Would there be interest in a dodge TBI setup made for our cars?

Would there be interest in a dodge TBI setup made for our cars?

  • yes, I would love to try TBI. It sounds affordable

    Votes: 66 39.3%
  • only if it includes everything

    Votes: 39 23.2%
  • I would take a partical kit/wiring harness, since I like tinkering and figuring things out

    Votes: 9 5.4%
  • No I like carburated cars

    Votes: 54 32.1%

  • Total voters
    168
  • Poll closed .
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I'm absolutely onside with your goal and the general concept of what you did; carburetors suck, but having lived with that TBI system on an '89 D100 318, I would not select it for retrofitment. Its hardware and firmware/software are poorly designed, halfassed and clunky. If I were going to the effort to retrofit TBI, I would use GM hardware -- adaptor plates are readily available and there's an enormous range of injectors to get whatever flow rate you need -- and a reprogrammed GM computer (you can do that with the GM computers, but not with the Mopar ones). See discussion here, here, here, and here. Adding a vehicle speed sensor is easy; a NAPA Echlin VSS-232 (or equivalent) can simply be placed in line with the speedo cable:

Sorry to hijack but Dan, do you have a link or specific recommendations on hardware for /6?
 
Yes and no. Most yards down here will not let you pilfer around. So that means trying to find one that will and then trying to find TBI stuff that actually might be useable.....and not crushed. And about the money and time thing..........LMAO. I simply have always been good at building and tuning carburetors and carbureted fuel systems, so that's never been an issue for me. Remember too, that where I live (central Georgia) is not the coldest of climates and we general don't have to have immediate cold weather driveability. ;)

Most yards around here are DIY. I don't go so much anymore because there are individuals that go through and pull most of the good parts for resale. Regardless....

I picked up a complete GM TBI setup from a 454 pickup complete with harness, computer, throttle body with injectors and computer for $150. For my beater truck it's a worthwhile endeavor to tinker around with. I have another one in reserve for the family Grand Wagoneer, but I want to wait until Kermit the beater truck is up and running so I can play with different combos and tunes.

The jist of this being, that for what basically boils down to a play toy or whatnot, it can't hurt to try these type of upgrades. Sure, a carb may be good on the daily mill and way better on a hot engine, but why not try for a little more drivability or ease of start up? The worst that can happen is you are putting the carb back on next Saturday.

I do actually have a little experience with EFI engines.....
 

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the dodge TBI (holley branded) has 4 mounting bolts,
as far as I know the holley projection kit used a standard GM TBI unit which is 3 bolt
Thanks. I now recall that the Dodge TBI did have 4 bolts. I confused it with some GM trucks I was robbing sensors from. Correct, the Holley Pro-jection TBI was from a production GM TBI. It must be upscale from the standard Rochester TBI since Holley sells just the TBI as an after-market upgrade. Otherwise, the Dodge TBI looks similar to the Pro-jection TBI with the same early style injections. People prefer the Delphi injectors on the later Pro-jections. They don't interchange unless you swap the whole injector pod.

Most after-market fuel controllers (ECU) don't care what TBI is used, and most can work with either TBI or MPFI (at least for Batch mode). You could start with a TBI and switch to port injectors later. The ECU, sensors, and harness is the main cost, depending on how cleverly you can get/make a manifold with FI ports.
 
Yeah, for those purposes, I can see where it would be of benefit. Cool Hemi.

Most yards around here are DIY. I don't go so much anymore because there are individuals that go through and pull most of the good parts for resale. Regardless....

I picked up a complete GM TBI setup from a 454 pickup complete with harness, computer, throttle body with injectors and computer for $150. For my beater truck it's a worthwhile endeavor to tinker around with. I have another one in reserve for the family Grand Wagoneer, but I want to wait until Kermit the beater truck is up and running so I can play with different combos and tunes.

The jist of this being, that for what basically boils down to a play toy or whatnot, it can't hurt to try these type of upgrades. Sure, a carb may be good on the daily mill and way better on a hot engine, but why not try for a little more drivability or ease of start up? The worst that can happen is you are putting the carb back on next Saturday.

I do actually have a little experience with EFI engines.....
 
Yeah, for those purposes, I can see where it would be of benefit. Cool Hemi.

thats the thing, I have had lots of interest in the early dodge truck crowd wanting to change to TBI for pulling trailers and well thats a fairly straight forward swap, for the car people it would be a good swap for possible MPG increase and a major cold start advantage for the people who need it
 
Don't let's all forget one of the challenges of any fuel injection retrofit, whether throttle body or port, is installing an oxygen sensor. It's easy if you're running cast iron exhaust manifolds (or at least the rear half of a manifold, on slant-6 applications), because for most of us there are manifolds made with O2 sensor ports, intended for '81-up versions of whatever engine we're working on. You want a heated (3- or 4-wire) O2 sensor. It gets trickier if you're running headers, because the O2 sensor wants to be up close to the exhaust ports and looking at exhaust from as many cylinders as possible. Easy with a manifold, hard with headers; you wind up having to choose between watching only one cylinder (close to the port) or being far from the ports (watching multiple cylinders at the collector). If you have to go with a far-from-the-ports location, wrap or coat the headers to keep the heat inside and use an O2 sensor with a high-wattage heater.
 
Don't let's all forget one of the challenges of any fuel injection retrofit, whether throttle body or port, is installing an oxygen sensor. It's easy if you're running cast iron exhaust manifolds (or at least the rear half of a manifold, on slant-6 applications), because for most of us there are manifolds made with O2 sensor ports, intended for '81-up versions of whatever engine we're working on. You want a heated (3- or 4-wire) O2 sensor. It gets trickier if you're running headers, because the O2 sensor wants to be up close to the exhaust ports and looking at exhaust from as many cylinders as possible. Easy with a manifold, hard with headers; you wind up having to choose between watching only one cylinder (close to the port) or being far from the ports (watching multiple cylinders at the collector). If you have to go with a far-from-the-ports location, wrap or coat the headers to keep the heat inside and use an O2 sensor with a high-wattage heater.

thats an advantage with factory TBI from dodge is that it has a 4 wire o2 sensor so it could be placed a little futher back

speaking of GM wiring I have access to one GM TBI unit from a 305 could you provide a good wiring diagram for them? or do they differ from year to year and would be best to search the year of the truck?
 
thats an advantage with factory TBI from dodge is that it has a 4 wire o2 sensor so it could be placed a little futher back

The O2 sensor, heated or no, really wants to be as close as possible to the exhaust ports. And that's not an advantage to the factory Dodge truck/van TBI; the GM system has a heated O2S as well.

speaking of GM wiring I have access to one GM TBI unit from a 305 could you provide a good wiring diagram for them?

I'm afraid I can't. You'd need to look at a factory service manual or subscribe to something like alldatadiy.com .
 
I'd take it all straight off a GM 4.3 V6.

It would have to be a pre-vortec 4.3L, I wouldn't see how it would be possible to fit the Injection Spider from a Vortec 4.3 to a Slant 6.

Also those damn spiders are a nightmare, I lost count on how many of those I've fixed.
 
what year did vortec start? most of the kits would be v8 ones, so I would admagine the wiring may be abit different (it is in chrysler v6 and v8 engines)
 
I'd take it all straight off a GM 4.3 V6.

Temptation... Hmm. I have a buddy with a 4.3l FI blazer with 12,000ish miles on it he rolled 15 years ago and its been sitting in his back yard ever since.

Perhaps I could beer/babes/bribe him out of it.
 
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