1983 Fairmont + 1980 Zephyr Z7

Over the summer I picked up a 1980 Zephyr Z7 with an I6 and was going to swap a 302 in the car. Plans fell through there and I will be sticking with the 200 I6. The engine in the car is burning oil but a few days ago I found a 1983 fairmont sedan with 40k miles for free. I am going to swap the good running 83' engine into the 80' chassis.

As I do the swap what should I check and replace on my new engine? I need to retain the emmissions junk to pass where I live so removing that is out of the question. I was thinking an MSD box, coil, new oil pan and vale cover gaskets. Basically anything to get me good gas mileage out of this engine. Possibly an electric fan swap like the mustang boys do.

Howdy back Matt:

You are somewhat stuck if you must maintain all of the stock EPA stuff on the '83 engine. The stock ignition system in good shape is about as good as it gets for economy. You can increase the initial timing by about 5 degrees over stock specifications. Adding the MSD box and a hot coil may improve starting and idle, and performance above 4,000 rpms, but it would take many, many miles to break even on the cost due to increased mileage. You'd probably do better airing your tires up another 5lbs and driving 5 mph slower.

The hurtful parts of the EPA requirements are that the exhaust is very choked off, the cam timing is retarded and the carb is the most limited and feed back, electronicified of any carb ever. A new high flow catalytic converter and cat back exhaust system would help. The cam timing can only be solved by changing the cam gears and chain to an earlier, straight up set. The Holly #1946 carb can be improved upon, but only by undoing and eliminating the EPA systems which may be illegal for you. Check your laws. Often for a car this old and an engine with this many miles, the rules may be more liberal (dare I say that word on this forum?).

When it's time for a valve job, you will have several opportunities to improve economy and performance. In 1983 these were unnecessarily low compression engines. Raising the compression to the neighborhood of 9:1 will help economy a bunch. It will probably be the most cost efficient single thing you can do to improve mileage.

While the engine is out, it would be wise to take a good look at the front and rear engine seals, trans seals, the water pump and anywhere else that a leak might occur. It is much easier to deal with these issues with the engine out. A good steam cleaning is also a good idea. It is also cheap insurance to start with new belts and hoses, a new thermostat and power flush the radiator.

You probably know that your X7 is based on the Fox Mustang chassis and all the good stuff from the Mustang world is there for the pickin'.

Enjoy the journey!

Adios, David

Mark P noted the same restrictive, peice of crap exhast, with a thermal reactor cat very close to the cast iron header. There were some trick Duraspark II emission control units, which change the advance ramp on the ignition. The best option is a Schendahl's 3 angle valve grind, a block decking, and/or a set of HSC 2.3 Tempo pistons, and an aftermarket FSPP cam. The balance has to stay stock. The 1946 isn't a bad carb, Mark P listed some good changes. The Clifford port divider seams to help, as long as it doesn't fall out and end upin the thermal reactor!


Check 80 Stang, a Finnish guy on the Formum with a T5 or US Fox Mustang. He has used the stock US bits on his, and got a very good boost to about 115 hp, I think, a 35% boost on the stock 83hp.

Don't worry about the emissions. The car was designed to hit 50 000 miles using the stock low rent timing chain and its likely that if you did swap in a big compression increase, a cam and pocket blended the ports, you'd do much better than a worn stocker.

The Z7, that was the Cougar XR7 style 2-door version, right?

Yes it was,brother "E." OO6./The-X-Or-Six!

Ah, thanks Steven.

They were quite a nice machine. I love 'boxes with soxes'.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'll be replacing the some of the seals on the engine while it is out, cleaning it up, doing a tune up, and getting a new exhaust with a high flow cat. I was wondering do the cats on these early 80's cars have air injection like newer cars do? I didn't notice anything as I was pulling parts off the cars.

And this is not a Cougar XR7, it is a Zephyr Z7, basically a Fairmont Futura clone.

