EFI Conversion

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jrcr_15 said:
Thank you for clarifying.. I am listening.. Kind of. Been a long work week already haha

Removing the ballast will not harm the voltage regulator or anything else? I also upgraded the alternator last year and the wiring along with it. This increase will not harm anything by removing this? I have put so much time and money into this car I want to be sure and not paranoid when changing things that have been there for a long time lol

Thanks again
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Ballast has nothing to do with voltage regulator It comes off the ignition feed "IGN1" or "ignition run" from the key, and feeds the coil. On a side note, you do not want ANYTHING hooked to the coil on an MSD CDI except the MSD box coil neg and coil pos wires. No tach, no capacitor, no nothing
 
I'm using a Skip White HEI 1 wire with my FiTech. Timing curve can still be tuned by changing weights and springs and matched or adj vac advance.
 
Coyote Jack said:
Sounds like you have things under control. What I did when I took the ballast resistor out of the loop was use a jumper wire to connect the existing wires so that if I ever wanted or had to go with a ballast again I would have the wires ready to go. I used the same gauge wiring as the FiTech wire for everything including the fuel pump. My reasoning for that was that FiTech probably factored in the possible run to the pump near the gas tank. It seems to work great and the wire is not getting hot. I routed it the same as my fuel level wire.

My fuel system is as follows. Stock tank with 3/8 sending unit. I used 6AN braided hose and fittings for everything. I went from the tank to a 100 micron filter then a Walbro 392 inline pump. From there I ran the hose forward to a 30 micron filter mounted in the engine bay. I then split the lines with one going to each throttle body. On the return side I have twin outlets going to a single line that terminates at the tank just above the sending unit where I installed a weld free bung. Seems to work pretty good so far with no fuel starvation. The Fitech is controlling the pump cycling. I plan to install a safety momentum shutoff switch during the winter to make sure that the pump shuts off if I ever wreck the car.

Jack
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Sounds like a good set up. I was also wondering what you have put together for your throttle cable? Were you able to use a factory style setup? Or a Lokar etc?
 
I just used the stock cable for a 318. I had to make a new bracket and it is not pretty, but it works. I will make it look a little better this winter hopefully, with a little powder coating. I wasn't worried about a kickdown linkage as I run a manual reverse setup in the tranny.

Jack
 
Coyote Jack said:
I just used the stock cable for a 318. I had to make a new bracket and it is not pretty, but it works. I will make it look a little better this winter hopefully, with a little powder coating. I wasn't worried about a kickdown linkage as I run a manual reverse setup in the tranny.

Jack
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Thank you! I am getting to to firing it up now! Just need to do the electrical and check for leaks
 
jrcr_15 said:
Thank you! I am getting to to firing it up now! Just need to do the electrical and check for leaks
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Good Luck!
It's always exciting when you first fire it up. Make sure you get your IAC (idle air controller) counts below 10. You do this by adjusting the front screw on the throttle body (when the engine is at operating temperature). This is nothing more than the same adjustment you have on a carb. If your IAC counts are high turn the adjustment in, this will open the throttle plates causing the IAC counts to come down. This adjustment can be very touchy so go SLOWLY. After adjusting turn the car off and wait for the numbers on the display to disappear. Turn the ignition on and before you start it make sure that your TPS (throttle position sensor) reads zero.Start the engine and allow the IAC counts to settle, if still not between 4 and 10 continue adjustment. It might be helpful to configure you large gauge display to show IAC, TPS Temp and RPM so you don't have to go searching for them. Got my fingers crossed for you.

Helpful hint, if you're displaying the TPS on the large gauge display, adjust the screw until you see a 1% change on the TPS then shut down the engine and recheck after the display goes blank.
 
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Coyote Jack said:
Good luck and my fingers and eyes are crossed for you. Keep us updated.

Jack
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Almost there! Assuming i had no last minute issues, I might be ready to fire it up this weekend. I was wondering about whay setting you have programmed that you think I should keep in mind? Ie: prime shot, acel / decel settings, air fuel etc.
Thanks again for all your help
 
Your not going to believe this but I only set the idle and the AFR settings for cruise, idle and wot. Other than that I let it learn on it's own and it didn't take long and it runs just fine. Maybe someday I will play with the other settings, but for now, it's good. My warm idle is set to 950 due to the cam I have. My idle afr is 13.5, cruise afr is 15.0 and wot afr is 11.0. These numbers are off the top of my head but should be close. Also set my cam to #3.

