Learn me EFI for SBC

Looking to bring some modern tech to this old beater and it seems many options exist. In the past(circa 2009) I have used  a F.A.S.T TBI that worked quite well but today there seems to have been many advances. I would like something easy to set up and service that will be reliable. Research so far seems to indicate batch fired multi port (Haltech?) would be possible and yield the best results. It also looks like it may be possible to adapt an LS ECU but that seems a bit more complicated. Appears that a quality TBI set up would do all the important stuff and be the easy button/budget friendly option but many folks say they are all garbage. I have zero experience tuning via laptop so the ease of use with TBI is appealing.

Not interested in LS swapping this car, and will be keeping the manual trans.

Having only ever converted one car to EFI, I am hoping to lean into the more experienced GRM'ers for some suggestions.

That car's battle scars, wheels, and stance - LEAVE THEM THE BERK ALONE!

Also...more on that car please

Having converted older engines to EFI, my opinion is to get a higher end Quick Fuel carburetor.  It will drive better, get better fuel economy, and require a lot less fussing around.  It will be expensive ($1000-1200 for the carb) but still less than even an overcheapened drop in EFI setup.

The key is, fuel injection has kinda piss-poor atomization and the Quick Fuel carbs have the best atomization I have ever seen.  This translates to excellent drivability and economy.  The different metering circuits are also generally so well calibrated that all you need to do to set one up is adjust the idle speed.

The EFI conversions I have done were the TBI type.  Their drivability was never as good no matter what you did.  I'm not convinced that even sequential port injection is any good on a V8 until you get to an intake manifold that has extremely long runners.  This is speaking from an idle/low load/cruise mindset where 99% of your driving is done.

Glad to see Bumblebee found a new human. 

Oh hell yea. That reminds me of high school. Yes, More on the car!

That Camaro is PERFECT! I would DD the wheels off that thing. I'm jealous of your ride.

My experience with Fitech was no muy bueno. About the time I learned enough to make it work better I decided that a Carb would get me home a lot more reliably than aftermarket EFI.

Only go EFI if you want EFI to be the new hobby

I never did successfully get the Howell TBI kit to integrate seamlessly with a 304 AMC.  It was supposed to be plug and play.  I checked and double checked everything there was.  It didn't throw a CEL, the fuel pressure and the return were spot on.  It ran but was always pig rich.  It'd melt your eyeballs idling inside a garage.  Maybe one day.  I parked it and moved on.  
 

My point is, these kits aren't always as easy as they're cracked up to be.

Are those Cragars?

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Having converted older engines to EFI, my opinion is to get a higher end Quick Fuel carburetor.  It will drive better, get better fuel economy, and require a lot less fussing around.  It will be expensive ($1000-1200 for the carb) but still less than even an overcheapened drop in EFI setup.

 

The key is, fuel injection has kinda piss-poor atomization and the Quick Fuel carbs have the best atomization I have ever seen.  This translates to excellent drivability and economy.  The different metering circuits are also generally so well calibrated that all you need to do to set one up is adjust the idle speed.

 

The EFI conversions I have done were the TBI type.  Their drivability was never as good no matter what you did.  I'm not convinced that even sequential port injection is any good on a V8 until you get to an intake manifold that has extremely long runners.  This is speaking from an idle/low load/cruise mindset where 99% of your driving is done.

I have never heard of that carb.  Will check it out.

NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) said:

Are those Cragars?

They look like 200S Daisey's

In reply to A 401 CJ :

They're Holley format carbs, but they make their own baseplates, main bodies, metering blocks, and bowls.

I specify the higher end units because apparently Summit bought Quick Fuel and is slapping the QF name on a budget level carb.  I am not familiar with those.  The non budget carbs are very high quality, and if you care to play with tuning then the world is open because the main bodies are set up for replaceable air bleeds and metering blocks have replaceable jets in the IFR circuits and even the emulsion wells.  I'll play with air bleeds and the IFRs but once you start talking about messing with the emulsion wells, my brain nopes out of the conversation, as that part is pure voodoo to me

But you won't have to.  I've bolted their carbs on everything from a mostly stock 289 Ford to a high compression/huge cam 540 Chevy and they just worked.  Razor sharp throttle response, no weird bogs or sags anywhere, no fouling plugs while still feeling like it's starving for fuel Barry Grant...

The poor atomization of a TBI setup in particular means they have to run fairly rich.  Something about smaller fuel droplets means more access to oxygen whereas larger droplets means you need more fuel to ensure that something ignites.  Also, better atomization means less wall wetting so you need less accelerator pump, even with an air gap type manifold that sees no exhaust heat or even engine heat.

Tbi are worse than carbs. Port efi or bust. 

I'm going through the same thoughts on my sbc 260z.  I started many years ago with the plans of a carberated 350, then decided I really do not like messing with carbs & switched to fuel injection.  The tpi & tbi ecu's are well documented with anything you would want to do.  Moates used to be the go to for tuning, boostednw looks to have replacements for everything moates offered.

Myself I have switched the carb manifold for a weiand stealth ram tpi intake & plan on using a 730 ecu with the S_AUJP code for improved resolution & input options.  Thirdgen.org has alot of good info on tuning these ecu's even if it is still old school prom flashing 

What's the end goal for the EFI? Make a race engine easier to live with, better mileage, combine a lot of separate black boxes into one central tuning point, support boost or nitrous, wow factor, or what? Different answers can call for very different hardware.

