5.7 Hemi Conversions - XVMotors? Arrington Chip Killr? Other options?

Hi - I'm putting a 5.7 hemi in my 1971 Dart Swinger this fall/winter. I'm trying to make up my mind on the computer issue. I don't want to splice up an existing computer harness.

XVmotors has a carburated solution with their own chip. Arrington motors has a chip killer product which essentially is designed to house a distributor, eliminating the need for electronic ignition controls. Both are pretty pricey but I am willing to consider both and willing to purchase if they are worth the $$. ($2000 - $2400)

Not sure which way to go and was wondering what you guys would advise? Too many local shops giving me advice with no hands on knowledge to back it up. Question to those that have done the conversion, what would you recommend?

Have to make up my mind so I can start figuring out other things. As an example, I saw a great deal on an autometer tach on this forum that I would love in the Dart but given the Hemi's lack of single ignition coil not sure how it hooks up??!! Any one know?

Gah!!

Any help is appreciated.

Cheers,
John

personally i don't see why to go through all the trouble to put a genIII hemi in a car only to run a carb. may as well build a stout small block in that case.

give these guys a call. they make a harness to run the stock injection . http://www.hotrodlane.cc/

Agree with Joe,

http://www.hotwireauto.com/ .......these guys make the harnesses for Street and Perf last I heard. Probably be cheaper buying from the builder.

You can also call Dave Weber at Modern muscle...he has done several harnesses, he likes AEM systems

Fastmanefi.com ....he builds FAST systems for GenIII.

Three options I have been considering for my GenIII wiring/ECU

Actually a carbed 3rd gen will make more power then an efi set-up if you don't have a ton of time to spend tuning the car. I have seen a Chipkillr in person since we work with Arrington a lot and I have to say thats the route I would take and if you are interested I can get you a deal on one.

Bouchelon sells a computer/harness for putting the stock EFI in an A Body. They also sell the A518 5spd OD trans & computer to control it for A bodies.
The AlterKation set up makes this swap really sweet, but really expensive.

fastmopar

Actually a carbed 3rd gen will make more power then an efi set-up if you don't have a ton of time to spend tuning the car. I have seen a Chipkillr in person since we work with Arrington a lot and I have to say thats the route I would take and if you are interested I can get you a deal on one.

i would still build a small block if your going carb. to me the biggest thing about using the genIII hemi is getting all the drivability of injection. if going carb i would just build a stroker small block with ,that will run just as good as that hemi and probably do it a few bucks cheaper too.

i would still build a small block if your going carb. to me the biggest thing about using the genIII hemi is getting all the drivability of injection. if going carb i would just build a stroker small block with ,that will run just as good as that hemi and probably do it a few bucks cheaper too.Yeah I agree but there is something about being able to say "I've got a Hemi" Heck I have 5.7 hemi parts laying around all over and I will put one in my Scamp eventually and I'm goin gwith the Chip Killr and one of my manifolds with a 6-pak

Yeah I agree but there is something about being able to say "I've got a Hemi"

thats over rated .

Yeah I agree but there is something about being able to say "I've got a Hemi" Heck I have 5.7 hemi parts laying around all over and I will put one in my Scamp eventually and I'm goin gwith the Chip Killr and one of my manifolds with a 6-pak


Um... That's NOT the Hemi they were talking about :D. That one is like a Diet soda Big Gulp. Sure, it's a Big Gulp... but it's a cup of nothing.

Um... That's NOT the Hemi they were talking about :D. That one is like a Diet soda Big Gulp. Sure, it's a Big Gulp... but it's a cup of nothing.



lmao....

It may be a "baby" Hemi, but mine in my Charger makes 345 horsepower and 380 ft lbs at the wheels with nothing internally done and JBA heads, cats, and a programmer. They make PLENTY of power, with lots on tap. These are excellent and powerful motors that have true hemispherical combustion chambers. Actually, they make more HP per cubic inch than the stock 426 street Hemi, with close to advertised ratings.

In an old car, I agree to keep the injection, as it would help out with engine longevity (as these motors can go upward of 150-200,000 mi easy, injected). If you want to stay carb oriented and avoid wiring, it may be wiser just to go with a normal LA small block.

not to be rude but, i think the carb setups i have seen including Herb McCandles' car are AWESOME, if you wanna down play what a guy thinks is cool fine but I am sure he would rather have the knowledge and ability to do an injection setup, some of us just wanna build a cool ride(to us) and if we can get help that is even better

Hi

Whats the link for this site

Rick

love the chip killer,, i have talked to those guys several times,, ide love to use it in my street rod,, but to me that price is way out of wack,,,2 grand by the time you get all the pieces,,ive only seen one so far on the road in a street rod,,
ive been told,,,the GM LS1 ,2 distributor conversion is only around 360 bucks,,cause arrington goofed on dizzy selection,,and had to R&D the timing cover to death,,thats why the cost is so high,,,14 grand they told me for the timing cover R&D,,,

yes very true for all you non gen111 the modern hemi ,makes more horse power per cubic inch then any other hemi to date,,,including the ground pounding 426..the motors are reasonable priced in yards,,its the electronics or what ever method you choose to make um run that makes it to costly,,,

the cheapest method ive seen is XV motor sports kit,,tuned carb,intake,ecu,and wiring harness 1200.00

I really do like the idea of having a new 5.7/6.1 Hemi in an older muscle car. But I guess I am biased because I have a 408 stroker sitting in my room, and thats what I would use...Much easier and cheaper to go with an aluminum headed 408...But, FWIW, sometime in my lifetime, I will have a gen III hemi in my ride. I do like the chipkiller idea, I think it would cure alot of the computer and wiring hassles. But, I am cool with either way...

