Although I felt like I paid a lot of attention to the Ford cars and their powertrains in the early/mid '80s as a young teen, the CFI was totally off my radar until a decade later when Bronco folks were trying to figure out which EFI systems to use. Only one Bronco owner that I know of (Shannon Shirk, for those of you who were around in the Bronco mailing list(s) days) ever adapted the CFI stuff (think his was from a Lincoln) to his truck. And as I recall, his installation was quite memorable because in the attempt to clean up the wiring in his harness, he inadvertently wiped all the coloring and/or lettering off the wires which made the installation a lot more difficult.
Todd Z.
Official Thread-jack Warning!!!
The CFI Mustang 5.0 in 1985 put out 10-20 less horsepower than the carburetted version causes MUCH confusion. The fact the Mustang 5.0 HO with CFI came without the roller cam and put out less power causes many to believe that the CFI is not an HO.
@Broncobowsher can confirm this, but the CFI version in the Mustang was still branded HO" even though it actually didn't have "high output" It was a low output "HO" engine. To have a 175HP 5.0 with CFI, and a 185HP 5.0 with a Carb in the same year model Mustang is just silly, and to add a 165HP 5.0 HO in an LTD just makes things silly. This is another reason why marketing terms should never be associated with performance or specifications. But since I have come to terms with the fact that my 1969 Mach 1 will not achieve 760 mph, I guess Ford can call a low output 4949cc engine an HO. And yes, my 70 Boss 302 put out more than 290 HP, but is not high output.
Every reasonable person KNOWS that the 5.0 HO engine should be associated with a feature. Like more power, or a roller cam, Or sequential EFI, or GT heads...or even a double roller timing chain. But alas, no. The 5.0 HO engine is associated with a sticker on the air cleaner, and less power.
But back to my point...the fact that the Mustang 5.0 CFI was a turd compared to the carburetor version led many to believe that CFI was junk. It took several years to learn that Throttle Body Injection (TBI) was not inherently junk. Thank God for the GM TBI system, which was proven to provide reliable horsepower and propel millions of pickups, vans, cars and boats down the road for years. Good enough that Howell figured out how to put TBI on pretty much everything. Stand alone controller, dead reliable, cheap, and plentiful. Now legendary. Totally killed Ford CFI for any enthusiast. (Except one guy named Shannon Shirk?)
GM TBI dispelled almost every prejudice against fuel injection, and killed almost every argument from the carburetor fans. But the damage was done. By the time the enthusiast realized that TBI was awesome...the factory had moved on to port injection. So it took some guys from Holley and FITech to convince the world that TBI is the answer. And now that we've learned how to properly plumb 50 psi gasoline, we seem to have stopped incinerating hapless minivans.