Worst Engines of All Time - 1982-84 GM_Chevrolet 305_350 V8 Cross-Fire Injection System

Hello , this is Adam again and welcome to another porch chat here on rare classic cars .

Today , we're going to continue with our best of worst of series and we'll hit again the General Motors Malaise era for this worst of series of engines or more specifically components on engines .

And that relates to the system of fuel delivery that was used on 1982 and 1983 F bodies .

The F body being the Camaro and Firebird in 1982 and 84 Corvettes , there was no 83 Corvette by the way .

Well , there , there were a few preproduction builds made and there's one in the museum in Bowling Green , but in any event relates to the 82 84 Corvettes and that is none other than the cross fire injection system .

And unfortunately , I have personal experience with this one too .

It's always interesting when I do some of these best of worst of .

There are some comments on the Cadillac wiper switch that say , well , you must never have had any experience with these .

I I have experience with each of these and I will actually say just a little bit of history on myself .

The first vehicle that I bought , that was not a daily driver .

That was kind of a classic was an 82 Trans Am the first year of the third generation I believe f body .

So I was a child of Night Rider .

I wanted one of those and I wanted the 82 because it has a lot of unique content .

The shifter , the vico bucket seats , the bowling ball hub caps .

And I thought it just looked cool with that asymmetrical hood scoop for me being the original purist that I am .

I wasn't looking to remake the Night Rider car .

Unfortunately , a lot of those vehicles have been cut up by that point and it took me a while to find one , but I found one that was red and black T tops , fully loaded Trans AM and I still have it today .

You haven't seen it yet , but I do have it and it's a love hate relationship with that car .

It just is a beautiful car , wonderfully well proportioned , low cow , low body , uh , but very glassy upper for a sports car especially , you know , when you compare it to today , small wheels , but they look proportional relative to the body .

The car looks fantastic in my opinion , at least the Camaro did too .

But boy , it just is not a well engineered built , you know , or anything car almost .

But let's talk about what's under hood in that vehicle and under hood in the 82 84 Corvettes and the crossfire injection system .

So , what is that ?

It's really this Twin Ram set up where there's two Rochester throttle bodies , two Rochester , we'll call them single barrel throttle bodies on opposing sides of the intake that feed the alternate side and Rochester division of G M at the time , didn't have any multi port systems .

They were big into carburetors , they loved their quadrajet and they sold this cross fire system as a way to get better fuel economy , improve performance .

You know , the usual stump speech to the divisions without doing multi injection , you could do it with twin throttle bodies because two of these single barrel throttle bodies together could make 750 C F M or basically the similar size as a quadrajet .

So sounds like a good idea and concept but where it really faltered was in a number of areas .

The first being that because of the vehicles that this went into with the low hood , the low coal that the intake manifold really had to be squished down .

And you know , when that , when it squished down , that led to really this poor cylinder to cylinder distribution in the intake because it just , it had a long runner and it didn't flow very well because it didn't have the space to get the air flowing evenly throughout the entire intake .

And so with the poor cylinder to cylinder distribution , how did they fix that .

And this is according to the lead engineer in the system , you might want to guess more fuel .

So they fixed the poor cylinder to cylinder distribution with more fuel .

Ok .

So that negates the fuel economy benefit right there .

And I will definitively say having owned this 82 Trans Am , it does not sip the fuel .

It's a 35 V eight , it makes 165 horsepower .

The Corvettes were 205 horsepower with the 5.7 liter .

Um It gets terrible mileage .

To be honest , it's I think on the freeway , I might get 8 17 , 18 around town .

I don't even know probably 9 to 10 .

It's really bad .

So that was the first issue was the poor cylinder to cylinder distribution that really was caused by that low hood and trying to accommodate that with this , this setup that they were really trying to pay homage to the 32 V eights that Chevrolet had entered in the Trans Am racing series actually .

And maybe for the park fans , they were trying to pay homage to the Mopar cross ramp .

I doubt that it's probably related to the 32 .

But in any case .

So that was an issue .

Number one then issue number two was the intake because again of these long runners that existed to try to go from the source of the fuel to the intake port and through the valves , et cetera .