I am running MSD's controller. Works great and is EASY to tune with a laptop. I am not a computer genius and I have no problems. Oh and by the way my stroked 5.7 makes 600 hp and pushes my 3700 pound Dart down the 1320 to low 11's. It will be 9's on the spray next season. With 2 edelbrock carbs. I believe the right look for vintage cars is carbs.

http://www.crazy4carz.com/gallery2/d/59735-1/cecil1.jpg

http://www.crazy4carz.com/gallery2/d/59837-2/engine2_001.jpg

I believe the right look for vintage cars is carbs.



but the serpintene(sp?) belt, tiny alt, a/c and the rest of the motor all screem modern day motor. car runs and looks good i'll give ya that but i still don't see the point of doing the swap without taking advantage of all the injection and stuff. but hey thats just me i guess :)

i still don't see the point of doing the swap without taking advantage of all the injection and stuff. but hey thats just me i guess :)

I'm on the same page as you Joe. Maybe because it's a "HEMI" for a non 426 price...

I am running MSD's controller. Works great and is EASY to tune with a laptop. I am not a computer genius and I have no problems. Oh and by the way my stroked 5.7 makes 600 hp and pushes my 3700 pound Dart down the 1320 to low 11's. It will be 9's on the spray next season. With 2 edelbrock carbs. I believe the right look for vintage cars is carbs.

http://www.crazy4carz.com/gallery2/d/59735-1/cecil1.jpg

http://www.crazy4carz.com/gallery2/d/59837-2/engine2_001.jpg
I agree with you on the carbs!! There's something about that baaawaaa when the secondarys kick in that can't be duplicated with EFI. EFI is great if you never want to work on it and it's an everyday driver but for most the everyday driver isn't a classic car. BTW how tall is your air cleaner as the set-up I want to use must fit under the stock hood. I want the car to look plain Jane but GLH!!

dart looks great,,whats the dael with the MSD controller ??needs a program to start or is it all ready havea program to fire it up ???

I went with the xv set-up cause my son did not want a plastic intake in a 40 year old car,Which will be his someday--I used the truck hemi in my Duster--first turn of the key and it fires right-up with a big lope idol can't wait ti get to the dyno--Steve

Check out Indy cylinder heads line of late hemi carb manifolds and options too

There's a lot of choices now for non-EFI gen III builds

Edelbrock (http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive_new/mc/manifolds/chrysler/multiple_carbs-hemi.shtml)does, too, though I haven't seen on in person or read of anyone using it, yet.

[COLOR="Blue"]i was at the 4 wide NHRA event and talked with the guys from MSD,, there ignition controller for the 5.7/6.1 is 513.00 bucks,,

if you go with the MSD and a carb, you dont need a donor wiring harness ,MSD has an ignition box to coil harness new 200.00..

if you want to use the factory injection, you will need the factory harness and MSD adapter harness,,i think it was 175.00

i was recently told, but not seen that the dual quad edelbrock intake it a dual plane,,,, all the other carb intakes for the 5.7 are single plane,,[/COLOR

so for a stock application,,getting a donor vehicle is still the cheapest way to go it seems]

[COLOR="Blue"]i was at the 4 wide NHRA event and talked with the guys from MSD,, there ignition controller for the 5.7/6.1 is 513.00 bucks,,

if you go with the MSD and a carb, you dont need a donor wiring harness ,MSD has an ignition box to coil harness new 200.00..

if you want to use the factory injection, you will need the factory harness and MSD adapter harness,,i think it was 175.00

i was recently told, but not seen that the dual quad edelbrock intake it a dual plane,,,, all the other carb intakes for the 5.7 are single plane,,[/COLOR

so for a stock application,,getting a donor vehicle is still the cheapest way to go it seems]
Not sure if cheapest is accurate but yes you would have practically all the parts. Be sure and get a 2004+ so that you can use a Diablo tuner to cope with the factory ECM.