I think LT1 guys are running the 411 PCM with a specific vortec distributor (so no crank trigger, just a cam sensor). I barely read into it but I think there was some tradeoffs, like maybe only batch.

You could probably adapt an LT1 PCM and fbody harness pretty easily, the 94s and 95s are sequential injection, flashable, tuning software is incredibly cheap (free) and simple and have no crank signal and it's made to run a SBC, figure out the distributor and I'd bet all the sensor for inputs probably bolt right up to a gen 1 SBC. Back in the day people were converting LT1 intakes to work on gen 1s, you need a distributor hole and bolt pattern redrilled (not sure what they were doing about the water neck), the benefit is they are good manifolds and very cheap ( I think I have 3 because they aren't worth selling)

Another option is TPI swtup, made specifically for a gen 1 but performance from a stock setup isn't great and IIRC tunig requires chips, which has its following and solutions do exist but I've never looked into it so I can't comment on it, but bonus points for being beautiful. I like them so much I have a setup in my garage even though I have nothing to bolt it to

"Carburetors, man.  That's what life is all about."

Caperix said:

Myself I have switched the carb manifold for a weiand stealth ram tpi intake & plan on using a 730 ecu with the S_AUJP code for improved resolution & input options.  Thirdgen.org has alot of good info on tuning these ecu's even if it is still old school prom flashing 

This warms my heart, that hardware hacking is alive and well.

Years, okay decades ago, there were two complementary mailing lists for hacking GM ECMs, sharing roms and determining memory locations and the like, and a couple DIY EFI mailing lists, for people who wanted to make their own hardware and firmware.  I followed along with interest.

The first Megasquirts were born of efforts by members of DIY EFI.

Decades later, I found that lifting the tables straight from a GM ECM rom using TunerCat, and plugging them in to an MS3, which had similar capabilities re: having separate VE and power enrichment tables, resulted in an engine that ran very well and needed minimal tweaks to be Really Danged Good. (The engine, incidentally, was a four cylinder Fiero.  I didn't choose the projects, I just made people's visions a reality   The TBI was a bit of a pain because the throttle body was waaay oversized but the throttle had to be open enough for the fuel to make it into the engine on a cold start.  That took a lot of screwing around to make work)

I'm probably dating myself here along with being a bit esoteric, but with a carb you can always use the 'famous for gear heads' movie line "...it might be the jets.."

I can't find a clip of the actual quote but here's the movie.  Wheels look familiar?

Streetwiseguy said:

"Carburetors, man.  That's what life is all about."

This is why I have a set of four new Weber IDA clones in the shed and need an engine to put them under.

But to do it right, the stacks need to be visible in the rear view mirror, which means I need a car to put them in.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to A 401 CJ :

They're Holley format carbs, but they make their own baseplates, main bodies, metering blocks, and bowls.

 

I specify the higher end units because apparently Summit bought Quick Fuel and is slapping the QF name on a budget level carb.  I am not familiar with those.  The non budget carbs are very high quality, and if you care to play with tuning then the world is open because the main bodies are set up for replaceable air bleeds and metering blocks have replaceable jets in the IFR circuits and even the emulsion wells.  I'll play with air bleeds and the IFRs but once you start talking about messing with the emulsion wells, my brain nopes out of the conversation, as that part is pure voodoo to me

 

But you won't have to.  I've bolted their carbs on everything from a mostly stock 289 Ford to a high compression/huge cam 540 Chevy and they just worked.  Razor sharp throttle response, no weird bogs or sags anywhere, no fouling plugs while still feeling like it's starving for fuel Barry Grant...

 

The poor atomization of a TBI setup in particular means they have to run fairly rich.  Something about smaller fuel droplets means more access to oxygen whereas larger droplets means you need more fuel to ensure that something ignites.  Also, better atomization means less wall wetting so you need less accelerator pump, even with an air gap type manifold that sees no exhaust heat or even engine heat.

I didn't look all that hard but it seemed the Summit ones were the only ones coming up.  And they were not much more $ than the other ones.  Who has the good stuff of which you speak?

Quick fuel is owned by Holley - go to their website. They have cheap street carbs, street and race carbs and still full tilt what they call race carbs. Everything from about $400 to whatever you want to spend. 

I just setup a 390 in a 67 mustang up with a QFT carb, did another one on an ls / carb conversion, etc. The Brawlers are the cheaper line, offhand. Still adjustable like their whatever series the next line up is called but in a cheap cast body. For a decent bit less money.  

Whatever direction you go, please do a build thread.

BTW, when I had my 1972 Camaro I wanted to put on a 3, 2bbl TBi just for the looks.   

In reply to A 401 CJ :

It appears that the SS line are what they call the ones I liked.  They're less expensive now than they used to be, not sure if that is a plus or a minus.

A 401 CJ said:

That car's battle scars, wheels, and stance - LEAVE THEM THE BERK ALONE!

 

 

Also...more on that car please

What he said.

Also, what's the motivation to convert to EFI? There are so many ways to do it and, as others have said, some good carbs that may make it a moot point. What's your objective?