Jack
 
jos51700 said:
Actually, I was thinking it was a little strong to suggest that fitech perfected "it". Their system is far from perfect.
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Kind of got here a bit too late, would have mentioned that Holley Sniper EFI how has the HyperSpark ignition system available with hall effect distributor, completely plug-and-play. I would agree with the above statement, Holley is perfecting the revolution that FiTech started with TBI EFI systems (and sort of FAST as well). The FiTech owners community saved FiTech. That's why Holley includes instructional videos, dedicated (active) forums, and two guides (quick & detailed setup) with the Sniper kit.

Best of luck on your setup OP!
 
Coyote Jack said:
Good luck and my fingers and eyes are crossed for you. Keep us updated.

Jack
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Finally got it fired up tonight! Last week i took my first shot at it, but i got a vaccum leak and o2 sensor error.
Did the vaccum leak test using a cigar, but found nothing so I concluded that it must be very small. From there I thought it would be best to check the torque on the supercharger and on the intake manifold. On a couple of the fasteners I got about a quarter turn on them so I concluded that must be yet. Ask for the O2 sensor I need an extension but I don't think the connection was good on the harness that I made. So I took the O2 sensor out cut it then took my extension I made cut it and soldered it together as opposed to plugging it together.

It fired right up and ran not too bad All Things Considered being that it has been sitting for about a year now without being run. What I'm trying to get dialed in now are the IAC settings. When you are adjusting yours did you find that it was more effective to adjust one unit or the other? Or did you turn each units screw the same each time you touched them?

Thanks
 
jrcr_15 said:
Finally got it fired up tonight! Last week i took my first shot at it, but i got a vaccum leak and o2 sensor error.
Did the vaccum leak test using a cigar, but found nothing so I concluded that it must be very small. From there I thought it would be best to check the torque on the supercharger and on the intake manifold. On a couple of the fasteners I got about a quarter turn on them so I concluded that must be yet. Ask for the O2 sensor I need an extension but I don't think the connection was good on the harness that I made. So I took the O2 sensor out cut it then took my extension I made cut it and soldered it together as opposed to plugging it together.

It fired right up and ran not too bad All Things Considered being that it has been sitting for about a year now without being run. What I'm trying to get dialed in now are the IAC settings. When you are adjusting yours did you find that it was more effective to adjust one unit or the other? Or did you turn each units screw the same each time you touched them?

Thanks
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I adjusted the front one first. But if you adjust it too far in you might find that the rpms are higher than what you have set on the controller and the IAC counts won't come down to be within to 4 to 10 range. At that point you might want to back the front adjustment out and move the rear in. Let us know how you made out
 
I did them both at the same time but in very small increments, maybe 1/16 th of a turn at a time. It worked but was very slow and at times it seemed like it did nothing. You are now into the part that I know little about, tuning. I found that the system learned on it's own really quick.

Jack
 
Hellrats said:
Damn, sounds like a lot of work and money. Carburetors work really well when you get them set up correctly. You did say it was "strictly a cruiser". Just add the HEI module, tune it and cruse.
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a carb will never be spot on every day. too many variables. efi is constantly adjusting. last week here it was hot and himid, this week its cool and no humidity. no way a carb is dead on in both conditions.. efi on the other hand is.
 
JoeSBP said:
I would steer clear of some obscure little boutique company like Edelbrock that is jumping into EFI now that FiTech has perfected it and demonstrated there is a huge market for it..
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all FiTech did was make it cheaper. the market has been there for years but the price was high. they put it on the market thats a lot more affordable is all they did and it worked for them.. from reading their forum its far from perfected.
 
abodyjoe said:
all FiTech did was make it cheaper. the market has been there for years but the price was high. they put it on the market thats a lot more affordable is all they did and it worked for them.. from reading their forum its far from perfected.
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..........and may have helped to mitigate Holley prices some LOL..............
 
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