I've been working with Plum Floored for a couple months as a joint effort and he offers Inertia parts and I offer his. One thing coming from this is we've combined his custom wiring harness with my experience and connections in tuning the hemi trucks and LX's. Whats coming out of this is a harness combined with a 05 truck PCM thats flashed to work in an old school car and has the 6.1 base format in it. Were going to set it up standard for a cam which will probably be the SRT Max 112 but the cool part is it will accept a diablo predator so we or any tuning shop that has CMR can fully tune it for other head, cam, stroker, boost or nos combinations. You can email tune too I do about 20 email tunes a month. Since it's baised off the factory PCM you would get the benifits of the factory PCM. I tune hundreds of LX's and trucks this way with lots of different cam, head, injector, storker combos so I have a big tune library to start from and then tweak the tune in from their. Point is there will be alot of flexibility in this combo and were going to bring it out for I'm thinking just over 2K and it uses all the factory sensors that you normally get with the used engines floating around. So it's alot of bang for the buch and allows lots of mods. Another point is you can control the timing like you can't off a distributor based system as on the hemi you can make max power at about 24 degrees advance at 3K RPM but you have to back it off to about 20 at 4K and 4.3 K to avoid detonation then you climb it to about 30 in what looks like a logrythmic slope. You can't do that with a distributor. Really, you can't come close to a good performance tune without full knock sensor support like this system has because the ring lands on a 5.7hemi are only 0.100" thick so if your hearing knock it's probably too late. With the factory knock sensors like the factory PCM uses you can tweak the tune to the best possible tune safley and still have protection from the knock sensors if you get a bad tank of gas.

I always hear the 03 computer can't be tuned because of the seperate trans computer. This seems like total B.S. to me. So, can it be done or not. Just asking questions.

I always hear the 03 computer can't be tuned because of the seperate trans computer. This seems like total B.S. to me. So, can it be done or not. Just asking questions.

The diablo predator does support it but it's pretty limited compaired to the later PCM's. Main thing is theres no changing idle speed. That and some of the controls you don't have with throttle rates and airflow tables makes it pretty limited when tuning a bigger cam. If it wont idle at 650 RPM then you can't raise the idle. It looks like recently there is now adjustable rev limit in the template but I haven't verified that it actually works yet. As it sits on a stock block 5.7 a comp 268 or a spartan 114 LSA is about as big as I can go tuning it.

plum floored: http://www.plumfloored.com/a-body_hemi_swap_conversion.htm

[COLOR="Blue"]no matter how you choose to do a 5.7/ 6.1 swap, its way to costly compared to an old school LA motor,,seems to me if you did a factory wiring and computer swap would be the most reliable way to go,,, but no rule book on the do,s and dont,s yet,,and still not cheap,,,,/COLOR]

The only way this swap will ever be cheaper is if there is a demand for the parts & pieces. If no one buys the stuff then the prices will never come down. I have been on this forum for over a year now and the one thing I have figured out is that MOST (not all!) Mopar guy's are cheap! JMO.

Yes, we are..and $869 for an MP single carb intake proves the fact that I couldnt afford to carb one...dual is $335 but how do you fire the plugs? A little rich for me....call me Thrifty!

indy cylinder head now has a mod man intake system for the 5.7/6.1 it has an interchangable top,,single 4 dual 4 or 6 pac, dont rememebr if it is single or dual plane,,was less the 500 when i last talked to them,,,

indy cylinder head now has a mod man intake system for the 5.7/6.1 it has an interchangable top,,single 4 dual 4 or 6 pac, dont rememebr if it is single or dual plane,,was less the 500 when i last talked to them,,,from the Indy price list:
5.7 = USD 399
6.1 = USD 499
with top of choice, fasteners and gasket
I found a web shop who is selling the XV intake for 499 too so I'm again undecided... :-(

One of the guys here is using the XV, seems like he has had to customize and modify quite a bit to get it set up... Dont remember his user name, it is a 68 4 door dart sleeper with alterkation... look in the members restorations section...

JOE

look here, the manifold fuel rail is on the way of the breather/oil fill... Not as big if issue as I remembered, but just FYI.


http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=109794&highlight=Sleeper+Dart&page=5

JOE

The only way this swap will ever be cheaper is if there is a demand for the parts & pieces. If no one buys the stuff then the prices will never come down. I have been on this forum for over a year now and the one thing I have figured out is that MOST (not all!) Mopar guy's are cheap! JMO.
> Don't know for sure if I'm cheap, but I'm "always" looking for value. This is why 2 tbi's on an eddy manifold, bargin centrifugal and E85. "Bang for the $". Mustang II front suspension-same reason. To me, that is real hot rodding. IMHO, ateam.:rock:

One of the guys here is using the XV, seems like he has had to customize and modify quite a bit to get it set up... Dont remember his user name, it is a 68 4 door dart sleeper with alterkation... look in the members restorations section...

JOE

if I decide to go with XV for the 6.1. Do I have to plug the injector holes? A shop who is selling them for 499 USD ( Moes performance) has a describtion what let me think it is one manifold for both, carb and EFI.

http://moesperformance.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_192_1155&products_id=1693

thats over rated .

You are killing his enthusiasim. Give him some encouragement for God's sake.

My 2011 5.7 Hemi Durango kicks ass. Street stock it's almost 95 MPH in the quarter mile, and it weighs 5300 pounds.

That ain't NUTHIN to joke about.

TREAT YOUR Mopar BROTHERS like BROTHERS.

Save your negativity for the Tojotahs, Nissans, Hondas, and all the other non Mopar brands.