Powerjection III Install and Review

Hi All!

Been lurking for a while now; learning what I can...

Installing a PJIII in a '63 Impala, presently a Dual-Quad 409 car, with a 700R-4, and a set of 4.11's.

I'm in the midst of re-wiring the car (After 48 years, the insulation was SHOT on the OE GM Harness), and re-doing the induction, but I need some help with one thing....

What is the linkage on the PJII copied from? Is it a Holley 4100 series? I use a system for the 700R4 from Bowtie Overdrives called the TV Made EZ; and (shockingly) they don't have a PJ kit..

If it's close to something major, I can modify/fab it, I just wonder if anyone has (like maybe the guy who built it) noticed what the linkage is patterned after.

On an aside; if you ever need a Throttle Valve bracket/assembly group, I STRONGLY recommend their kits; I just don't want to take a "stab" in the dark for $130 each..

Thanks for everybody's help in advance, and I'm looking forward to firing this beast up!

-Andy

 

Its Holley Linkage I'm pretty sure.

 

Yes. That is the linkage!

Stroker-Porsche:

You need to open the throttle blades some more. The loud sucking noise is the IAC trying to bypass air but its most likely maxed out. Do not forget to recalibrate the TPS after any throttle adjustments.

 

Any ideas on my problems? Thanks

 

cj428mach

I've been looking at your log and from what I see you have too much IPW when you are in the idle cell. The engine is flooding. When it gets to the idle cell it is to rich and the rpm's come down and the Map goes up making the IPW go even higher until the RPM's get below 400 and the Injector mode goes from idle to cranking mode and lowers the IPW to 5000. By this time the IAC has opened up and the RPM's start to climb again. Once they hit 400 it goes into the "From To" setting which in your case is 3800 and that is were the engine idles at about 900 to 1000. Then the "From To" timer runs out and it goes into After start enrichment which is adding even more fuel and it starts to flood and brings the RPM's down again starting it all over again. Hope I explained myself well enough that you see what I mean.In your log pull up RPM, MAP, IPW, Injector Mode and IAC.

In your set up you have 400 lb for the torque setting. That is rear wheel torque not engine torque. If you have 500 at the engine 400 at the wheels would be ok. I found the setting in the fuel wizard to be rich in the idle area. I lowered mine down to the 56% range. As a quick test you could go into Main Setup and unclick " Idle Cell Enabled" and click "Fixed PW" and set it to 3000 then hit send and see how it runs. I think in the end you are going to need a base file that is a little closer to your set up.

 

Thanks for taking the time to look at my file and I'll try looking up my log and seeing if I can identify what you're talking about. Steiner was thinking it might not be getting enough fuel I'm a total noob at this so I'm willing to listen to what anyone has for advise.

I'll will go back and change my calibration file as I've forgotten that with V2.1 they recommended setting the torque setting at the rear wheel value. I was just going off the factory rating of 440 and then cutting it back alittle because the PJ3 is always a little rich. That 440 was flywheel though so I need to be even lower since they want rear wheel.

I'll make some changes tomorrow and do some research and post what happens. I just had a 14hr day at work today and its time to spend some time with the family and get to bed. Thanks

 

cj428mach

Here is a screen shot of my fuel wizard. See how much fuel I had to take out at the lower end. Also here is a screen shot of a log. I am starting the engine at 140 degrees and 2/3 of the way through the log putting it in gear. I only need about 2300 IPW at idle. My AFR is set at 14.2 for idle.

 

cj428mach

Had some time on my hands tonight so i took your Cal. file and made some changes that may or may not help. Just guessed at your torque. Load it in and see if it runs.

 

I got home late and tried the car and it seemed to run much better and not stall out after reving it in the garage. I'll have to play with it more later but i think its a lot closer. Thanks, and I'll try to play with it more later.

 

From an EMI/RFI standpoint, has anyone used the PJ3 with a Pertronix unit?

