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This company seems to have the concerns about aftermarket EFI's covered.Expensive??.Yes.Please click on the side bar topics on the site and then please give me your input.After that,I might call them to see if I could buy components to build up to a complete system.
Thanks in advance,
Before You Buy
they're all expensive!! I used Street Performance on the Plymouth, same going on the '29 roadster, and probably one of their systems for a couple of my own projects. They're very straightforward folks to deal with and very, very high quality components!!!!! Might want to check out their site and give them a call someday!
Here's a link for you, there online catalog;
hotrodlane.cc/
Amen, brother! I've got a buddy that has done a bunch of high performance cars, including converting OEM to more friendly systems for tuning. One that he uses a lot is the MegaSquirt, and he swears by them * *MegaSquirt - Electronic Fuel Injection Computer by Bowling & Grippo * * . What I found, as I comparerd systems, was that they all seem to add up to the same ballpark when you consider everything that you have to buy to get it done. The kits that are 100% inclusive (pump, filter, distributor, hose, fittings, etc, etc) give you sticker shock, but once you add up all of those miscellaneous items to build a kit you'll be up there in dollars, and once done you're on your own, other than help on individual components - those questions on the integrated system are not going to be addressed by the computer guy, for example. Sure, you can build a cheaper EFI using OEM pieces & parts, and if you're really saavy about the electronics you can make them sing your song but if not it'll be off-key and give you headaches.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Severson
Guys-do please read the side bar topics on the site link.They criticize the other after market companies for all those short comings and what they have done to address them including replacement parts that are off the shelf items at local parts stores.They also say that most companies send a base program that surely falls short of day to day driving conditions needing programing by the end user.Where the end user ends up with a lap top on the passenger seat for those changes and their set-up with the air cleaner sensor does make those changes all by it's self.They are saying it truly is a plug and play system not needing any programing.
So please do take a second look at the link and it's as I said side bar topics like why their system,how it works,etc.
Thank You
This is the part of the system I found caught my eye.On my 383 build I just posted how the cam manufacture doesn't suggest a ,as example 108 lobe center.Well that does effect in the RPM range the torque band occurs.So it had me thinking that what Pat and I had discussed about off idle was going to be a trade off.Yepper-I think we all know there are some with almost every build on a engine.But the L/C change would surely effect almost everything we had worked up.So here is a quote from the link.Look at the last part of it.It does seem to make sense.Oh yeah-I forgot to say I have a friend in Calli who is using a old Edelbrock system towing a sand trailer getting soft peddling in the low 20's for gas mileage with his 355 in a Astro.
How Does it Work?
Any naturally aspirated engine, regardless of brand, size, combination of parts, etc., requires a given air/fuel ratio, at a given load. These ratios do not change from engine to engine, until you get into forced induction applications. (We'll get to that later). The needed air/fuel ratio changes with such things as engine temperature, air temperature, and atmospheric pressure, but the needed changes, again, are the same for all engines. The task for any management system is to add the correct amount of fuel to the amount of air that the engine uses. Carburetors do it mechanically, and so, are mechanically limited as to how accurate they can be. Speed density systems do it by comparing the readings from various sensors to tables within the engine controller to try to determine the amount of air the engine is using. This actually works very well, IF THE VALUES IN THE TABLES ARE CORRECT, and there lies the challenge. There are a lot of values, and a lot of tables, and a professional tuner is required to enter the correct values into all of those cells in all of those tables. But you are not done there! The next step is to drive the vehicle in the real world, and adjust all of those values to tune out all of the drivability issues you will have. The other problem is speed density's limited ability to self adjust, and so, your laptop must permanently reside in the passenger's seat. Worse than that, non-programmable, or pre-programmed speed density systems arrive at your door with the programming done. They have been pre-tuned at the manufacturer on the dyno with a pre-determined combination of parts on a specific engine. That would be great, but remember the part where this does not really work very well in the real world? Well, with these systems, you can't even fix it! Even worse, if you want to make a change to your engine, you simply can't.
