer. So anyways I will do the front suspension mods over the long weekend and hopefully the injectors will be here by then. In the meantime I have been doing a 140 mph speedo upgrade, as well as a digital media player, speakers sct. I am also going to dig out the turbo coupe hood I have, it is all shrink wrapped up in my basement and I think it is the exact same colour, as it came off of a grey 88. Hope so anyways, that would be a bonus.

 

19's are 30% increase of 14's. The ECU cannot make up for that.

 

Could you fill it up with E85 and see if it runs leaner?

 

We don’t have e85 here. I do have a 88 5.0 speed density pcm but I am pretty sure I need to change the cam out at the same time. I was planning on doing everything at the same time so I just decided to get some 14’s for now. Maybe I will be able to sell them when I am done? Not having any luck trying to sell those 14” wheels and tires either.

 

IIRC 14s came on the non ho engines like crown vics and 19s were in ho engines like the mustangs.

 

Yea for sure, it’s pretty funny how well it runs though. I mean the plugs look terrible, rotor and cap are worn, wrong injectors and original plug wires! The guy who I bought the car from bought it from the original owner who had the car parked in his garage for quite some time. He was an older guy who wasn’t driving it so he decided to sell it. I asked the seller who got the car running, if he changed the injectors and he said he hadn’t. So I am assuming that the original owner thought the car needed new injectors and got the wrong ones. Oh well next weekend I will see what’s up.

 

What do you guys think about Pro Torque converters? They have a decent price on a 12” lock up that should work well. They rate the stall at 2000 to 2500 rpm, next step up is a 10” 2600 to 2800 rpm stall.

 

I can't comment on pro torque, but imo, definitely go 10" and 2800.

 

So I did the 140 mph Speedo deal and changed plugs, rotor and cap. I also installed some 14lb injectors. So upon fire up, not so good, fuel leak at I assume the #4 injector, must not have got it placed properly. So I will have to redo that in the morning before I start on the front suspension. The 19#; injectors look like the came from a wreckers as they are in poor condition.

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Not a fan. I tried one years ago that I bought off this forum. It sucked.

 

I did check out the pi converters but they do not sell a lock up unit any longer, I mean with the two piece input shaft, does a lock up make much of a difference in fuel economy? I just want to get the best mileage I can on the highway.

 

So it was not the number 4 injector leaking, it is the stupid crossover line on the fuel rail. I must have messed with it to much and considering the lines are 34 years old I guess that is to be expected. At one point I must have had half a dozen 5.0 fuel rails, not one these days. I guess I will try to repair it with high pressure efi fuel hose (1/4”) I think it is quarter inch not positive though and some efi fuel clamps and see if I can get this thing going. Only found this out today, Saturday was a rain day so I did not get much done on the car, need a bigger garage! Car is going in for gears pretty soon, got to get this working properly.

 

So it was not the number 4 injector leaking, it is the stupid crossover line on the fuel rail. I must have messed with it to much and considering the lines are 34 years old I guess that is to be expected. At one point I must have had half a dozen 5.0 fuel rails, not one these days. I guess I will try to repair it with high pressure efi fuel hose (1/4”) I think it is quarter inch not positive though and some efi fuel clamps and see if I can get this thing going. Only found this out today, Saturday was a rain day so I did not get much done on the car, need a bigger garage! Car is going in for gears pretty soon, got to get this working properly.

 

Of the cheaper options out there, I like the Boss Hog 10". https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ape-26403

 

So I used then5/16” efi hose with clamps and that worked perfect, I hadn’t noticed but the front crossover had been done also before with the same hose. So I started taking apart the right front suspension and then remembered that this stupid car has the 4 cylinder 10” front discs! As everybody knows the factory 11” brakes that came off fox 5.0 mustangs are barely adequate and also the front tokiko d spec shocks need the thinner pad on the spindle to mount up to. So I need a set of V8 fox spindles, that is not such an easy find these days.
So I just buttoned that all back up as I will need some time to get what I need for the conversion. I then took the car out for a drive, man this thing idles fine when you start it but when it warms up into closed loop, I am getting a surge, oscillation type of deal. When accelerating it seems like it has a slight miss but I am sure these 14# injectors I put in are not correct or else one is not firing. The thing is though this car is sefi, not batch fire so I would think that if one injector was off it would not idle worth a crap even in open loop? I am thinking that somebody might have replaced the ecu with a fox mustang one along with the 19lb injectors the car had before I started working on it. The weekends go by so fast it seems, I am gone most of it not all week with my job and getting much done on the car is tough but doable in my short time I get to work on it. So next I will check the ecu and see what’s in there. I have no other idea of what it might be but the car definable ran better with the 19’s but smelled pig rich. Egr? Iac? Any ideas would be helpful, thanks guys.

 

Verify MAF diameter is right for the PCM, and check its voltage outputs.

 

It is speed density

 

Hah! Of course it is.