MIne have a 3.8 CARBED (old carb with fuel pump activated by the cam), and I rebuilted last Year, and looooooooove it, very not a great performer, but It not a fuel hangry.
I noticed all of Your nhate this 3.8l, it's a good engine (except head gasket issue), strong little engine, reliable and so fast for a 120HP engine...
I owned a bigger and faster engine/cars over the years, and I like this little (V6)...
But My next Bird (86) will be gaved with a 351C :hick:
Regards,
Dom.
I don't hate it.
I don't hate it either. I have 2 of them.
i think its the following:
-headgasket issue OBVIOUSLY we all know that
-practically no hop-ups, so good luck getting more than that 120 hp out of it!
thats what people dont like about it. other than that apparently its ok! its too bad about those two things, though, it would be really cool if it was like GM's 3.8. practically EVERY show-off video on the 'net ive seen of turbo regals, grand nationals, gnx's theyre BUILT and the car twists as it flies down the dragstrip!
of course, even stock those engines made a lot of power!
when i went to pull-a-part, theres one thing i noticed when i was looking in the trashed cars they had for maybe that diamond n the rough upper or lower HO intake, and the ONLY intake that was left on ANY ford car there was the 3.8 Fuelie. i mean most of them had been seporated from the lower intake, with the rest of everything else still holding the upper in the car...
You answered your own ?? 351,You want more.
its a good little engine if you are happy the way it is stock. the 5.0 gets just about the same gas mileage but sounds much better.
its a v6 so i don't care for it, but you could always use a supercoupe motor. i want a gm series 2 supercharged powered vechial cause you can get some serious numbers out of them, right now im looking into a 97 fully loaded riviera.
I had one in a '91 MN12, so obviously it was the worst thing I'd ever driven, power-wise. That was fuel injected and still a glutton. No power to speak of, and it was a boat. Thus, boat anchor. The engine ran like a top, but it drank 93 like it was going out of style. I sold it shortly after I filled my first $70 tank on any vehicle. It's pretty sad to think 70 bucks was shocking in 2000.
Oh, the tranny had to be rebuilt too.
But , what a car to sit in and cruise the highway with. The MN12 is still lots to work with, despite the powertrain. The hell with the 3.8. That's my py experience, anyway.
There are ways to get more power out of them. I've been pondering the idea of finding a V6 Fox T-bird or Cougar and performing a split port swap on it. Of course, there would be a computer issue. I don't know how an EEC-v would react if it did not see an electronically controlled transmission. I suppose a computer from an '99-up 5 speed V6 Mustang would work, not sure though.
I've had two 3.8's. The first one was just like yours, Dom - a carbed '85 model. It was actually quicker than the 301 4-bbl in the '80 Formula I sold to buy the '85 T-Bird. I had no problems with that engine except the electric choke burned off, so I installed a manual choke, and the valve seals were worn. I replaced them in trade school and the car was good to go - it had over 400k km's on it when I traded it on my next 3.8, this time in a 91 T-Bird. That one was a POS - it blew a head gasket at 80k km's, then spun a rod bearing and ruined the crank at 135k km's. When I rebuilt it it didn't have another problem for the next 265k km (it had about 400k on it when I sold it), but it poisoned me on the 3.8's for life. That whole car was poison, though - with ball joints all four at $300 per), stablizer links ($70 each), electrical problems (ignition switch fire stranded me outside Susshag, NB) and rust combined with the engine problems I promised myself I'd never own another 3.8 or MN12. So deep is my hatred for the MN12 that I walked away from a rare supercharged 5-speed '90 XR7 last year that was for sale for peanuts ($1k with rusty rockers). It sat on the side of the road for over a year and just recently disappeared.
That being said I would love to some day build a twin turbo split port (with custom upper intake with two throttle bodies) 4.2 and stuff it into a four eye. Must be a glutton for punishment...
I love the 3.8L. I know them rather well, and know what it takes to make the roll. The only issue is money. The parts come at a premium, and machine work is expensive. Not to mention the good parts are 99+, making them expensive.
If i had the money, id have a badass 3.8L before id have a 5.0 rolling.
I used to think what is wrong with these people when I heard how they all think the 3.8 suck's. I had a 88 cougar 3.8 and it was pretty nice little engine. I have since driven 5-6 83-87 birds/cougars with the 3.8 CFI and they are what everyone is talking about. They down right are a pile of . If ford would have had the 88-up 3.8 back in 85-86 they could have changed the way everyone else looks at the 3.8. Yes they are pr0ne to pop a head gasket but atleast the real EFI motors had some performance to them, not this sucks worse than a N/A four banger the CFI is.
Lol, the ford 3.8 is a piece of shiznit. (period)
The 3.8 is a great engine.It wasn't put in our cars for performance.For regular driving,it has good toorque,great road anners,efficient.Not for me when it comes to performance.I really like the 5.0,and I'm looking forward to my 5.8 swap in the future.
I suppose that for the majority of the people who bought a Tbird or Cougar who didn't place a priority on going faster than the speed limit, the 3.8 was good enough, indeed, mine was plenty fast enough to get me in serious trouble, had I chosen to be stupid.
I'd have another one, if the whole car was in decent shape, my ONLY gripe with the V6 cars is that they have the column shift, and the non-TC/XR7/Sport interiors stock.