Mass-Flo does it differently. There is a Mass Air Flow Meter Hidden away inside your air cleaner. This meter can actually measure the amount of air that is entering your engine, and again, if you know how much air the engine is using, then you just add the correct amount of fuel. It's that simple. The air/fuel ratio is adjusted accordingly to compensate for the load, and variances in engine temperature, air temperature, and atmospheric pressure by reading values from sensors that are included in the system. If you decide to make improvements to your engine, Mass-Flo simply adapts to those changes. Keep in mind... An engine is just a big air pump. Changing heads, camshafts, intakes, exhaust systems, displacement, etc., are just ways of making your air pump more efficient, or in other words, using more air. Since Mass-Flo measures the amount of air the engine is using, it simply adds the correct amount of fuel. With speed density, it's back to the dyno to start all over again.
In forced induction applications, the ratios are different, and a different tune is needed. We also have a tune to cover those applications. In fact, Mass-Flo can be adapted just about anywhere. If you want something made custom, let us know. We can do dual quads, and other applications where two Mass Air Meters are required. In all cases, no tuning is ever required by the customer.
There's one other thing we should mention... Speed density relies heavily on the signal from the MAP (manifold air pressure) sensor to determine how much fuel to add. This sensor measures the engine's vacuum at the manifold. So what happens when your camshaft produces poor vacuum? You guessed it... Horrible drivability is the result." Mass-Flo does not use a MAP sensor. You can use any camshaft you want with our system."
Why bother asking for input if you're already certain it's the best????
My experience has been that a company with a really quality product doesn't waste any time bad mouthing the competition, or justifying their system. They let their product speak for itself....
Some of the companies offering tuneability with a box or a laptop do so because they realize the tuneup, fuel curve, ignition curve, etc. is going to need some adjustability in it to optimize the performance of the system for different kinds of driving. Cruising across country is not the same tune up as hot lapping a road course on open track day...... Some of us like being able to change our rev limiter setting, or settings on the systems that offer a two or three rev limiter system......
Maybe never having to tune the system works for some folks, don't see where it would for me!!!!
Dave you first point is well taken.But I don't know if it is the best.Just a matter if it makes sense to you guys I guess.
I have to agree with Dave. Seems to me that you've already bought their sales pitch and I'm not sure why you're asking. There's too much information in the sidebars to digest quickly, and like Dave says they seem to be more interested in telling the world what's wrong with everyone else as opposed to lettiing their product sell itself with performance and a proven track record. Their system may be the best in the world, or it may be modern snake oil. Caveat emptor is still the rule of the day....
Dave and Rick-I am agreement with that.I spent untold hrs researching brand names and customer reviews on the parts for the 383 build.I will on this as well.I'll look into this farther and post what I have found.
i would look in to going mass air use the hole stock set up in the van . your old throttle body k code or others just plane will not work with much of any cam no trade off just plane will not work with map like i said manny time s to you :)I seen it done it will not work with your old set up .but the mass air can work its stock gm and a re chip it should work fine should be many in the bone yard why wast money on some thing that gm has made and works ? if the mass air set up can talk to all part in line it will not know what car/truck its in i seen this done many times with motercycle engines like the gxr in road race cars . air boats . i have seen computer engines put back to carb and dist like the quad four and echo teck by driving a older dist out of a older 4 engine reworking it and drive it off the end of the cam
EFI Mass air at the first would buy me time to look and see a viable aftermarket.Pat advise given and taken for a course of action.Who do you use for the chip burn??.Quote:
Originally Posted by pat mccarthy
well some of the guys burning chips i used do not burn them any more. i work for some buick v6s guys that hang out at the shop knew who they used .so i would go by word up mouth as i now just machine and build engines i do not get in tuning of computer engines . Jerry C or his son or him could help you more here . i would take out the harness out of a mass air engine car and computer box .intake air box and make it talk to your engine the fire bird or trans am is what i would look at but you would want to talk to computer guys .you will need to get past some of the security circuits in the GM harness and would need a trans that you can plug in the mix ? some of this stuff can be by past how much ? i do not know for sure. but seen a bit of it get removed and a resistor put in line to make the computer read a all goQuote:
Originally Posted by 1gary
I got some guys to handle that.Just wanted to see who you would suggest.
many of the new computers don't have a "chip" to burn, which is why there's not very many guys trying to rework the ECM's anymore. As I understand it after talking to the guys at Street Performance, the new electronics, like for the LS engines, require rewriting the whole program and takes a very knowledgeable 'puter guy to get past the security stuff first, then make the program work right.
