The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Fuel injection conversion

There is a new show on MotorTrend. Roadworthy Rescues. Short overview. The guy is in Tennessee. He finds old cars and trucks that have been sitting for years or decades. He gets them to start and stop and then drives them back to his shop. He then spruces them up with a bare minimum of financial investment. He does some pretty creative stuff to get them ready for someone to take on as a project to go to the next level or just drive them as is. Pretty interesting to see him bring these vehicles back to life. I just watched an episode over the weekend. He revived a 66 Pontiac Tempest. It had an overhead cam straight six that was apparently rare. He added a new intake manifold and converted to fuel injection. He did not go into detail how he did it but the unit he installed looked like a 4 barrel carbruetor. He had a small electronic display he mounted on the dashboard.


67 Pontiac 6 overhead cam fuel injection

That is a FiTech unit. Seems pretty large for the application, but I guess if it works for him.

Edit: usually the fitech units say Fitech in big letters on the side. The rails are the wrong shape to be a sniper. I am very confident it is one of the off-the-shelf TBI conversions but I am less sure which one it is.

I like the sound of the show, could be fun.

what is your thoughts on the conversion? Do you have any experience? Yay or nay? Are they worth it. Without knowing anything about them to me it falls into the same category and converting to electronic ignition. Everyone has their opinion.

Is this the new VVG? Vice Grip Garage? He is a legend in my book. So calm and collected. Not a care in the world.

Same guy, I think he went from a Youtube channel to being picked up by MotorTrend, I could be wrong but it is the same.

He's the same Guy. I think Motor Trend saw some interest in adding him, he does some interesting builds.

[quote=Fibonachu]That is a FiTech unit. Seems pretty large for the application, but I guess if it works for him./quote]

The Pontiac "Sprint" version of the OHC used the same Quadra-Jet that they ran on the 389 V8.

I am going to get some experience as I have one on my 383 going into my 66c10. Seems the general consensus is if you follow the directions they work well. Looks like there were computer issues at first, but they have been ironed out.

Dave, He moved to Tennessee and then to Motor Trend Channel. He wanted to consolidate his shops he had 2 up north. IN 2 different states and taxes and travel was taking a toll so he wanted to centralize for convenience.Here is the reason.

I never saw him on youtube. I did follow his program on Motor Trend channel. The first episode was difficult to watch with his cutesy names for car parts. I ended up having a grudging respect for his knowledge but still have a though time listening to him talk his cutesy nonsense.

I put an older Holley unit on an L48 years ago and I was happy with it until I LS swapped it. If you look over in the HiPo forum there has been a lot of churn on them.

I personally like the conversions because I have an intense, burning hatred of carbs. I will agree with many that a TBI conversion is a half-measure. To really get the full benefit of fuel injection you need to go to an MPFI system. The TBI addresses a lof of the issues that arise when a vehicle sits for a long time between runs.

It also gives more flexibility for tuning because there are more knobs to turn. Whether that is a pro or a con is up to you. I am probably going to put one on my 58, if that tells you anything.

Somebody with a little programming experience could probably cobble up a system using three injectors, one for each intake runner of a stovebolt manifold and the throttle base off a 1 barrel carburetor to control airflow. Each injector would need to fire once for each turn of the crankshaft, just before the intake valve opens. Since each port supplies two cylinders 360 degrees apart, it would be the equivalent of sequential port injection, just using three injectors instead of six. All the normal inputs would be needed, RPM, crankshaft position, camshaft position, manifold pressure, coolant temp, throttle position, etc. A closed loop system incorporating an O2 sensor could be used to fine tune the mixture.
Jerry

I wonder what ever happened with that hotshot who came in last year with his fancy billet injection system. He was sure convinced it was hot stuff but I never saw anything about it actually firing up.

Edit: Found it
https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/1440447/re-261-efi.html#Post1440447

Looks like his linked pictures are gone and he has not been online for quite a while.

Dag-nab-it! I was hoping I could convince him to visit my farm and spend a little time talking to my garden! I'd have been able to save a bunch of money on fertilizer!
Jerry

Jerry wasn't there a Volvo fuel injection system used in the late 70s or early 80s that might work with the 235?

I had one on a late 1970's Volvo 6 cylinder. I'll just say it "inhaled vigorously"! The distributor had two sets of points that triggered three injectors at a time and were notorious for getting dirty or out of adjustment and making the engine miss on three cylinders at a time.
Jerry

Kind of what I remembered, Jerry. Didn't that Volvo have siamesed cylinders? Or are my brain tubes tangled up again?

Ford Tempo's from 84-87 used a single injector throttle body, single injector setup on the 2.3 HSC engines. I often thought it could be adapted to a Stovebolt. The Taurus with a 2.5 used a slightly larger setup also.

Never got into the engine that deep- - - - -I drove it for about 3 years, then my daughter took it over for a while to drive to high school and trashed it. She was rough on cars back then, and some things never change- - - -she's in her early 50's now, and she could still run the tracks off a D-8!
Jerry