Dear V-8 Buick Faithful, First, for those of you who have been following the soap opera that my venerable 65 Buick Special wagon has been going through: here is a update. After almost 8 months in body shop purgatory, the car might actually get released in a week or two! This poor car has spent more time in "prison" than lots of criminals! uzzled: CK-Performance "hopes" that the 200-4R transmission might go out sometime next week (okay, so assume at least 2 but still progress. ) Alas, Jim Weise is almost certainly going to lose his bet that could complete the new engine for this car before it gets out of the body shop (I should have bet him the cost of the engine! :laugh Which brings us to the current installment of the soap opera for which you'all are invited to comment on. Last week, Jim sent me an email with the rather distressing problem there-in: Now considering how fancy this engine is going to be, having it hard to start is a really bummer. Worse, this car has always had choke "issuez." I've tried different carbs to get a good start to no avail. My Dad even fitted the car with manual choke in the 70s (that made learning to drive that much more fun. :rant So, all in all, if Jim sez the choke won't work - I'm inclined to take his advice, especially since I had planned to upgrade to EFI sooner or later anyway. The system Jim recommends in this email is this: http://www.fuelairspark.com/ezefi/default.asp When I asked if there was anything else to consider he mentioned the sequential fuel-injection upgrade by Mass-Flo. http://www.massfloefi.com/mass-flo-systems-buick-c-1_5/buick-400-430-455-efi-system-p-2. Both systems have good reviews. There is a very favorable thread on the EZ-EFI system here on V-8 Buick: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=181640. I couldn't find any reviews on Mass-Flo on V-8 Buick but there is this thread: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=227223 and there are favorable reviews elsewhere on the web such as this one: http://www.bangshift.com/forum/showthread.php/17653-Mass-Flo-EFI (since the car in question is a 65 GM wagon - to be taken very seriously!! :laugh: ) Both systems have an advantage that they are self-tuning. That turns out to be more important than it otherwise should be. The engine will be installed by a crew who know BMW, Porsche, and that sort of EFI, but EFI for classic GM . . . not their forte. So for me, it's important. Now the usual gripe about :dollar: applies, but since this is a new engine, the EFI systems provide engine components that would have be bought anyway, so the tariff isn't as bad as adding an EFI system to an existing engine. For the EZ-EFI system I'm look at an extra: $1400, for the Mass-Flo is goes up to $2600 (not including fuel system modifications.) Considering how much I'm already spending on this engine (and that's on a purely need-to-know basis only! :shock it isn't that much more to spend. So all you high-tech for old Iron gurus - what you'all think? :idea2: I'm willing to consider other suggestions . . . . however, keep in mind that: 1.) I've gotta pay for it, 2.) Jim has to be happy to install it! 3.) the crew at Orinda Motors have to make all work in the end! Any and all pearls of wisdom are as always greatly appreciated! :TU: Thanks you all for being a great resource! :3gears: Cheers, Edouard :beer P.S. I'm planning on going with an in-tank fuel-pump. Research on that end of this caper is on-going.
Cheap and easy solution.......a manual choke. You can control it any way you want, cold or warm. I would expect to pay no more than $10 for the cable kit. What's an EFI go for, $2,500? That would be an easy decision for me.
Gessler can't convert this to electric choke? If not definitely manual choke. Either aren't a big deal. Scott
Manual choke - what about all that therapy! (Re: Jim "sez" EFI) Hi Bill (and V-8 Buick lovers, ) What! and relive all that high-school trauma of learning how to drive with a manual choke! Why the therapist costs alone will go way over $2500!! :laugh: Seriously, the goal here is a very drivable car that gets really good gas mileage and can "compete" with them modern SUVs at the campground (as much on looks as anything else! ) If I hadn't been interested in EFI anyway, you are absolutely right - somehow get a choke to work. However, I always wanted to upgrade the car in this way. I had only intended to go with the Q-Jet for a year or two and then upgrade (admittedly hoping for another serious gas mileage boost, but now having something to compare it with.) As noted, this engine isn't exactly cheap. A manual choke on an engine with stage-2 aluminum heads . . . . the word tacky comes to mind. If I wanted to just pinch pennies, I'd rebuild the 300 and go on. However, I'd doing something special for my beloved Special . . . and she's worth it! :grin:. Still your advise is very prudent :Smarty: - it's just a little too late in this caper! :grin: Cheers, Edouard :beer
Re: Manual choke - what about all that therapy! (Re: Jim "sez" EFI) To me it'd be a no brainer if you planned on using a Q-jet, I'd get the electric choke as mentioned. Before the EFI conversion on my T-bird I converted it to electric choke because in the middle of winter the choke would kick on after extended highway driving due to to the cold air cooling the intake. On the EFI, between the Mass-Flo and the EZ-EFI, I'd go EZ-EFI. As Jim mentioned about the fuel economy, he doesn't know the guy's carb tuning skills. My personal observation has been most EFI tuner's really don't know their way around a carb very well, particularly on the part throttle efficiency side, since most "performance" carb tuners are really only interested in WOT and maybe transistion accel shot. The really good carb guys that become EFI guys are usually really good EFI guys, can't say it's the other way around.