The long runner really slowed down the velocity of air , which is not what you want to do .

It's long runners are great for high R PM engines because at that point , you're really pulling in a lot of air and you have great velocity .

But for around town and low R PM driving , it's not great because you want the air to come into the cylinder with a lot of velocity .

So it mixes with the fuel very well .

If you have a multi port system or even if you have a throttle body injection system or carburetor , you want that velocity .

So the air and fuel is mixing as it goes into the cylinder as well , even though it's a wet intake .

Well , because of this challenge , what was happening was that the fuel was condensing and pooling in the intake , which is not good .

So how do you solve that you reduce ?

So remember the twin Rochester Tbis could flow 750 combined C F M .

The intakes on these cars , they reduced them to only flow 475 cm .

So the intake itself is a limiting factor to this entire setup .

And it basically took what was the equivalent of a four barrel intake in terms of the volume that the intake could handle ?

And I'll say the overall system could handle and it made it the equivalent of a two barrel .

Consequently , these engines run out of breath around 4000 R PM and you'll notice in the 84 Corvette versus the 85 Corvettes that got a new digital dash , new tachometer .

The 84 S peek out at 4000 R PM .

It is almost like a little visual graph that peaks at 4000 and drops down the 85 S peek out later , I think at 5000 R PM .

I'll put the little comment here , but it's visually later in terms of the graphical tachometer .

And you definitely notice that when you drive these vehicles that they run out of breath really early .

Um The other piece about this , that maybe isn't about the set up itself was that these were paired with relatively weak transmissions in the F body in my F body in the first year in 82 .

My car is an example , has a turbo hydrotic 200 transmission which if you've watched other videos in this series , you know that , that transmission is in the parlance of the porch chats .

Awful , awful , awful , awful , awful .

And it's a turbo 200 C with the lock up , the lockups tend to stick .

It's one of the transmissions where if you want to replace the lock of Solano , you have to drop the whole transmission as opposed to just dropping the pan .

They are not strong , they were stronger by 82 than when they came out in the seventies , but they are not good .

I , I don't ever floor , which sounds strange to say but I don't ever floor or accelerate very hard with my Trans Am because I know that behind the engine is basically a grenade and I haven't had an issue with it but I baby it and I'm very , I might get on it a little bit , but I really take it easy .

And the 700 R four s that were used in the Corvette and then the 83 F bodies , the early ones were not all that strong either .

Um They had a smaller , a fewer number of Splines , I believe .

Um I'm trying to think , I think it was maybe like a 27 Spline .

Uh I want to say 700 R four , which was weaker .

They went to more shortly thereafter and it was , it was so relatively weak that Dave mcclellan , the Corvette chief engineer said that they actually had to program the transmission that at full throttle if you were going full throttle and the transmission were in fourth gear overdrive that it would actually downshift out of overdrive and it wouldn't upshift into overdrive at full throttle because it was so weak .

So that limited the top speed on those cars like 125 to 130 miles an hour because you couldn't get into overdrive , that was precluded .

And then finally , I would say in terms of the crossfire injection , it's early eighties electronics .

And , you know , there's a number of issues that I've had with mine over the years , they have one throttle position sensor that's adjustable on one of the T BS .

There's kind of a parent and child TBI .

So you have to make sure that they're sinked properly that your throttle bushings aren't leaking .

They tend to have vacuum leaks and challenges there and once they get vacuum leaks and they don't tend to run quite right .

The coolant temperature sensors tend to read cold .

So then it throws too much fuel down the cylinder , especially when you first start it up .

When it's cold on the F bodies .

The throttle cable actually comes out from the firewall and then does a 180 degree turn to activate this one linkage that controls both of the throttle bodies and it does that 180 bend with a relatively short radius .

So the cables stick , I've had a number of times where I've gotten on it a little bit and I back off the gas and the throttle is still open and I can't , you can't pull up the gas , it doesn't do anything , it's stuck .

So I've had to shut the key off and basically close to a stop , pop the hood , release it and then gingerly drive normally back home and lubricate the cable again , which by the way , I have all the paperwork on this car from new , the original owner , even when it was new , had that problem .