As for the older carb 3.8, I don't know, because all I've ever had were '88 versions, with the balance shaft, and I found that both of mine were smooth, reliable, and yeah, 140 HP may not seem like so much, but on a closed road, I was able to get my white Bird up to 127 mph, per W2 mod. I won't say the car did that actual speed, but it indicated it.
Anywho, for just a daily, or an older person, or a young driver, the 3.8 is a good engine if properly maintained, but beat on it hard, and it WILL fail.
As with every engine, it has good points and bad both. And on, and on, and on.......
The ONLY 2 times mine failed to get me home was when I replaced the water pump, and didn't get the fan bolts tight enough. Fan came loose at idle, chopped up the upper rad. hose, and tore the shroud to all hell. I had the parts at home, but it was dark, and raining, so it sat till the next morning in my friends yard.
The last time was when the car caught fire from the oil leak from the PS and burnt the fuel lines...I have no doubt if I had new lines under it, it'd start again, busted rod notwithstanding.
Basically, it's never let me down due to something other than my lack of preventing. Fan bolts, and low oil, which busted a rod.
Yet again I will post up links to 3.8 hop up parts.
http://www.supersixmotorsports.com/
http://www.moranav6racing.com/
ZondaC12 is referring to the CFI 3.8s. His quote would be more accurate if it read:
"practically no
useful hop-ups
without major upgrades, so good luck getting
much more than that 120 hp out of it!
The CFI is limited by the EEC. '83-'85 cars don't have adaptive strategy. Any mods will lean out WOT, since the EEC cannot adapt to the greater influx of air.
You can bypass this limitation by installing a '86-'87 EEC...but you're still limited with a non-tunable speed density EEC. At best, you can add about 25 horses before you run out of the adaptive limits.
To get any real power out of the 3.8, you need to go MPFI...preferably with a MAF. Then you can add the go-fast parts from the above links and have fun, fun, fun (until the po-pos take your Tbird away)
http://www.moranav6racing.com/category.html?CategoryID=2#69
The first intake in the list.
http://www.moranav6racing.com/category.html?CategoryID=8
You quoted an incomplete thought from me.
The 3.8 engine is a good one.
Look at the v6 aftermarkets for the F bodies?? Where is it?
Now look at the aftermarket for v6 Mustangs......
I completely agree. But you can upgrade the intake and exhaust and gain a few more HP. A free flowing engine is a happy engine.
You can also replace your 3.8 with a 4.2 and get more power that way without even touching the insides. Plus you can stroke the 4.2 to 4.4.
my buddy has a f body v6 with heads, cam, intake, and exhaust, among other things goes pretty good, but he put like 8k in it which to me was a waste
The 3.8 engine is what it is. When it debuted in the early 1980's it was going head-to-head with GM's 231cid/3.8 V6. Now my folks had one of those in their old 1980 Bonneville. You want to talk about a motor that absolutely sucks...worthless pile junk. They had that car when I got my '84 with the 3.8. They couldn't believe the difference in power and quality in the Cougar vs. the GM 3.8 in the Bonnie. So as bad as some people think the Ford 3.8 is, for its time and against the early GM 3.8 it was the clear winner.
Throughout the 1980's GM sunk a LOT more money into its 3800 program, though, especially when it became the powerplant of choice for their FWD cars. They really made that engine into a real performer (heh, and let's not forget the turbo 3.8's in the GNs). Ford, on the other hand, seemed satisfied with their 3.8 enough for minimal changes for almost 20 years. The only "all new" 3.8 was the supercharged SC motor. All new block, heads, etc. Two different manufacturers, two very different paths for each motor. GM had a lot more advantages with their engine, plain and simple. When the 1994 Lincoln Continental had a whopping 160hp 3.8 V6 as its only engine, you know that Ford slacked off in a big way.
The sad part is, a 1998 Windstar with the 200hp 3.8 will blow away nearly any other Ford 3.8-equipped car. My buddy's friend used to race 4.6 stock V8 Mustangs in Detroit with his frickin' Windstar minivan. And nearly win every time. That, boys and girls, is pathetic.
Unfortunately we have a legacy 3.8 engine with pretty much no support and no hope (sort of like the whole car in general...why would the engine be any different LOL). But for what it is--a basic commuter engine--it does the job well enough. It's not a spectacular engine, it's not a remarkable or noteworthy engine, it's nowhere near a performance engine...but it is the engine that's installed in roughly 60% of these cars. Like it or not, it's the majority.
Until 1999. The 99+ split port Mustangs made 190 hp and 225 ft-lb of torque, compared to the 200/240 from a Windstar.
The reason the Mustangs had less power was due to shorter intake, in order to fit under the hood.
Eh?
The weakest 4.6 Mustang had more HP/TQ, and weighed less.
Um...I was in the van. ;)
The Windstars are no slouches. They don't BEAT Mustangs but they do piss off Mustang owners. Stoplight-to-stoplight, the Windstar jumps ahead every time.
It also beats out the lowly 255 V8 it replaced...
It's definately unpossible, you should give up. ;)
Let's see hows this go ..... Fast, Cheap, Reliable.....Pick Two
For some oddball reason, I think you're being sarcastic:hick: ;)