I've been happy with my EZ-EFI system. Have had it on the car 2+ years and several thousand miles now and could hardly be happier. Cold start is great and since FAST released V3 of the tune the cold start needs almost ZERO learning. Something very important to me was hot start is also nothing but a turn of the key no. I don't know that economy is any better or worse than the 950HP I had on my car before. Biggest issues I see over at the FAST forums with these systems (which seem to be the same issues people have with other EFI systems) 1 Installing sensor/power wires near plug wires (noise) 2. A clean tach signal is a MUST (MSD is the clear favorite here) 3. Power and ground need to run off the battery. 4. Make sure your "system on" wire has good voltage during cranking. If you have any specific questions please let me know. regards
Ken hit it right on the head for general good practice EFI installation. 1) Buick's make this relatively easy since the spark plug wires start in the front of the engine and wrap around the side. 2) All efi systems want a clean signal, some systems have better signal filtering than others though. 3) I run my megasquirt's main power and ground from the battery, but each sensor is grounded individually to the block. 4) A problem I had early on is finding a power source that was there during cranking and ON but no power while OFF. On the '67 T-bird I had to do some tricky wiring with a relay to make it happen, the '77 Skylark had a fuse box source that worked perfectly. Depending on your intake, the SPX and a standard 1,000cfm throttle body isn't any higher than an Edelbrock Performer and Q-jet, and the electrical routing was conviently away from other car electric circuits. All the EFI wiring runs through those two harnesses, one for the injectors and the other has the coolant temp(2 wires), air temp (2 wires), tps(3 wires) and tach (1 wire). Unplugs from the connector on the firewall. Simple.
Why not an Accel Thruster for an ECM? It'll control anything, throttle body, multiport whatever. Remember, if you're going for total fuel economy as well as performance then you need spark control, period. The EZ doesn't have it, The PJIII doesn't have it and the Mass-Flo only alows 20 degrees of adjustment. Only Holley and Accel throttle body systems give you that perk. And look at the PJIII "self learning" systems, 900+ posts and they're still working the bugs out of it. I know I'll get flack for that, but read their advertisement carefully, then read the 900 posts and you tell me what's reality. Thanks Jmo.
You've already stated that your Buick is special and deserves the best so why even bother with a TBI setup? I take it you don't really want to ever mess with the tuning aspect of it so really the self learning requirement shouldn't be one. Get a stand alone MPFI system, find a tuner, and have them dyno tune the engine first and then refine the tune on the street. Sure, it will cost more, but if you want EFI, do it right the first time. But, after saying all that, I'm with the others that have stated to convert to an electrical choke and be done with it. Then you can spend all that extra money you saved else where.
