1980 Fairmont V10 Swap

Just remember, the method of making that V12 required welding techniques that are quite expensive and out of reach of the average person. I can't remember which magazine had the article that described the technique, but it might've been Road and Track.

 

At the time we were thinking about making a 4 valve V10, we had access to the proper equipment and tech skills to do that. We had worked out the details on how to splice 2 cobra heads together and get the custom cams made. One of many projects that never got off the drawing board but were fun to think about!

 

Dayum! Lucky you!

 

I just got back from a road trip a few days ago. First time I have had a working speedometer and tachometer. I averaged 28.2 mpg at a steady 65 mph going up and down hills in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. I was suspecting mpg's in the 20's but the 28.2 mpg really blew me away. The neat part is that it might even get better as the computer was disconnected for about 4 hours while I installed a tachometer and an ECT sensor (engine coolant temp) sensor. The sensor was installed but somehow the wires to ground and to the ECU were never connected. The engine was thinking it was in cold start mode all the time! When the ECU finishes learning the new parameters it is bound to get better. The idle has already dropped down to around 750 rpm and was always around 900-1000 before. Throttle response is definitely better after warm up. It was never bad but now is instantaneous. Light weight billet flywheel helps also!!

 

Yeah, that booboo with the ECT, usually on a swap, it's customary to hook up a scantool with live data, just to verify all your PIDs are showing values before startup.

 

I was just cleaning up the wiring under the dash and in the glove compartment and found a wire wound up in a small bundle of labeled wires. I was looking for the clean tach signal wire and saw the ECT wire at that time! I had never looked at the real time readings as no error codes had been generated.

 

My mpg readings were at 1550 rpm. That's quite away from the 3000 rpm torque peak. I'm going to make another run on the freeway at 75 mph and a bit higher rpm. Hopefully the mpg's will be close or better!

 

Your best efficiency will be between 1700 and 2200 RPM. And hey, I hope you didn't think i was taking you to task, God knows I've made some doozy (and costly) errors on customer's cars.

 

Even better when taken on a flat road, since hills tend to gobble up fuel, as do turnpike speeds of 75 mph as mentioned. The latter is when aerodynamics start to play a role. At best, try it out at between 55 and 60 mph, depending on when you can shift into the highest gear

 

No offense taken. I appreciate any input. The engine has enough torque that it still pulls smoothly from a 1000 rpm at 45 mph but that is even further below the efficiency zone. I'll be trying different speeds and rpm's. Most of the freeways between the places I would go to the most have 75 mph speed limits. The Fairmont's were actually some of the first Ford family sedans that had aerodynamics involved in their design phase. I'm missing my front air dam and am presently looking for a suitable replacement. My brother is coming out from Las Vegas soon to visit me. He will be bringing a tuner and a wide band AFR meter. It'll be fun seeing what we can do. I'll also be installing an aftermarket cruise control to take advantage of the engine torque.

 

I just want to say that this is probably one of the coolest swaps I've seen done and I applaud you for it and thank you for sharing it with us. If I had better skills this is something I might tackle one day...

 

I was going to suggest factory cruise control, until I remembered the control buttons require a clockspring assembly instead of slip rings, as your Fairmont would have been equipped, had it had cruise control. I still think you should use factory parts from the same year and model rig you sourced your V10 from, but instead of steering wheel mounting the controls, what about a fixed panel with hard wiring for the buttons, mounted to the dash?