I own a 89 Fairlane with the 3 spd auto trans..
it is F*in slow off the line and in general, cos of hopelessly long gear ratios obviously.
Id love to perform a 5 spd manual conversion but am too poor to afford such a swap...
Is the 4 spd any better and would it be worthwhile/a mad mission to do that conversion?? Or am i better off doing alternative modifications instead?
By the way i love my beast lol but the poor wee fella just aint fast enough, can anybody help me please

Yeh itd be better than a kick in the nuts.
Seeing as the 4spds can be had for F**k all, I'd say its worth it. You'll gain acceleration and fuel economy with another cog.
Is the 'Lane MPFI?

I have the same car, I'm putting a 4spd and 4.0L in it in the next week or two hopefully.

I'll let you know how it goes and what the upgrade is like.

f**k I love that thing...

Yeah cool.. I take it itd be a pretty easy install?
MPFI being multipoint right? Not to sure actually how does one tell lol and if not are you saying that is something good to get?
Its just the EA 3.9 engine if that helps
Im totally a fordmods newbie lol

Yeh installing it should be basically unbolt, rebolt, with the addition of a new ecu I'd assume.
Yeh, MPFI = multipoint, CFI looks like a carby with the massive oval air cleaner over the engine.

Sounds super.
Yeah its definatly not CFI but then wats the difference between MPFI and EFI then? Different topic but oh well.. If its the same thing then yeah its MPFI lol

All NA/NC Fairlanes have MPEFI.

Changing the gearbox from a three speed to four will be a bit more difficult than you may think. The four speed BTR box has the computer make gear decisions, the three speed box doesn't. You'll be able to use a shiftkit with the BTR though.

Yeah first thing I did looking round these sites before I became a member was change my EA 3.9 to MPFI, theres a tutorial on here under technical resources.

Takes it, in the owners manual, from 119kw to 139kw or something. Definately a big difference for me anyway, just change the ecu, fuel pump and manifold assembly. One wire needs changing...it's all pretty basic and it's right there in the tutorial.

Mine was already a 4spd but now I've gone to a manual. I had a 3spd in another EA and the 4spd is much better but like said above, probably due to the diff ratio aswell. If your putting the 4spd in youll need the trans control module(like an ecu for the trans) of which I have a spare. But you'd be best to get one with the loom for it too. You'll also need duel TPS(throttle position sensors) cos the Trans control module needs one of them and the ecu uses the other.

Basicaly bolting the whole thing up is easy, it's just the electronics. Which is easy too but you just need to know what your doing.

Many thanks Peoples, might try the diff change first.
Any ideas where to got a 3.23 or 3.45 diff then?

Hey your in chch! I'll pm you a guys number in taranaki, although that's far away he seems to have alot of ford parts. Otherwise you could try the wreckers down there. xfwagon is on this site and hes down dunedin, maybe he can point you in the right direction.

This guy in taranaki's great, needed my clutch pedal a month or so back to do my manual conversion on that particular weekend and he was very fast and helpful.

Yeah man thatd be brutes thanks dude, what sort of car are those diffs out of anyway?

xr6's have the 3.45. My car(originaly 4 spd EA) has a 3.08. The 3.23 I'm putting in it came out of a 4spd ED.

Different flange on the diff though so I have to put a different drive shaft in and also has fatter trailing arms so there has to be some modification there. Instead of changing drive shafts though(which you won't be able to because the 3spd drive shaft is longer) you can just undo the pinion flange and put your one onto your new diff.