I just got off the phone with Mass-Flo and according to them their system starts off with an initial timing of around 14 degrees and maps well past 20 degrees beyond that. Please explain what you meant. Thanks Paul
Sticking to the problem (Re: Jim "sez" EFI) Dear Jason and V-8 Buick members, Apologies in advance to those who don't fully appreciate my predicament, but I didn't want this thread to become a "turf war" of EFI versus carb, or which flavor of EFI is the best. This is a particular case and this decision needs to fit my unique constraints. For starters, the car is in California, the engine is being built in Minnesota, and the transmission is coming from New York. So seemingly obvious suggestions like Jason's aren't so straightforward: The engine will assembled and first dyno tested by Jim Weise in Minnesota. Then it needs to be put into my car in California. That means two EFI tuning gurus separated by thousands of miles. This isn't simply a matter of more money, it's much more hassle for me and will I have a well-running engine in the end? The other point that seems to be overlooked in this discussion is that I'm almost building a new drive-train from scratch. Sure there is an additional cost to going EFI. However, the alternative isn't free. This engine needs a distributor, intake manifold, carburetor, and fuel-pump. If I have Jim assemble the engine with a carburetor, I would have to "throw-away" those components to switch to EFI later. The car even needs to have its fuel line replaced because the existing line is too small for a big-block V-8. Do I really want this fuel line replaced and then redo this again for fuel-injection? So this is a significant fork in the road and no easy way to go carb now and upgrade to EFI later. Finally, critical differences in the technology aren't getting their proper consideration. The Mass-Flo system operates differently than most aftermarket EFI systems. The difference is described nicely in this Chevy High Performance magazine article posted on automotive.com: http://chevyhighperformance.automotive.com/81850/0705chp-mass-flo-efi-system/index.html Here is a quote from two key paragraphs of that article: These differences in EFI systems are described generally in this article on the Ford Fuel Injection website: http://fordfuelinjection.com/?p=4. The Mass-Flo system is based on the Mass-Air-Flow technology developed by US auto makers and used commonly in the modern cars most of us are familiar with. So the self-tuning strategy of Mass-Flo is genuinely different and therefore has a fighting chance to match professional EFI tuners. The Mass-Flo system appears to have some genuine limitations, especially in racing, where some software adjustments seem required. However, that isn't surprising considering that this Mass-Air-Flow versions of EFI was developed by auto makers to optimize gas mileage and reduce emissions. I made another search of these systems on the Internet and overall there are happy owners of both the EZ-EFI and Mass-Flo system. There are more happy EZ-EFI owners out there, but that's hardly surprising given the price difference. Once more, given my predicament of having to "cobble together" a car from components traveling thousands of miles, some sort of self-tuning system seems all but required. If I want to go with EFI eventually, perhaps I'm truly better off to bite the bullet now than to have to redo a lot of work in the future. So that's why I came to you'all for advice. Our classic cars most certainly aren't "one solution fits all." Still for this thread, I would appreciate if folks could focus their suggestions on my problem! Cheers, Edouard :beer
Re: Sticking to the problem (Re: Jim "sez" EFI) Your problem would be solved by an electric choke OR jumping into the deep end with one EFI package. A fuel line sufficient for a carb is sufficient for EFI, HOWEVER, EFI would like a sump or surge tank for when the fuel level get's low. I run a 3/8th fuel line on mine with a 5/16th Ford pump and can still manage a sub 10:1 AFR at WOT and 5,000rpm on roughly a 400-425HP engine. Plenty of wiggle room, I am going to attempt to run the same fuel system with the new engine combination. I also run a 5/16th return line to the gas tank. I actually think the EFI is less sensitive to fuel line size because you can play with the pressure much more with EFI. I'm currently at 43psi and have no issue taking it up to 60psi. If your car has an OE return line, it'd probably be real easy to convert later. The return line was the biggest job of plumbing the EFI. I went with a surge canister instead of a sump so I didn't modify the gas tank at all and several times have ran it down to a gallon or so left in the gas tank with no noticable effects.
Not sure if I missed it but what are your goals for the car? You've mentioned pieces of your engine build, but never really came out and told us what your engine is being built to do. Honestly, not being able to get a choke to work seems like a poor excuse to spend a bunch of money on EFI if is wasn't originally part of the goal. As far as the tuning goes there's no reason why Jim can't dyno tune the enigne with the efi system. In all honesty, this will be the 95-98% solution. Once the engine is bolted into the vehicle, wiring harness attached, and fuel system completed, you start it up and drive the vehicle. Whatever small hiccups or nuances you feel need attention, you could find a competent tuner in your area and hook him up with Jim's info so they can communicate and share the maps developed by Jim during the dyno. Then the tuner will have you drive your car around while he irons out any small discrepancies noted from your drive. A good street tune should cost no more than 250-300 dollars if that. My only suggestion concerning EFI, is if you're going to do it, go with MPFI. Self learning or not, if you want the best performance, go MPFI.
