Regarding the "always tuning" comment, (and I've been there!), the new "learning" self-tuning systems with wideband O2 sensor feedback really work nicely and will find a better tune than 99% of people will. Just drive and log time and the system does the rest.
The LS engine running on 4 cylinders is a lot more complicated that just port fuel injection and COP (coil on plug) ignition. The fuel injection needs to be sequential and there needs to be a form of timing control. They on board computer does not just shut down the fuel and spark to 4 cylinders but is also selects which cylinder to shut down. It is constantly cycling the all the cylinder between a dead fire and actual combustion. Now to add to the complexity of this now you have oxygen passing though the engine and into the exhaust. Now I do not know how Chevy pulled this off but there is air effecting the oxygen sensor. Do they use 8 sensors now or is there some kind of software that can manage to see past these false readings.
Thank the freakin Lord for this guy! :gp: Lets not make opinions on EFI systems we have no experience with. :blast: You think port EFI is that much better, I KNOW not. :bla: Also Lets remember that all the advancements that were made in EFI(until now) were because of emissions, not performance. If you want to save fuel build an efficient small block, not a gas guzzling 600ft lb torque big block that revs to 5k. I put EFI on my car and lost about 3 mpg, you know why? I made more power and drove the car harder than ever because it ran so much better. When I'm worried about MPG I hop on the Buell and get 40mpg instead of the 11 my boosted SBC gets If you want a great Port EFI system, check out www.turnkeyEFI.com I will be installing one shortly...
I want to build a Cadillac 4-6-8 soooo bad using MegaSquirt. Or rather use the heads/solenoids on a 472/500 engine. You can have spark with out fuel with out much problem as that's how these systems worked. They just closed down the valves and let the spark do it's thing. If you are not closing the valves there will likely be fuel siphoning off other cylinders. It probably won't hurt anything, but you are still getting a pumping loss. I've once drove from Phoenix to Las Vegas on 7 cylinders with the fuel injector and spark plug unhooked on one cylinder because there was no compression in #6 and it was pressurizing my crankcase with every power stroke. Then when the car ate a cam 200 miles from home, I unpluged the injectors and spark plugs to two cylinders to get the backfiring to stop and drove home on six cylinders. I don't know anyone that lost mpg's by going EFI, most gained 2-5mpgs. Blows my mind to know of a EFI'd street driven, 900HP naturally aspirated Ford that gets 15mpgs (w/AOD). Or almost 900HP N/A small block Malibu with 4.30+ gears with no overdrive that gets ~12mpg.
I think you are mistaken in this. You confuse the limp home/overheat mode with actual displacement on demand. The LS engines collapse the lifters on four cylinders, so the same four cylinders shut down every time. The injectors to those ports are turned off. I don't know about spark. I currently have my multiport wiring done up so that I can turn off four injectors at once, and I have the wiring done in a way that it's the same four that a Caddy 4-6-8 engine shuts off. I could easily of wired it for the same four cylinders that the LS shuts off. Sequential injection isn't a factor, it just skips the shut down cylinders in the sequence. Also because the cylinder valves do not open and the cylinder does not pump air (it becomes an air spring), the O2 sensors still read a good AFR and are not leaned out by empty cylinders pumping. I have the control to shut those four injectors off by either a toggle switch, or by setting load/rpm and TPS parameters to manage it on it's own. Those are the two methods to choose from if I ever build a DOD LS engine or a Caddy 4-6-8.
