Where would it go? 3.8L V6 Fox Body Mustang

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FLATKITTY

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I spoke w/a guy at the track this weekend who expressed an interest in running a 1984/86 Fox body w/a 3.8L V6 engine. Don't know much about Fox body Mustangs, so we had the tech guys look it up &, lo & behold, it has not been classified. It shows the Fox w/the 2.8L V6 in ITA & the SN95 (1994/98) w/the 3.8L V6 in ITS, but no 1984/86 Fox w/the 3.8L V6. I understand you can apply for classification, but any thoughts on where this half-breed might land ... ITA or ITS? And the poundage it might carry?:shrug:
 
That was a "3" engine code I think, 120hp. I never remember seeing many of them and there is also some transmission funny business in that the V8s had five speeds, that engine might have been four speed only. Not sure about that but that seems how I remember it.

Anyhow, a classification request is straight forward using The Process. At 120hp:

120hp x 1.25 x 14.5 = 2175 lbs + 50lbs for torque = 2225 lbs in ITA

120hp x 1.25 x 12.9 = 1935 lbs + 50lbs for torque = 1985 lbs in ITS

Maybe B would be a good fit.

120hp x 1.25 x 16 = 2400 lbs + 50 lbs for torque = 2450 lbs in ITB. That's probably about the most realistic class as even at 2400 lbs the Fox with 3.8L won't make weight. Ron S. is at 25XX lbs with the Fox and 2.3L four cylinder, and they paid good attention to weight detail.
 
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"That was a "3" engine code ..."

What is a "3" engine code?

"120hp x 1.25 x 14.5 = 2719 lbs + 50lbs for torque = 2250 lbs in ITA"

Is it just me or should that be ... 120hp x 1.25 x 14.5 = 2175 lbs + 50lbs for torque = 2225 lbs?
 
"3" is Ford's engine code for that motor in those years. Whoops, arithmetic mistake, corrected in the post. That'd be 2225 lbs for ITA.
 
I haven't exhaustively searched for 84-86 3.8L V6 info, but it is clear it uses a dual injector throttle body system. Not necessarily a bad thing, but without knowing more about the size of the throttle body and manifold it'd be hard to know what sort of potential this engine would have. It was used in many Ford cars, including the Cougar where I found a short blurb on it from CoolCats.

I suspect it'd make a great race car. It certainly follows my axiom of pick the car with the largest engine and the lowest specific output.

"The second type used central fuel injection (CFI) from 1984-87. This motor retained the traditional circular air cleaner but swapped out the carburetor for a throttle-body type injection sytem (1-bbl with 2 high-flow injectors). Output was now rated at 120 hp. The engine used Ford's EEC-IV system, greatly increasing the ability to troubleshoot problems. Some early cars (1984-85) had issues with faulty EEC modules, though, resulting in poor performance and reliability until properly diagnosed. Generally this CFI setup was very responsive and did its job well. The heads were updated from the carb style, with revised exhaust ports. By far, this was the most popular engine to be found in 1984-87 Cougars. "​

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Purely as an educational item, I'm interested in knowing this. The above motor is a tbi setup. They usually have no, or very few, canned efi tuning options available to them. Not talking specifically of the Ford, but more in general. Simply put, most people when modding these motors, would swap out to either a multi port setup, or maybe even go back to carb. AFAIK, seemingly the way to provide tunability to a tbi setup is to do something like a megasquirt, before doing which you'd need to reverse-engineer at very least the pulse widths the stock ECU is sending to those couple injectors.

I'm coming at this from Honda-land, and the dpfi setup on the D15 EF Civic. The Honda motor uses some sort of a staged tbi system, where it has a primary injector and a smaller secondary. So to figure out how to drive these would mean you'd have to figure out how/why/when each injector is used, for which I'd think you'd have to scope it.

I've since moved on to a Civic Si, but I still think about how tuning tbi would work from time to time.

Will
 
That engine runs Ford EEC-IV and isn't a ton you can do with it, BUT, I did read somewhere that a company was making a plug and play megasquirt for the 5L EEC-IV application. I doubt that it'd help here but you never know.

In this particular case you can't swap to multiport EFI or a carb, like you would do if you weren't rules constrained. But for sure you could put a MS on it and tune it up, essentially it becomes an electronic carb much like the Holley carb conversions for muscle cars. And I suspect this engine would respond well and make great power.
 
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It would take a lot of work to make legal weight with a Fox body and it may not even be possible. Not every minimum weight listed for a car by SCCA is makeable.
 
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