Really sorry to hear about your hood. I do dumb stuff like that all the time. Classic cruisers may have one in that color. Glad your happy with the swap.
Builds hairy_apple's 2FE build (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter hairy_apple
- Start date
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- Thread starter
- #102
6 Month update.
Holy crap this motor is awesome. It's running great. Been working out bugs here and there, but nothing massive.
A short trip out to the Yuba Gold fields in April was eventful. Clutch was slipping (adjustment) and had a Vacuum line pop off. Fixed that and it ran great. No motor issues. However on the way out I broke a leaf spring. Oops.
Took it up to Reno in June, and had some alternator issues. Was under charging. That ended up being the amp meter was just shorting. On the way home, the exhaust shop had not used top lock type bolts on the down pipe, and they came loose and fell off leading to a very loud drive home. lol HOWEVER, I filled up the cruiser in Grass Valley, and topped off in Vedi. I got 16.5 MPG towing an M416 over Donner summit! I rechecked my math a few times because I didn't believe that was possible, but driving since has confirmed I am getting about that pretty consistently.
Had a trip to Fordyce in July, and hit a hard hit and the motor stopped running under 1200 rpm. I messed with it a bit, couldn't get it to go, so I gave up and on the way back out, hit another hard hit and it ran good again... crap. Ended up being the big ECU plug was just loose, taped it tightly together so it wouldn't happen again. 30 year old plastic clip was just a bit worn.
I've been driving it to work about once a week or so. Finally got the Dakota Digital VSS working, and have a speedometer for the first time ever. 18 years and I have never had a functional speedometer until last week.
Overall, I am very, very happy with this motor. IT was worth all the stress and drama trying to get it to run. It runs amazing, it pulls hard, gets insanely good MPG for what it is. I don't know the HP, but it drives much better then my 350 did. The low and mid range power in really impressive. The flat torque curve and ability of the 2F to lug down and recover makes it very nice offroad, however the gearing sucks as expected. I will be doing the 4:1 and H55 hopefully this winter.. we'll see. My only real complaints are that the exhaust is too loud, because I was out of money and left the flowmaster on. And the motor is a little reved at 65. The H55 will be perfect. That being said... I caught myself going 70 yesterday on the freeway. lol The overheating issues I had with the V8 are fixed, it runs right at 195 around town, 210 on the freeway. NEVER has gone more then 210ish. Even in the summer heat pulling a trailer up long grades. IT's very stable. The throttle response is amazing. It's actually taken some relearning to drive the cruiser because the throttle response is so quick, I have to roll into and out of it more then the carbed engines or it snaps you around. The power does fall off in the top 3rd of the rpm range, as expected. Where the V8 finally started to wake up, the 2FE is pretty dead. But I am OK with it, how often do I really floor it driving around or wheeling? Not much, I will take a huge improvement in the bottom and mid range power and be totally OK with the loss of the high revving power. I won't miss it. Reliablity is vastly improved too so far. It's again, very consistent. At home in the foothills it runs good, down in the Sac valley it runs good, up in the sierras it runs good.
I am thrilled with the way it turned out. The only complaints are just the loud exhaust (louder then the v8 witht he same muffler) and the gearing. Both are easy enough to fix. The H55 and 4:1 gears and a new stockish muffler will make this just about a perfect engine for my needs.
Holy crap this motor is awesome. It's running great. Been working out bugs here and there, but nothing massive.
A short trip out to the Yuba Gold fields in April was eventful. Clutch was slipping (adjustment) and had a Vacuum line pop off. Fixed that and it ran great. No motor issues. However on the way out I broke a leaf spring. Oops.
Took it up to Reno in June, and had some alternator issues. Was under charging. That ended up being the amp meter was just shorting. On the way home, the exhaust shop had not used top lock type bolts on the down pipe, and they came loose and fell off leading to a very loud drive home. lol HOWEVER, I filled up the cruiser in Grass Valley, and topped off in Vedi. I got 16.5 MPG towing an M416 over Donner summit! I rechecked my math a few times because I didn't believe that was possible, but driving since has confirmed I am getting about that pretty consistently.
Had a trip to Fordyce in July, and hit a hard hit and the motor stopped running under 1200 rpm. I messed with it a bit, couldn't get it to go, so I gave up and on the way back out, hit another hard hit and it ran good again... crap. Ended up being the big ECU plug was just loose, taped it tightly together so it wouldn't happen again. 30 year old plastic clip was just a bit worn.
I've been driving it to work about once a week or so. Finally got the Dakota Digital VSS working, and have a speedometer for the first time ever. 18 years and I have never had a functional speedometer until last week.
Overall, I am very, very happy with this motor. IT was worth all the stress and drama trying to get it to run. It runs amazing, it pulls hard, gets insanely good MPG for what it is. I don't know the HP, but it drives much better then my 350 did. The low and mid range power in really impressive. The flat torque curve and ability of the 2F to lug down and recover makes it very nice offroad, however the gearing sucks as expected. I will be doing the 4:1 and H55 hopefully this winter.. we'll see. My only real complaints are that the exhaust is too loud, because I was out of money and left the flowmaster on. And the motor is a little reved at 65. The H55 will be perfect. That being said... I caught myself going 70 yesterday on the freeway. lol The overheating issues I had with the V8 are fixed, it runs right at 195 around town, 210 on the freeway. NEVER has gone more then 210ish. Even in the summer heat pulling a trailer up long grades. IT's very stable. The throttle response is amazing. It's actually taken some relearning to drive the cruiser because the throttle response is so quick, I have to roll into and out of it more then the carbed engines or it snaps you around. The power does fall off in the top 3rd of the rpm range, as expected. Where the V8 finally started to wake up, the 2FE is pretty dead. But I am OK with it, how often do I really floor it driving around or wheeling? Not much, I will take a huge improvement in the bottom and mid range power and be totally OK with the loss of the high revving power. I won't miss it. Reliablity is vastly improved too so far. It's again, very consistent. At home in the foothills it runs good, down in the Sac valley it runs good, up in the sierras it runs good.
I am thrilled with the way it turned out. The only complaints are just the loud exhaust (louder then the v8 witht he same muffler) and the gearing. Both are easy enough to fix. The H55 and 4:1 gears and a new stockish muffler will make this just about a perfect engine for my needs.
Hey man do u have pics of the finished process?