It "t'aint" just muscle - its a family wagon! (Re: EFI) Hi Jason and Professor EFI, Thanks Jason very much for the check-list! I have some of these issues already noted, but I will carefully incorporate your suggestions. I don't know if I have the money, but I'd like to at least research the matter carefully and - find out if I can afford it! But, but, but . . . I didn't say I thought I could do this! If I really wanted to take advantage of all the modern technology, there is a way: put a modern Chevy SUV drivetrain in the car. Certainly I'll get much better gas mileage and the car will do everything I want of it. But will still be a Buick? I don't think anyone on this forum would say yes - so . . . . how to compromise? Yes, but 5 mpg looks very differently when you consider what I want to use the car for. Right now the car gets 13 mpg. With a 20 gallon gas tank, that's a range of only 260 miles between fill-ups. My goal in building this 430 V-8 is to make all the economy enhancements that are possible: 4-speed 200-4R transmission, RV cams, etc.) So maybe the engine will being the car down to 11 mpg. Add 5 mpg and the car is up to 16. Increase the fuel tank to 30 gallons, now the car has a range of 480 miles. If your goal is a car for vacationing and "road trips" that's a huge difference in terms of being able to enjoy the car on the open road (especially given how hard it is to find gas these days.) Well, you see - I'm an "intruder" on this forum . . . . I confess - don't want just more horsepower (please don't hit me!) All this is intended for an upgrade for a 1965 Buick Special wagon. So it isn't your first-choice muscle car. However, this car has been in the family for 42 years. It really isn't your "run of the mill" muscle car candidate. What I'm actually trying to create is the "ultimate" 60s era tow vehicle and family wagon. So I'm certainly going to pay through the nose for gas. But the goal is different than most classic car owners. Most classic cars driven around their neighborhoods and that's it. I may not succeed, but I really want to give back to our old wagon its job as vacation, camping, and tow vehicle. It may seem silly, but camp grounds used to be ruled by the classic station wagon. Its time that at least one wagon get out there and remind them SUVs that they don't have the great outdoors all to themselves! Wish me luck! Thanks for all interesting thoughts! Cheers, Edouard </snip>P.S. A Prissy! Don't use that word! - our neighborhood is literally crawlin' with'em. Such a scourge upon the the very roads that my venerable Buick has traveled for oh-so many years! :laugh: </snip>
Guys, FYI.. A couple of years ago we finished a 68 GS 400 convert- 435 CI big block, 200-4R trans, 3.08 gears. No wimpy mileage master motor here.. made 400 HP on the engine dyno. Got 20 MPG on a hyway trip, 14-16 around town. With a quadrajet.. JW
I'm the guy in this video; http://www.accel-dfi.com/ then go to "featured video" There are alot of misconceptions, too many to go into here. Guess what, if you pay less for a system more often than not you get less. I'll put the Accel against anything in it's class. When you go EFI as I did get one that will do what you want, controllong fans, locking up the converter and turning off the A/C clutch when your foot is in it among other things. I sell Thruster management kits starting at $1700.00. Above that you'll need a manifold, fuel rails, throttle body, injectors etc. All my kits come with a base tune and support. The software is great and easy to navigate, download it and see for yourself. Remember the Retrotek/Powerjection have extreme limitations, no barometer and a bunch of other shortcomings. And a throttle body system will still have the same inherent defficiencies that a carb will have, you're basically just putting an electronic carb on the same manifold. It'll puddle and have uneven fuel distribution the same way a carb would. With a good multiport you can compensate for all that and then some. EFI in my book makes a nostalgic ride like we have that much more enjoyable, especially in areas with widely varying climates. Mark
Thanks for filling in important pieces! (Re: EFI) Thank you Jim and Mark! Each of you have have done in your own way tons to reassure me on this conversion caper! Thank you so much for this snippet! Part of my misery was getting some idea of how much the 200-4R transmission would help. That much more than I hoped!! :TU: Thank you Mark for making this simple but critical point. Putting all EFI systems in the same basket is about the same as putting a Chevy and Buick in the same basket . . .:laugh: All high-tech suffers from a lot of small companies competing hard against one another. Sometimes that spurs technological innovation. However, far more often than anyone admits, it causes cheapening of the product. It's true of MP3 players, computer software, and aftermarket auto accessories. There are no miracles in manufacturing. If its significantly cheaper, they had to do something that cost less. My situation is rather unique. To get this large block V-8 in my car, I'll have to "fuss with" many components associated with an EFI conversion. So it is more appealing for me than it will be for someone who is looking at a car built for the 455. Also, I really hope to take the car on the open road where indeed a more uniform driving experience will make vacations that much more fun. If you have a classic that is traveling a few miles around town (mostly to the drag strip :3gears Fuel Injection may not have any appeal for you. For me, Electronic Fuel Injection may be a real win for me. So, I'll keep investigating this! Thanks to all for your help in my conversion caper! Cheers, Edouard :beers2:
Re: Thanks for filling in important pieces! (Re: EFI) Yeah, that's why I assembled my own megasquirts and wiring harness. I maybe have around $1500 in my Skylark's EFI, with the EFI SPX intake costing twice as much as the megasquirt ECU itself. Also, it's open source programming, so they don't have to cover costs of programmers, just hobbiest like us that happen to be good with software programming :TU:
... a description of GM's DOD http://www.superchevy.com/technical...cessories_electronics/0405sc_gmdod/index.html
Any commercial megasquirt partnerships? (Re: EFI) Dear Silver-Buick, I'm certainly very impressed with what you have one! . . . . but . . . I've gone back over your EFI thread and well . . . . . it's kinda taken a while to get the car where you want it! My poor wagon has been languishing in a state of misery for a few years now. I'd really like the car to come back to a state of robust health. After all, it is a 60s car - they are known to be tough as nails! Not much hope here, but are there any commercial EFI systems using megasquirt components are part of their setup? I'm a big fan of Open Source too. It is all too rare, but there have been some effective commercial Open Source partnerships. However, Google wasn't able to dredge up such a thing in the case of megasquirt. Thanks again for all the thoughts! Cheers, Edouard
Re: Any commercial megasquirt partnerships? (Re: EFI) I was driving the car around town the day after I fired it up with the EFI. I fired it up around 5pm at night, messed with some idle settings and stuff, then went into the house and built a fuel map from the idle and free rev characteristics. Hit the highway (best with a partner driving or playing with the laptop for safety reasons....) and play with the fuel maps at steady state cruising or find a good hill to "dyno" tune on. Supposibly there is some autotuning software in the works for MegaSquirt. I didn't have much luck with the beta version, but I may not of had the parameters set right because some people did like it. Spectre's EMS Pro IS a commercial Megasquirt with more inputs and outputs. It runs the same firmware as the megasquirt. Mined you, I work a 50 hour work week, so I do big stuff on the weekend and little stuff on the weekdays. So it just takes time. If I wanted to pay for some dyno time I could have the EFI perfectly set in a day. I'm more curious how the autotune EFI systems work around sensor failures. I've broken one wire to my air intake sensor and the car went a bit rich, but on another note I had an LC-1 wide band O2 fail on me, and I continued driving my car for three or so months, 5-6,000 miles, 7500ft to sea level, with and with out a camp trailer, etc. With out a hiccup. Do they just leave the Fuel map alone? What if a temp sensor goes? etc?
Yes, you get what you pay for. The Retro / PP system was not sold as though it had all the bells and whistles... As will I put the PIII against anything in it's class ... How are they shortcomings? It wasn't sold like it had all those things! You want a sequential EFI that does all that, That will run a LS motor, do fuel and timing (drive 8 coils) It's coming out in a month... The deficiencies you speak of are either gone or reduced to the point where they are manageable. at that point nothing will help other than a change in the physical properties of the engine... Including fuel delivery location.
Thanks for the added info. I know there are a few methods that the big timers are doing theses days. How do you propose putting that collapsible cam/lifter-ma-jig in your Buick big block?
Re: It "t'aint" just muscle - its a family wagon! (Re: EFI) A Yukon?!?!?! 4X4 with mudders!?!?! Sweet! You are right with the fact that everything helps. Just don't expect it to leave money for the tooth you left under the pillow. I hope you are not in California! :grin: Okay! I have the ultimate idea!!!! Put a diesel in it! Nobody would now what just blew past them with a cloud of black smoke billowing out of the back!
Re: It "t'aint" just muscle - its a family wagon! (Re: EFI) Originally Posted by theone61636 3. :3gears: Drive it! Because you are not driving a Prius. WHO IS STILLING MY QUOTES!!! I am going to get you theone61636.
The Powerjection III runs at 45 PSI. If you get the return or returnless kit you will receive a gauge with the kit. That is what you asked right?
Haha, no controllable collapsable lifters for the Buick. I wired it up prior to figuring out how Cadillac's system worked, to see if their method would work on the Buick's. The Cadillac's use a shifting rocker arm fulcrum, so that to disable the valves it lifted the pivot point on the rocker so that the rocking motion did not open the valve. I'm told by Cadillac enthusiast that the rocker set up is rather robust and it's the cheap electronics that controlled them that failed (as well as the plastic valve covers). At the time I was looking to see if I could adapt a Cadillac rocker system or head to the Buick. Right now it now looks pretty infeasible for my skills, but I did the wiring prior to fully studying the Cadillac system. Maybe welding the proper cadillac rocker pedistals on to some aluminum edelbrock heads..... Hence why I'm interested in building a Cadillac engine.