The older style like you have Gary do have a replaceable chip---but the whole system is already out of date. For the street, this new stuff is great! If you could find someone who can chip yours for towing the way the new LS engines are "tuned" for performance it'll be great!
yep they get flash but he s going to build a 383 that has a dist engine i can not see buying a kit for something gm built that is a mass air setup will work? and if he was building a crank trigger engine then i could see it but hey its not my money :) yep the EZ way would be a ls and lift every thing out of a wreck and do a trans plant but who said hot rodders take the EZ way out????
I really am not unlike anyone else.I take the suggestions from here very seriously and do more research to have a informed insight of what people are telling me.I lost most of the info I had saved for a EFI for this build when my last XP windows computer went down and the computer repair shop lost the computer.
Recently I have been spending alot of time reading Thirdgen.com on TBI's.Still working on my learning curve there.
As promised I did a search on the Mass Flo Fuel Injection Systems customer reviews.Not to be argumentative in any way,but to add to the info for this thread I am posting the review on it by David Vizard.
Mention Fuel Injection to a carb guy and at the moment he is changing jets he will almost certainly get a metal picture of his counterpart with a lap top programming the system. Well that’s certainly the case in most instances but things are changing. Probably the #1 reason for some one who has been using carbs only for fuel delivery is that they may not be as comfortable using a computer as they are a screwdriver. That, other than cost, tends to be the #1 reason why hard core carb guys don’t convert to fuel injection readily.
I got into a conversation on this topic with dyno operator Doug Aitken. Doug dyno’s a variety of engines – and usually between one and four a day at that. Doug gets a lot of practice setting up fuel injected motors so he has a good window on the situation in terms of what’s user friendly and what is not. We are in the process of building both Ford and Chevy engines for fuel injection purposes so I asked Doug what he thought was the most user friendly system out there. His answer, “Mass-Flo’s system – it virtually programs itself”.
Here is the system we got to make a provisional test on. The test engine was a big cube small block and the combination of cubes and fuel injection made this a very civilised 'monster'.
As things turned out I got a call from Doug a few days later and he asked if I would like to see a Mass-Flo system on the dyno. Sounded good to me so over I went.
I arrived to see Doug just as he was finishing up the install of the engine on the dyno so things were ready in a few minutes to start the test engine. This was a small block Chevy of moderate compression and about 440 inches. This engine was going in a pretty light car – can’t remember what now but it would have weighed only about 2800 lbs. The customer for this engine wanted something with torque everywhere and 550 hp that would run, if needs be, on 89 octane fuel. It had to have a relatively small cam (bearing in mind the displacement, and no expensive head porting).
Self Programming?
Is this system self programming? Not really, it just appears and acts that way to the end user. Essentially when you order a system a fuel program that is reckoned to be close is installed. From here on the system fine tunes itself from the O2 sensor for part throttle usage and meets a pre-determined fuel air ratio when it goes into mass flow mode. As for the ignition curve this is a set program based on the engines spec i.e. cam, compression etc. All that is required here is that the distributor be set to the initial timing called for. If you want to do any fine tuning from here on out it is easily done at a test and tune session the drag strip – or, if you prefer on a chassis dyno. But fine tuning here does mean just that – fine tuning.
The first hint that this was going to be an easy deal was the fact that when Doug hit the starter this engine turned at most 2 revolutions before it fired. It then settled down into warm up mode at about 1000 rpm. After warm up the idle dropped back to about 800 rpm and dyno’s O2 mixture analyzer showed a steady 14.5 or so fuel air ratio. That’s right around where it needs to be for the cats of an engines emission system to work optimally. After that the engine was cycled through various modes to simulate the various throttle openings versus rpm that one would typically see driving around in a normal fashion in a suburban/rural area. After cycling like this for an hour the motor was deemed broken in and an oil change was made plus a check of valve lash and head bolts torque.
At this point runs with more throttle and rpm were done with little or no change in rpm. Because this was all done at relatively high intake manifold vacuum the system was still on the closed loop and was controlled by the O2 sensor readings. Gradually over the next hour the engine was taken to it’s full potential. WOT power runs showed the mixture to be right on 13/1 throughout the rpm band at any time the manifold vacuum was down around about 4 inches or less. Throttle response was just what you would expect of a fuel injected engine – sharp. At this point Doug announced that the system had about programmed itself. We then made some exploratory runs and for our final figures netted 547 lbs-ft and 548 hp. Low speed torque was such that we could not pull this engine below 3500 rpm at which point it was cranking out some 507 lbs-ft of torque. The power curve for this engine after ‘self calibrating’ was as per the graph below.
