New Guy From PA
 

I've been lurking here since June and have decided to do an EFI 5.0 Ford conversion. I picked up a solid '95 with the hardtop from a college student that needed quick cash. I am mechanically inclined - I did a 460 conversion in a Fox Mustang and a 302 in a Ranger pickup, but they were both carbureted. I have no experience and very little knowledge of fuel injection, emission controls or their supporting systems. My plan is to go with Martin's kit and have most everything I need before I start. I haven't contacted him yet. I've got a K-frame coming from ebay. I will buy a new oil pan and rear hubs. Are Dorman hubs okay or should I get OEM? The car has P/S, A/C, and cruise all of which I would like to retain if possible. I emailed Jason at his website, but I haven't heard from him yet, so maybe he will see this. I plan on buying a new T5 and hopefully I can find a suitable engine and diff scouring local salvage yards. Also, anyone familiar with PA emission laws? I live in Clearfield county and we do not have any testing, only a visual inspection of the emission equipment during the safety inspection. There are some local guys that will put a sticker on almost anything, but I don't want to have to rely on that. I'm sure I'll have numerous questions once I get started, so bear with my guys.

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the community!

Jason being in your back yard should be a great resource for you. Also, you couldn't make a better choice than using Martin's kit, not only because it is well-proven but also for the great support he provides his customers through the build process.

I strongly relate to the trepidation of building your first EFI project. I am in the same boat, having built multiple project cars but none of them EFI. Perhaps the questions we both ask will be mutually beneficial.

Best of luck on your build!

Welcome! There are a lot of people on here that will be more than happy to help you along. As far as your hubs go, just send your old ones or a spare set from the junk yard. The chances that you get back the same exact set of hubs after broaching is probably slim. Same goes with the oil pan.

Hi Dennis.
I'm glad you posted here. I did see your emails but between a busy week at my "real job" and a sick 1 year old and 3 year old at home at the same time it's been a little hard to get to MRM stuff.

Don't be concerned about the complexity of fuel injection. Honestly it take a whole lot more grey matter to figure out how to get a carb to work correctly than it does to plug the wires into the right plug for fuel injection. Tuning a fuel injection system (only needed if you go with a MegaSquirt or other stand-alone) can be a bit rough if you're green to it but only because you would need to first learn all the fundamentals that someone who is familiar with how carboration works would know.

The harnesses I make up are completely plug and play and can be installed in about 2 to 3 hours. As long as you did not stray to far from stock you should be able to just plug an a9l ecu in and fire it up when done. If you do need it tuned doing so with a stock Ford ecu is not something you can do yourself anyhow without the aid of a tuner who can burn you a chip. This usually runs about $600 and many places will allow you to come back in for reflashes at a lower rate once they initially dial it in.

Here in PA if your car predates 1996 (is not OBD2) you will be subjected to one of two different types of emissions evaluations once a year based on where you live. If you live in the Philadelphia or Pittsburgh metro areas you will have to subject the car to a running tailpipe emissions test during which the car is put on a special one-speed only dyno and tail pipe sniffed while "driving" at 35 mph.
There is no accommodations that are made for what drive line you just happened to drop in the car for this test. You are held to the standards set for the car's chassis and year, not the specific engine you put in. As far as Harrisburg is concerned it is still a 4-cylinder Miata and it must be as clean as one. The fortunate part of this is that NA Miatas are actually pretty dirty little things with very large acceptable thresholds for emissions. Origianal 1990 to 93 Miatas have nothing other than a catalytic converter and vapor purge tank. After 1994 they only added a EGR valve. Further, they assume your car is aging every year and in order to accommodate that they actually increase the acceptable emissions levels for every model of car each new year. Because of this it is very easy to make a rebuilt Ford 302 (or 331 even) with an EGR valve and two new cats pass right under the acceptable limits for the car. When I lived closer to Philadelphia I got two separate cars through twice.

If you are lucky enough to live anywhere else in the Commonwealth all you are subjected to is the visual test, which is also part of the above test. To pass this all they need to see is the same type of equipment that the car had from the factory. For a 1990-93 car this means a vapor purge canister, a functioning PCV system, and a catalytic converter. If your car is a 1994 or 1995 they will also look for the EGR valve. All of this equipment does not have to be Mazda, the Ford stuff is fine.

Note that I did not say a smog pump. No Miata ever had a smog pump so there is no reason to add it to the car (it does nothing anyhow). Run a shorter belt and bypass it.

Unfortunately if you want to build a post 1996 OBD2 car in PA you are out of luck. It is not illegal but there is no procedure on the books to even handle it in an emissions test. The only way to get one through would be to get the car checked once as a Miata before the swap and then never drive it more than 5000 miles a year. If you can keep it under 5K miles the test is exempted. I've heard some people keep two gauge cluster for their car for this reason. I would not condone such behavior as I need to be an example of proper environmental responsibility for my students :) Did I mention my Miata gets a whopping 4.5 MPG on the track?

Please feel free to stop by and take a spin in my car before you start your project. It's still in "track mode" right now and probably will be going in for some cancer surgery soon so it may not be available for real viewing until the spring.

Hope that helps,

-Jason

Thanks for the info and kind offer Jason. I definitely want one of your harnesses as well as anything else MRM has to offer to get me going. I found someone local that has a Tbird with a 7.5" and its a 3.27L but I have to take the whole rear assembly. He wants $350 for it. I'm going to keep looking but have this to fall back on. If I source an engine from something other than a Mustang, do you have any of the front dress items I would need? I plan on retaining the A/C and using the Miata P/S pump.

Get ahold of Martin first. He may sell you hubs and pan without an exchange and it probably would be cheaper than shipping your old parts. I'm in Canada and he did that and also sold me a nice front subframe too.
I'm in the final "parts gathering" stage right now and plan to dig into the car in about 2 weeks when the wife goes away on a shopping trip.

I'm in the process of figuring out what I need for a "stage 2" 7.5 diff in my car. I currently have a stock 7.5 3.27 with the factory Traction-Loc. It has been fine as a street and light track use differential but do what I'm hoping to do from this point on I'm going to have to go a little beyond factory issue.

Since I'm planning on switching to an ABS-compatible case and changing the gear ratio I most likely will end up pulling a new donor at Harry's U-Pullit. this would leave my whole diff as is for sale. As long as you are only looking to do street stuff with it it should be fine to get you started. It's all cleaned up and Por-15 coated with new axle seals. The only thing it really needs is a new breather of some type.

Harry's U-Pullit is a great resource for everything you will need as far as brackets and such. The stuff you would need depends on how far from a Mustang the engine is. Pulled from a Lincoln you would only need the Alternator bracket where if you pull from an Explorer you'd need the whole front from the timing cover forward unless you wanted to stay with the shorter Explorer accessories (hard to make AC work).

-Jason