The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Logging my experience with a Sniper

I know there is a lot of controversy about the sniper system. I am completely green to it, not a pro at anything, and figured I would chronical my sniper journey good or bad.

Truck is a 1966 C10. I bought a crate 383 to replace the 283.

I began wiring and installing the needed support systems recently. I am positive you could cobble stuff together from different parts houses. For my first time I am going the easier and more expensive route.

1. Fuel system from Holley. Has pre and post filter. Needs pump as close to tank as possible. I put the pre filter right out of the tank and the pump on the frame rail just in front of the cross member the DS goes through. Post filter is all the way to the front of the frame before it turns up to the engine. Feed line is all rubber, Fuel return is in the factory line along the frame. It is rubber from carb to steel, and again from below tank up into a fitting next to sender. My concern about our tanks being vertical did not concern them. May have to manually prime pump?

2. When I went to put fitting into tank I saw the nasty in the tank and bought a new tank. With new tank the return fitting was easy to drill, not so easy to tighten.

3. Sniper dropped on the intake easy enough.

4. O2 sensor will run down the drivers side and into the pipe just after the collector. You can weld or use the supplied clamp connector. Plenty of wire to make this happen.

5. Have the power/ground to the battery. System has a relay for the fuel pump which is wired.

6. They continually reference neg side of the dist. I did not know the tach side was the neg side on the HEI. That is a confusing thing for a guy who always had Fords his whole life. Local part houses want $61 for a single pigtail. Amazon has a dual for 8. Its on the way.

7. Coolant temp is a plug and play like the O2.

8. All that is left is a key 12v while cranking. Can't have a voltage drop. Don't have that yet. Will find it when I put wiring back in the truck.

As of yesterday The sniper is monitoring everything and activating fuel pump. Going to get the fan tied in hopefully this week, but I need to prep things for some color this weekend on a bunch of parts. So far just some language hickups. Otherwise it is rolling along smooth but slow. I will post some pics when I can grab them off my phone.

Be aware that a lot of ignition switches disconnect the "run" power in the "start" position.

If yours does, you can buy a fancy expensive replacement switch or just use a diode to connect power to the ECU in the start position.

Agreed. They are quite adamant about the power sources. Following directions to a T.

Did you end up with a gen1 kit or a gen2 kit? I am not sure when you acquired it.

That was an issue that I know has bit a number of people (myself included). It is good to hear that the current instructions account for it.

What Sniper model did you buy?

Its a gen 1. Came with the engine as a combo upgrade. It did not come with the complete set of instructions which I need for the fan and ac control, but that should be easy once things are up and running. I have a good friend that has done many of these, but he lives 2500 miles away. He says insulating the air cleaner which includes the rod that holds the top down has solved many run ability problems.

We will see if I have any of those.

Snapped a pic last night. I put the battery charger on it to see if data changed. It did changed from trickle to 2a to boil the water out. I think the coolant temp is off a bit as it was not 90 degrees in my garage.

Upload the video to YouTube (e.g.) and post the link here.

Got it running last night. It's a bit rough but it hasn't gone into learn mode yet. Had trouble with priming the fuel pump. After putting fuel down the hose to the pump. Trying to suck fuel out of the pump, i figured out + and - were reversed.

Once I had fuel to the unit as you can see it barked off immediately. No choke, no throttle, etc. Just fired and ran. I took a pic of the management screen so I can get a sense if things are happy with af ect.

Not sure why my link was deleted. Maybe this will make things happier? Click Here

That thing started like a breaker point system instead of electronic ignition.

Was able.to finally bring idle down so it is running at 750 ish rpms. Smells like it's richer than Taylor Swift, but the af ratio is decent. I am going to draw out a wiring diagram so the sniper can kick fan on. They say the sniper I the ground which is not how I have ever wired a relay. Need to look at the diagrams of relays now.

A lot of modern systems use ground switched relays.

The fan is connected as the load to the relay, the high side of the relay is connected to ignition switched power, and the ground side of the relay is connected to the output of the ECU.

Ferris, I’ve attached an example of how the General controls fans thru their ECM. I have a buddy who has a Sniper on his 48 AD w a SBC. Do you know if that Sniper gives you the ability to control when the fan comes on based on not just coolant sensor input but also speed? He’s overheating at highway speeds and and we’re toying with the idea of cycling the fan off at highway speeds to see if that brings down the temperature. Anybody?
Thanks, Dave

I was assuming you could neg trigger any relay, but had not confirmed that. Supposedly I can choose when the fan kicks on temp wise and different speeds, but have not gotten there yet. I have the fans hard wired when I run it. If I turn on at idle when temp gets to 190 my fan brings down to 178 in a few min.

What vehicle is that image for? I am curious about the fact that it lists both a pusher and a puller fan; I don't know of anything that is set up that way stock.

Fibonacci, that diagram came out of a 1993 Pontiac Transport Service Manual; fwd 3.1L V-6. I’d just randomly grabbed it off the shelf so as to give Ferris some direction in wiring his fan relay. Yes, I agree w you that having both a pusher and a puller fan, stock, seems unusual. I’m not inclined to debate GM’s logic….not my circus, not my monkey. (….hard to believe that was 30 years ago, I’m suddenly feeling old!)

I agree, debating their logic is pretty pointless now. I was just curious what that applied to.

Was able to get the fan control on the sniper working this weekend. Checked it by setting the on and off at 65 and 55. Triggered perfect. Put it at 200 and 190 and started. Worked perfect. Moved onto the idle bump for AC and that worked perfect too. Need to get the hyd clutch in this thing so I can yard drive it.

Yee haw!