Just got back from the Goodguys car show in Charlotte,NC and wanted to know if anyone has any experience with Holley's TBFI system. The vendor informed me the system costs around $1,500 and would need to be mounted on a holley pattern intake. Ive got a 430 in my 68 Riv but feel the TA FI system is too costly at this time but can afford the holley system and new intake. What do you think?
I would probably do the TA intake, SP-1, with the Holley flange with the new Holley TBFI on it. Another option I would like to see prices on is in the recent Car Craft that has a multiport FI system for the Mopar 440 since we know that intake will go on a Buick engine with an adaptor kit. I wonder how much interest there would be on a mass produced version of the inake on "Frankenbuick" the 61 Skylark with the fuel injected 455 using a Chevy tuned port looking home-made induction system. Just some random thoughts on the subject. I would like to go injected because of the ease of adjusting with a computer to handle changes in altitude or gas quality that you just don't get with a carb but FI just hasn't dropped in price enough yet for me. I am waiting for a multi port FI system that can be installed in a weekend for less than $500.00
Has Holley redesigned their TBI systems recently? I know the older systems weren't really designed for a true performance application. If you do some research you'll see for yourself. For a daily driver they seemed to be best, but had MANY issues on larger & more powerful engines. As far as $500 aftermarket multiport, dream on! I wish they were cheaper too, but I can't even touch an Edelbrock Victor manifold for my Mustang 5.0 for under $500, and that's JUST the intake. When I built it up, I got a lot of used parts, but still paid quite a bit just to upgrade my factory fuel injection system. $375 for a fully ported Edelbrock Performer 5.0 intake, $150 for a larger throttlebody, $200 for a set of 30# injectors, $150 for a larger matched mass air meter for the injectors, $150 for new piping, $100 for a fuel pressure regulator & gauge, and $300 for a dynotuned computer chip. That's $1425 just to UPGRADE my setup with 75% of those parts being used. The best way to inject your older Buick motors is to find a specialist who does lots of retrofits to older vehicles (such as Arizona Speed & Marine) & have them build your system & tune it for you. Unfortunately, there's just no way around the high expense for a good sytem.
Its possible if you are a good parts collector. I have seen people do more with less. You just gotta get lucky, keep your eye out and stick to the $0 budget plan. I know a guy who turbo'ed his v6 3rd gen camaro for less then $500 but he had connection and got lots of stuff free or dirt cheap. Other people have spent $2000 easy to do the same thing.
I was thinking the dual plane manifolds may do better as there is an injector over each Holley TB port. Wouldnt the flow of the fuel/air mixture be more directional with a dual plane?
Nope, single plane is the way to go, if possible. ALL the factory multiport systems I've dealt with were single plane. There's a lot of little differences between fuel injection & carburation. For instance, most people who port carb intakes leave the finish rough to help keep the fuel atomized & from pooling, whereas the smoother the better with fuel injection, as the atomization process is done by the actual injector & you want the intake to have the smoothest airflow possible...try to keep the runners equal length to keep certain cylinders from air starvation. I'm running a Greddy (single plane) intake manifold on my 93 Nissan 180SX here in Okinawa (where imports are domestics & domestics are imports!) with has only a 2.0L displacement (SR20DET) yet the system has LESS lag than my stock intake manifold, which was also single plane style (probably something to do with the BIG ball-bearing turbo I'm running) . It's almost up to 400 rear wheel HP out of a 4-cylinder! Do some research & you'll see for yourself.
