Is the 1987 3.8L Thunderbird fuel injected?

Answer 1

Most of the 80's Thunderbirds used carbureted fuel injection (CFI) or electronic fuel injection (EFI). To my knowledge none of the mid to late 1980's Thunderbirds came with straight up good old carburators, if yours does it is an aftermarket mod. The way to tell CFI and EFI appart is that the CFI will have what is called a throttle body, which looks an awful lot like a carburator, but doesn't once you open it up, and a standard looking ring-style air filter, whereas the EFI uses a fuel injection intake (different looking intake manifold all together) and a fan with a square air filter. I have taken them apart and monkeyed with the CFI of a 1987 T-bird quite a lot. CFI means Central Fuel injection. It has an air intake that looks like the air-horn of a carburertor, but it is fuel injected. Unlike the EFI models, the fuel is not injected directly into the cylinders. Instead, at the central point - where the venturi and fuel supply would be on an old fashioned carburetor - there are two jets, under pressure from fuel pump, which spray fuel into the air rushing in thru the air horn. You can see the brown plug with 4 wires in the front of the CFI: these are the wires into the injectors. So, the gas pedal opens the way for more air, the throttle position sensor and other computer controls notice this, they send a more rapid 'pulse' to the injectors and the injectors go pssst psssst pssst pssst faster and faster and the motor gets the fuel and sucks in more air because it is going faster and then the gas pedal is lifted then the pulse to the injectors is slower pssst.........pssst ...........pst and the motor slows down to idle. Computer senses different things using sensors, but, I hope you get the idea. (Canadian models might still have carb this year)