305 Crossfire
 

Offered a trade, car has a stock 305 Crossfire. Heard that these are complete garabage...so what is your opinion?

They don't call the Cease-Fire Injection for nothing. ;)

Or Miss-Fire Injection.

Don't do it. It's not worth your time or effort. If anything find a trade with tpi or carb or just a 350 lol

TPI swap? or don't bother...

The system itself isn't so terrible, its basically throttle body injection with the throttle bodies offset to supposedly reduce fuel puddling and improve performance. In theory its a good system.

Because of the times, power was terrible. Also, it wasn't really much of an improvement over the carb'd systems of the time or a tbi system, and its not really good for a performance application. A TBI system would be better than a crossfire system since there is some type of an aftermarket for it.

Also, the crossfire system was sort-of experimental for its time, so it was prone to failure. I've never owned one myself, so I can't give specifics on what went wrong with them. But my dad bought a crossfire corvette and got rid of it after a year or so because of that system.

What would you be trading? What shape is the rest of the car in?

you can do pretty decent with them if you upgrade to a fairly expensive aftermarket intake (X-Ram) and are familiar with TBI free mods and tuning. Or you could just scrap the FI and slap a carb on it.

I wouldn't completely discount it if the rest of the car is in nice shape and you don't mind another project.

- Justin

Yeah, the interior is really clean. Body is straight, paint isn't in the best shape but thats nothing I am concerned about right now.

I'd be trading for my 70 Impala...haha.

I guess it's always been easy to make fun of what you don't know anything about and of course it's always easy to blame the parts instead of the tech. I dunno, mine ran mid 13s. I didn't have the cash to go faster.

CFI's biggest obstacle was being new. EFI was a new concept. Techs had no idea the impact of a few PSI drop in fuel pressure, no appreciation for good grounds & quality wiring. By the time I sold my 82 TA I knew more about CFI than most dealer techs.

The manifold design is poor, fuel puddles in it in some circumstances. The runners are poor. The EGR passages are poor design as well. The engines then were low compression, bad heads & flat tappet cams. Modern heads & modern profile roller cams would go a long way. Plus the ECM was slow. I know a lot of guys stepped up to later model truck ecms because they were much stronger processors. I'm relatively confident I could make a reliable CFI car run 12s and probably pass smog. But I don't have the cash to blow on it now, either. :)

In stock form it runs fine. It is not a real performance system. It is not good for the novice to modify.

http://www.crossfire.homeip.net/

Run far away as possible. Had that motor and its just terrible.

Well it'll ultimately be up to your tastes if you want it. There is a lot you can do with the car. I know the Impala needs some work to get it nice. Try to think more of the car as a whole as opposed to thinking only about the CFI system. BonzoHansen has some first hand experience with them and thinks theyre alright. It would probably be cool to learn more about the system and get it running good.

The car wouldn't happen to be on thirdgen.org would it? I was talking to a guy about a CFI car a little while back. Have any pictures?

What year/model is the car?

Dont let the CFI stop you if the rest of the car is in nice shape.

It's an 83 Z28. Car is stock with 90,000 miles on it. The paint will need to be done, but thats not a concern. The interior looks pretty clean. The guy has a set of 373s and a cowl hood for it as well. Chris (nj torque) has a cam from his monte. I have a brand new 600 carb and intake just sitting around my house...I have a few ideas. I'm just looking at what my impala needs...and looking at what this needs..pics up shortly.

Does it have the fiberglass hood CFI cars came with?

not the best one in town...
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/j...4201937342.jpg
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/j...4201937191.jpg

Looks like the stock fiberglass hood, and whoa - rear wiper car!

don't see those very often.

- Justin

this is the hood he has
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/j...4201051231.jpg


here's a shot of the interior..decent.
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/j...4201937561.jpg
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/j...5200925551.jpg

The car seems like its in decent shape, the paint is rough like you said, interior is fairly clean but needs some work. The car does have a couple neat features like the fiberglass hood (I didnt know about those until now) and the rear wiper. I think if the car had no other issues besides the paint, it would be a fair trade. If there is anything mechanically wrong with it, I don't think it would be so fair. You could have a real nice driver with a bit of body work and paint as opposed to a car in need of total restoration

The red hood sucks, sell that ASAP.

Make sure you go under the car look for rot.

go for it.. i love that gray/silver combo, interior looks good for an 83, rear wiper and factory fiberglass hood are rare items.

yeah Bonzo i was definitely gonna do that, i'm going to look at it this sunday. And yeah, car looks somewhat decent besides the paint. The interior needs a nice cleaning, the dash is cracked but thats fine for now. If it runs decent and everything else is good i'm going to really consider it.

Guy came, looked at my Impala and was still interested in the trade. I was just about to leave to look at his car and his buddy says
"this isn't a fast car, its a crusier"

and I said "well if you want a "fast" car you should stick with your camaro..."

he proceded to say "well I think I might just do that, no trade. If you want to still come look at my car you can..."


Are people that stupid?

your impala will pwn his crossfire 305 car. id actually ask for cash on top of his car for yours. a few rare options there on that car though....cfi hood, rear wiper, dual needle speedo and looks like it might even have the hideaway rolling cover in the hatch too.

Since when is this rare? I think I've seen that on every 82-84 Camaro I've ever laid eyes on.

- Justin