I've got a 6AL, I'm just in the process of re-wiring the car, and am contemplating not putting it back in.

In the 34 pages of discussion, I've seen points, Mallory Unilite, HEI, and CD Boxes; just wondering if the Pertronix would suffer the same fates as a hall-effect distributor...

-Andy

 

Thanks! Been on the road for a couple days. I'll try it tonight. I thought the unit came preset close, however with the big cam she needs lots of air. With a carb you still never uncover more than 2mm of the idle transfer slot so I was hesitant to move the blades to the point where I could actually see a gap.

So when I open the blades, will I drop the IAC down from 110?

 

I tried running the car Schum and i think it still is doing the idle, stall, then rev up again its just much less noticable. The cranking IAC you have set at 80 so the car doesn't rev up as much when it does the idle surging. I originally had the IAC cranking position much higher so when it would do the surging it would surge to a higher RPM if that makes sense.

It did seem to hold the idle though while coming to a stop although it didn't originally. It just took a little driving for that to come around. Power didn't seem as strong as before when I first installed the PJ3. I'll try to run some logs tomorrow. I know it needs some work on the cold start as it starts up and runs for about 10 seconds then just acts like someone shut the key off. I know most of the time when people had similar issues it would only run for a few seconds then die, not like 10. More PJ3 headaches, a local guy has a brand new FAST EZ EFI on craigslist what sure sounds tempting.

 

Okay guys, had some time to play with things tonight. Still using Steiner's profile as a base.

Opened up the blades as recommended and she starts and goes straight to over 2000rpms and then dies. Put it back where I had it and then played with it long enough to get it warmed up over 170*. I set the idle blade postion with it warm and the IAC taped off. Right around 1000rpms. She would run for a about 15 seconds and then start to die, catch and run another 15 seconds. Longest was a couple minutes. Reving the engine was super crisp and returned with out dying, however if I quickly double-trippled blipped the throttle it would die.

With the idle set warm, if I opened the IAC back up it shoots to 1500rpms at start, runs 15 seconds and then dies.

I noticed what ever time I put for the intermediate pulse width determined how long it ran. As soon as it switched to the temp enrichment it dies. I have it at 5000Pw and 15 seconds, runs 15 seconds. Change it to 6 seconds and it dies 6 seconds after start.

Am I chasing my tail? I'm thinking I should reload the big block default program, switch to 6al and see what happens now that I have the butterflies set for good idle when warm.

 

After you finished adjusting the throttle blades did you recalibrate the TPS min and max?

Two other things have to be in synch: The RPM limit for idle cell and the RPM limit for RPM follower. If the RPM follower limit is set too low AND you have decel fuel shutoff enabled, it will turn fuel off if the idle RPM goes too high with TPS at 1. Also if RPM's spike over the limit, RPM follower turns off and the IAC will not close so it will hold your engine at high throttle. This has to be fine tuned since there is only one IAC start setting regardless of engine temp.

There are a lot of very simple improvements they could be making to the firmware/software right now to clear up a lot of this stuff. I assume the software guy still comes to work and gets paid every day.....

 

Steiner, thanks fort the reply!

Yes I have recalibrated the TPS every time I adjusted the blades.

If I understand you correct, if the engine spikes a tad over 1900rpms on the initial start the PJIII sees a decel situation and holds the IAC open, killing the engine? I have rpm follower set at 2000rpms and decel at 1900rpms.

Here's my screen shots of main set up/idle, accel/decel, and cold start.

Using you set up has worked best so far. Changing the IPw to 5000 and 15 seconds seems to keep her running for the 15 seconds. However I think it may be covering the real issue with the IAC setting.

I know it's got to be something simple. Although I have a decent sized cam, it's not crazy big. 7-8" of vacuum at 950rpms. PLus in the 98* Florida heat, cold start should not be much of an issue.

So set the decel at 2500rpms and the rpm follower at 2100rpms?