To take the engine off the dyno Doug uses a carb pad lift plate. This meant taking Mass-Flo system off the intake manifold and that gave me an opportunity to flow the throttle body/mass flow sensor assembly. This showed about 750 cfm on the bench which would normally have been a bit on the small side for a 550 hp engine. The reason for my testing it is that I thought this would be a great system to put on a relatively high effort 383 small block Chevy I was currently building. However my target output was as much as could possibly be had from a cam of no more intake duration than 252 degrees @ 0.050 tappet lift. With the profile chosen that worked out to be 294 at lash. For this I really wanted more flow than this mass flow sensor had so I made a call to Mass-Flo and asked about the possibility of a higher flow sensor. It turns out they have a competition one which goes over 1000 cfm. That decided me right there. My 383 is going to be Mass-Flo injected.
David Vizard
Last edited by admin; 08-26-2009 at 11:26 AM.
A couple of comments regarding that brand of FI. It appears that they use an old EEC-IV Ford controller....been gone for 16 years at least. I think the 4's were OBD I units. They probably still had removable chips...as evidenced by Mass Flo selling a J3 add on to hold memory. It appears that they mount their hot wire mass flow sensor near the throttle body....that is interesting since most installations (like a GM hot wire) mount the sensor out in a stabilized flow region....like in a straight duct where the air flow is stable. Mounting in turbulence negates any ability to read a true signal since the turbulence varies by flow volume and other factors. In summary, I think they might have a workable unit BUT their "advantages" over other vendors is hot air. Both Ford and Chevrolet have bounced between mass flow calculations vs speed density calculations. The new Ford and GM controllers are very sophisticated and have currently settled on mass flow.....but that's not necessiarly true for a control platform designed by Motorola in the early 1980's. As a rule, a good (underline good) Fuel Injection system that incorporates distributor control will set you back $3K to $4K.....regardless of vendor. There is less capable stuff out there... and they pop up really cheap when someone takes them off their motor. My suggestion is to find a local shop who has installed LOTS of injection ssytems.....and will stand behind their installation.
I am doing some study on Thirdgen.com to get the basics back to memory.Two things that are baseline issues is enough fuel and at W.O.T.towards the rpm limit the dc limit to cycle injectors fast enough.All kinds of stuff out there that will provide enough air,but the fuel side is another issue entirely.To the extent where injectors are not cycling at all on the top end and just spraying a constant spray of fuel to the limit of the pressure of the injectors.It is one of the main reasons guys try to use port injection,but then they have restraints on the air side of it.
One thing I didn't say is their system is a SFI and i have been a fan of that for awhile.
During me researching this system I have confirmed the fact that they are using a old Ford type system.Here is a quote:
However, what the MassFlo system is: it's a Ford A9L EEC-IV comptuer that came out of a early 1990s mustang GT. It's using a GM Mass Airflow sensor with a "MAF Translator" because the GM MAF can read a wider range of airflow. Finally, the tune is "modified" using Tweecer software which is basically free. You can duplicate this combo yourself for a fraction of the money. Basically, it's a Ford EFI system that can self tune (within reason).
They run OK. They don't let you do the kind of tuning you might want to be able to do in the future, but for a "nearly plug and play solution" it'll work, if you can follow basic wiring instructions. It's NOT a performance EFI system, but it is based on a computer that's far faster and more powerful than any standalone computer you can buy. You just cannot do much with the tune, it won't be perfect but it'll be "ballpark."
I have read where the same thing could be copied from junk yard parts for about $500 bucks.I am still digging for more info.
All very interesting stuff that I'm trying to digest - kinda thinking that eventually I'll go some sort of EFI on my car so am basically subscribing:D.
Robot,Quote:
Originally Posted by robot
Well said, and I could not agree with you more. If you feel comfortable with the computer and have the time and patience to learn the ins & outs of the programming, a unit like Edelbrock's ProFlo series has the power of the Edelbrock R&D behind it along with their very good tech support. There are others in the same arena, as well as several plug & play units out there but if you don't want to dive in and swim then letting a good shop do it is the right answer.
Roger.I wanted to say that from the Edelbrock forum awhile ago I learned that the early 3500 series in general is not supported by Edelbrock any longer.So if you buy one from eBay and have a problem,your on your own.So buyer beware is the message.
Well the more I look the more the Holley commander 950 looks within reach budget wise and program wise.