So this was not uncommon and I'm trying to think , you know , it's just not a great setup from an eighties or electronics .

They do have a single oxygen sensor .

So they are feedback control just like most fuel injection systems .

But usually what happens on these is they tend to run rich and when they run rich , the oxygen sensor craps out and then it no longer reads anymore and you pull the oxygen sensor out of the exhaust and you look at it and it's covered with un burned fuel .

So my best advice , unless you're like me and you're really nostalgic for an 82 Trans AM , which I think now they're impossible to find .

I bought mine in 2005 and even back then they were challenging to find .

And mine has , when I bought , I think I had 27 28,000 miles and to tell you how much I enjoy driving the car , I've had it since 2005 .

So 17 years , it might have 31,000 miles on it now , 32,000 miles and most of those miles are put on in early years .

I had for a while .

I had to figure out what was going on with the throttle bodies .

Didn't run quite right .

Ran a little rough , had to drill out the plugs , resync them , reset the throttle position sensor rebu the throttle bodies and the er , valve was sticking , had to replace that .

The lock up converter was sticking on the car .

So I had to get that replaced .

I couldn't do that on my own .

And the electronic spark control computer on the F bodies is actually under the dash .

If I can remember , it's been 15 years since I replaced .

It wasn't working .

Right .

Try finding electronic spark controller for one of these .

Now , they do have , I think they have a knock sensor but they definitely have a spark control , a spark control , separate computer that sometimes goes bad as well .

So my best advice , unless you really want that 82 like I did and you love the Vico buckets , which I did .

I think the bowling ball hub caps lasted one more year until 83 .

But the Vico buckets and that unique shifter , you see in night rider , I believe were just one year .

Certainly , the shifter was because in 83 they went to the 700 R four that had the four speed automatic quadrant and 82 was the only year with the three speed .

But my best advice is to get an 84 F body with a high performance four barrel carburetor .

If you're going to get a corvette , get the 85 it's a lot more power a lot faster .

I think on the vets , the 84 S the 0 to 60 time was about 6.7 seconds somewhere between 6.5 and seven .

And in 85 I believe they broke into the high fives , low Sixes and uh on the F bodies , the crossfire powered F bodies , 0 to 60 time was like 8.5 seconds , not fast .

Um And it's like I said , it's 165 horsepower in the F bodies .

The high output five liter when it came out in 84 was 205 horsepower versus 165 .

And I think that car was able to break into the sevens and considerably faster .

So just a better package , better transmission , better engine .

Um , you know , better car .

Actually , the last f bodies by the time they ended their run in the early nineties were so much better .

The early ones like mine are rattle traps , everything rattles when you go over a bump , even with a low mileage car and I've tried and tried the rear hatch , especially , I've tried adjusting the bumpers , the hatch itself , whatever it gets a little better , but it doesn't go away .

It's just how they were engineered .

But by the later years , they actually , they were filling the body cavities to try to quell some of those noise vibration , harshness with a lot of structural foam .

So the bodies got a lot more rigid .

The early ones were toking all over the place .

It was so bad .

Even when I lived in one city and I would pull up into a self served car wash that when you pulled up , it was an incline driveway .

So you had one wheel on the incline driveway , one wheel on the street .

You could actually watch the center console in the car rock back and forth .

That's how much , how flexible these bodies were .

Just , just not great .

So , the crossfire injection has made it on the worst of list , certainly of the malaise era for those reasons .

And I hope that I explained it a little bit .

It's amazing .

The system is supposed to develop more power and give more economy , didn't either .

And it probably just gave more reliability problems over the quadrajet which even though it was electronically controlled at that point , I've had pretty good luck with the electronically controlled quadrajet .

Yeah , an extra control .

So I sometimes go out whatever you can fix that .

It's not hard .

But this system is definitely a challenge .

In any case .

I hope you enjoyed this ports chat on the worst of talking about the crossfire injection system .

If you have any ideas for port chats you want me to talk about or just want to give general feedback , feel free to post a comment or email me at any time .

Thanks again for watching .

Till next time .

Take care .

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