 

Decel fuel works like this: If the throttle is closed and your RPM is above the value you have set in decel fuel, it turns on decel fuel. Once RPM's go below that value, decel fuel turns off. So, if your RPM's go over the limit for decel fuel it will turn on at idle. This can happen with a hot start more so than with a cold start because you only have one IAC cranking value and the value you need for a cold start is way more than you need for a hot start. Personally I run my decel fuel pw at about 25% less than my idle pw and I can tell you right now that if you have a manual transmission you either want to turn it off or put a value other than 0 in the pw cell or it's going to backfire like a sumbitch when you're getting into it. I don't think this is your problem right now though.

RPM follower has a set RPM that it will turn on in your IAC screen. As stated, since the system only has one cranking IAC setting it will often have a high RPM when starting the car hot. If the RPM's go over the RPM follower enable RPM, then RPM follower turns off which means it stops controlling the IAC. This means that the IAC stays at the value it was at (instead of closing all the way) so the engine will never throttle down.

I have made mine do the VROOOM vroom VROOOM vroom dance on a hot start before by getting the RPM settings down too low on both of those. Start car, RPM's go too high so RPM follower won't close IAC, decel fuel kicks in and shuts off fuel, RPM's falter so decel fuel shuts off, RPM's pick back up, etc.

Now, what I think your problem is would be your after start enrichment and C-temp enrichment. Remember that closed loop is active at 40 degrees and will subtract up to 10% even during C temp enrichment so if you have 110% set in the window there will be no additional fuel because closed loop will take out that extra 10% and try to lean you up to your idle AFR target. A real cold start means the engine has been sitting with absolutely no combustion for several hours. In this case the fuel is very hard to ignite because there is no heat in the cylinder to help with atomization. Looking at your cranking tables, when your timer runs out you are essentially dropping fuel from 5000us pw down to your idle pw (100% or so) which is probably closer to 2500us. Even brand new cars run very rich at start up and don't even go into closed loop until hot so you know your 600hp engine isn't going to like trying to run at 14:1 or whatever when cold. They could add in progressive cold AFR targets and it would help.

You should not need that adjustable starting fuel shot for more than a few seconds. They put that in there to override the programming that tells the injectors to go to minimum pw of 1100 if there is a MAP spike and sometimes you get those right when the engine fires. There is already an after start timer....why not just tell it to ignore the MAP value or disable the minimum pw command for several seconds after starting? I don't know.


Here is my current crank table and my cranking iac is around 90.




Here is my acceleration or "pump shot" table. I had bad hesitation with the base settings. You'll notice that the decel RPM level is at 9000 which effectively turns decel fuel off so it doesn't function. It is back on now. I had it off while trying to figure out why the car sometimes wants to stall when clutching in and coming to a stop. Now I know it's because the IAC does not activate like a newer car and go to a predetermined open position when throttling down and then close gradually. Instead it closes all the way and RPM's will sometimes overshoot low because of that and it has to ram back open. Just another thing they could fix easily.

 

Stroker-Porshe and I seem to be having the same issue. As my car does the exact same thing.

I'm going to try copying some of Steiner's more current settings into my calibration file this weekend and see what I can come up with. I think I might just set my idle a little higher and see what that does as well.

Steiner do you live out in California area? If so you might want to apply for a job with Professional Products as you'd be a real asset as you're the only one giving out advice anymore. (Not a bash on Cody as he has/had no obligation to help any of us as he isn't an employee anymore).

I'm with you on that they need to make some simple changes in the software that could make our lives easier. You'd think they could of had their forum up by now and some new versions of their software out. I'd think with major problems with the fuel wizard like Steiner noticed they would have something released immediately. As there are a lot of guys that haven't found this thread on the internet and probably fighting that issue constantly.

 

Oh boy, Where Have I Been? o No:

Looks like I have 3 pages to read...

 

Bruce or Cody,

Please Im me. Need firmware, I cant IM or e-mail unit I have posted twice. 1 down 1 to go.


Darin

 

2 posts down...tryin IM now.