My friend is looking to mod out his 95 F-150 5.8 and we think he may need to swap out the SD EFI for mass air. I assume it is like a Mustang as it will take small mods but not things like cam,heads, etc. Let me know the best thing to do. Thanks ahead of time!!

 

Yes, a mass air conversion is highly recommended for cam/head swaps. And in order to make some serious n/a power gains, cam and head swaps are essential. Ford Racing makes a conversion kit for 5.8L engines.

 

Ya but in the ford racing catalog it only list the MAF ocnversion for trucks up to '93, I'm wondering if that's only because some started going with MAF in '94

 

Well, in the catalog it's listed as '87-'93 5.0/5.8, and I know that '94 is when the 5.0's started coming out with mass air. Personally, I've never seen a stock '87 351 with fuel injection. So I'm assuming those years might be referring to the 5.0 rather than the 5.8. I don't think there would be anything different on a '95 351 than a '93 351. But then again, I don't own one.

 

Personally I would save the money for a custom tune. The guys over at NLOC are running more goodies than you could imagine with a speed density setup and a tune.

I don't think speed density systems are nearly as limited as most people tend to think.

 

The reason it only covers up to '93 is because it is for AOD trans only, '94 AODE came out and is controlled by the computer, the Lightining mass air kit could be used with some mods, it has the right computer for tranny control. Baumann has a kit to control a AODE without a computer, check out their web site.

 

Well, I thought that could be the reason too, but it also only goes up to '93 for the manual transmission applications as well. So for whatever explanation we can generate, there always seems to be some inconsistencies in our theories.

 

Well wasn't '94 when they started putting in MAF is some of the trucks? They probably just wanted to save ink in the magazine so they didn't have to explain the MAF/SD thing, you would be surprised how often they do crap like that.

 

That does sound logical.

 

i agree with signmaster. you guys should check out nloc, do a search on speed density versus mass air, and you'll find some of the amazing things these guys do with their speed density setups. its all the benefits of mass air without the hassles

 

It is very true, you can make speed density kick butt. As a matter of fact, speed density Mustangs in stock form typically were slightly faster than their mass air cousins in stock form. The only drawback is you need a programmable engine management system to recalibrate every time you make mods or you will have to get a new chip burned every time you do mods which gets expensive real fast. Mass air systems will handle much more tweaking and mods before you even need to consider getting into custom chip sets.

Sproket_X is right, it is also true that the manual trans mass air kit would work on a 94 or 95, but since most of them are already mass air, you don't need an application for them. I spent two hours talking to the Ford Racing hot line on this very subject deciding what kit I was going to ultimately get.

Something to keep in mind is the standard kit has the stock 5.0 truck firing order 1,5.....not the HO or 351 1,3....so it makes a difference what cam choice you make because the firing order needs to match. I'm doing surgery on my harness to change it since I got an HO firing order cam.

 

Fast Pony,

On the SD issue, the tunes aren't free for sure, but for way less than the cost of the mass air you could get a chip and several burns, or an EEC Tuner or TwEECer and do them yourself. There is a lot of support in tuner forums for such things.


As for the mass air kits, also remember that besides the tranny changes the stock Mass Air trucks were also using the HO firing order. I seem to recall that only some '94 trucks had mass air, and I think these were California trucks. If this was the case there should really be no reason for a "kit" since you could made a mass air truck by ordering the Cal spec EEC and related parts.

 

Yeah I have a 95 w/ mass air, and I have the HO firing order.

 

I now of a few guy's with 94's and 95's with MAF and some of there trucks aren't even near Cali.

 

Yeah, that's what kinda sucked about the mass air kit, it was made to plug and play on the old firing order, but that's okay, I'm a Sparky by trade, easy fix. Transpose four wires and viola! HO firing order.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it is the cheapest route; it all depends on what you are doing and where you want to go. For me it was mass air because I'm a Mustang head (remember, I have three of them) and I'm familiar with the system and know how to make it work for my application, for someone else, speed density may be better. It's a relative thing really.