Vacation cruise wagon and tow vehicle (Re: Jim "sez" EFI) Dear Jason, SilverBuick, and V-8 Buick lovers, Sorry to those to have already heard the story before, but indeed I don't have a good spot to point people to, so it somewhat my fault. This engine is going into a 1965 Buick Special wagon that has been in the family since 1968. The goal is to bring back the glory days of the American station wagon. That includes the mundane chores like fetching the groceries, but to me is especially as the vacation cruiser. So the key objectives are: 1.) an increase in torque and horsepower that would allow the car to comfortably tow a 5000 lbs load, and 2.) as great an improvement in gas mileage as modern technology can "graft" onto a period Buick engine. The car will definitely never race, but my hope is that it will give SUV and RV crowd something of a shock when my wagon pulls into a campground with an Airstream trailer. Indeed I think Jim is "stretching a point" but what lies between the lines is very much in my interest and a matter of his own reputation as well. Can something be made to work with the Quadra-Jet? Obviously yes. However, this is going to be a really incredible engine. Moreover it is an incredible engine of the sort that basically aren't made. People spend tons of money for racing engines, not for engines to revive classic cars for seemingly "everyday uses." It's a chance to take a classic car and really make it practical for today's world. I think it is a goal worth pursuing and if I'm successful it may change a few minds about what a classic car is really all about. Given that goal where should I stop when it comes to modern technology? My original plan was to go with some sort of EFI system. Ironically, it was Jim himself who discouraged me by an engine he built with very good gas mileage using a Quadra-Jet. In a thread where you made very similar suggestions: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=220954, Jim mentioned this particular engine build: http://www.v8buick.com/showpost.php?p=1789380&postcount=27. However, that wasn't engine built with the same goals as my engine and its fuel economy was a "lucky accident." Now that Jim has a purpose-built thifty engine project on his hands, his own approach to the task has evolving and I'm inclined to agree with him! Sure, that might work fine. However, as I have read up on this topic, I'm impressed with the underlying technology of the Mass-Flo system. It definitely isn't for everybody, but given my goals of high-fuel economy, it seems more robust at insuring fuel isn't wasted. If major auto-makers are using the Mass-Air-Flow system for maximum fuel-economy, that looks like the right mouse-trap given my particular goals. You're tempting me again . . . . . and I didn't need any help!! :grin: Cheers, Edouard :beer
Re: Vacation cruise wagon and tow vehicle (Re: Jim "sez" EFI) Self tuning systems always leave room for improvement on power AND mpg's cause they have to play it safe, particularly when they only self tune fuel and ignition timing plays a HUGE factor in mpg's. I screwed with fuel for essentially a year and was capped at 17 mpg, exactly the same as what I was getting with the Q-jet. Then I advanced the timing ~5 degree's at cruise, which let me go leaner, and I gained 2mpg consistently. From a repeatable 16.5-17mpg to 19-19.5mpg tracked over thousands of miles. So self tuning EFI is only as good as your ignition tuning (rather the ECM is controlling timing or no).
Re: Vacation cruise wagon and tow vehicle (Re: Jim "sez" EFI) Sure, that might work fine. However, as I have read up on this topic, I'm impressed with the underlying technology of the Mass-Flo system. It definitely isn't for everybody, but given my goals of high-fuel economy, it seems more robust at insuring fuel isn't wasted. If major auto-makers are using the Mass-Air-Flow system for maximum fuel-economy, that looks like the right mouse-trap given my particular goals. You're tempting me again . . . . . and I didn't need any help!! :grin: Cheers, Edouard :beer[/quote] You all are making an excellent case and thereby supporting my claims as well. But Edouard don't be fooled by the Mass-Flo, it uses a 90's Ford EEC-IV ECM, hardly cutting edge, and still uses chips. That system has lots of limitations, check out my vid on youtube, I cover that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnSi6FgMXjE Stick with something with the features you need to best achieve your goals, otherwise it's waste of time, effort and money. Jmo.
These guys are all right with the points about fuel economy and the limitations of the systems you are talking about. Can the EZ EFI system give you datalogging information so you can use your laptop to tune? I am pretty sure the answer is no. Like others are saying if you want the best fuel economy possible then go MPFI and have the system tuned on a chassis dyno. Jim can dyno your engine with a carb, no issue there and then just add the EFI and pay for the tuning. If you are not willing to do what I suggest then simply us a Q jet that works with an electric choke and enjoy. I am getting 21 US MPG with a Q jet and the car is over 4000 pounds, plus my average highway speed is 70-85 MPH. Do I think I could get better fuel milage with an EFI system on my car? Nope, not likely. The only reason I am going with MPFI on my Skylark is so that I can control and datalog everything since I have turbos and want to get 100% out of the engine right on the edge of blowing it up. Using all the data I can sneek up on a perfect tune, but it takes work.