Matt, make sure your'e not going from a low mount starter in the 80 to a high mount in the 83 or you'll be changing more than the engine.

don

Don, thanks for the heads up. I have read something about the starter and trans bolt pattern issues on the latest of the 200ci sixes but it should not be an issue because I am using the tranmission already attached to the engine in the donor car. I believe it is a C5. Is it true that these later blocks can be mounted up to an AOD? I doubt I would swap the trans but I thought I saw somewhere it would fit.

Nitroracer":1rdypbly said:

Don, thanks for the heads up. I have read something about the starter and trans bolt pattern issues on the latest of the 200ci sixes but it should not be an issue because I am using the tranmission already attached to the engine in the donor car. I believe it is a C5. Is it true that these later blocks can be mounted up to an AOD? I doubt I would swap the trans but I thought I saw somewhere it would fit.

Click to expand...

Yes it is true and the details are in the ford falcon performance handbook. It seems a straight forward swap if you have the right bits. Consensus here is the AOD is too heavy @ 165 pounds compared to 65 for the c4/c5. I wonder though if being able to run lower gears would make up for it. It'd have to be a built 200.

I have the c5 w lockup torque converter and 2.79 rear. With 23.6" tall tires I'm turning 2600 at 65 mph. The C5 works well for me but my car only weighs about 2500 pounds.

and WELCOME! to fordsix.com

These were such NICE little cars these Fairmonts/Granadas/Zephers/LTD's,ect,ect. But those HEATER CORES........when they 'went' they 'went' BIG :splat: :arg: :thumbdown: :wrench: :smash: :help: ....A real pain in the a$$ to replace. I had the chance to get my hands on a 1-owner '82 Mercury Cougar coupe with a 'hollow-crank' 255 V8,AOD transmission,power everything for $2OO from my local scrapper. I said 'I'll take it',but the day after I bought it,it got smashed by a group of junkers that fell off the scrap pile during the night during a nasty thunderstorm......needless to say,I got my '200' back. I do have a Fairmont 2-door 'post' sedan & a Mercury Zepher 'post' sedan(check my old posts.....)both were saved from scrap. Both are powered by 2OO's. A nd both were Ex-1- owner cars. If ya ever need Z-3 'COUPE' parts,let me know. I have several sets of COUPE ONLY doors,taillights,rear glass(getting hard to find those.......)trunklids,rear quarter glass..........I have a ton of shit(too much??),indeed,I'm on the trail of an old engine-less Z-3 coupe with excellent fenders(love the fender 'louvers'.....),a very nice passenger side door,nice taillights,bumpers,ect,ect. It even has a complete set of '87/'88 Mustang-GT 4-lug 'finned' wheels on it. The guy wants $350,but I belive I can get it for a little less. Alaway's hunting! Nice car by the way. And it's nice to have another 'P.A.' resident on the board! OO6./The-X-Or-Six!

Nitro, my 82 'mont has an air injection port on the exhaust pipe, below the manifold, and an injection port attached to the manifold itself. No port on the cat, so I use a regular cat w/o the hose fitting.

Nice Zephyr.

Hey, I see there are some Holley 1946 mods listed by Mark P. Can anyone direct me to those? Either that, or I'm thinking about putting a Carter YFA from a 300 on it.

It's not good to show favoritism, but in this guys case, I'll make an exception!

http://fordsix.com/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=290

and especially, http://fordsix.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14647&highlight=

1.Please note that the search engine doesn't always work well due to some issues with the server back-up. Everything has been done to improve it.

2.My tip is to look through old posts in the forum the person frequents. In this case, page 14 of the 144-250 forum.

3. The other option is looking through 76 odd pages of members.
You only get out of something, what you put into it!


Dean-O, x-taxi punter

Thanks for the links, xtaxi. I'm still finding my way around the site.

Yeah, I think this Holley is too anemic for this engine. It definitely feels like it's wheezing at higher RPMs. Idles well, and runs fine, just feels like it's gasping all the time, if ya know what I mean.

I don't want to dump a lot of money into performance mods, just help it out a little. I think I'll give a YFA from a 300 a shot, and see how it goes. Gotta leave the cat, EGR and AIR there, for the feds.