My 427 SOHC Build..... Finally the time has come!

[newfalconowner]

my RMI is at 02, but my MSD power wires are ran down the right side door sill, and the Fast ECU is ran down the left side door sill.. The ecu harness comes out the center of the firewall. The distributor wiring from the msd box does go near the ecu harness., so I will cover that with foil then cover with wire loom. I will still put the MSD noise filters at the box and ecu.. I should be good.

I also have a new complete wiring harness in the car,, so no old wiring and its all ran sorta neat under my dash and down the channel of the right door sill to rear and out the right side firewall but will run it lower along the frame instead of the right engine bar.. Wont make that much difference but will look neater.

[cobracammer]

Hello All.  Today was a "Good Day".  I will start the story with the fact that when I went out to the garage today, there was still a small puddle of oil (again, about a teaspoon's worth).  Looking above, it still seems to be coming from the same location (the junction between the front plate, backing plate/engine block, and the valve cover.  I wiped up the puddle and snugged down the bolts again (don't really want to wrench on it as they could strip the threads).  I wanted to do this incrementally each day and recheck each morning for oil dripping.  At least it seems that this is not the 1 and only leak I am dealing with.

Now on for better news.  I checked the ECU again today to look at "IRM's" or electrical interference.  It is one of the indicators listed on the handheld when you go into diagnostics.  This morning, we are still at a reading of "7".  In reading the article I linked on a previous post, the gentleman who posted said that the FAST EFI tech said anything under 10 would be fine...... however he was having issues lower than that.  By the way, we check the IRM's with the ignition on, the MSD ignition box on and the ECU on....  The car is not running.    So here we are now with an IRM of "7".

In reading this  persons post, he suggested shielding the harness from electronic interference using Tin-Foil tape.  As I am unwrapping the tape in the garage, it hit me.  The person writing in the post most likely did not have a SOHC nor HEMI engine.  So his plug wires probably run straight down from the Distributor to the sparkplug area on a normal motor ( above the header flange?).  The SOHC motor has all 8 wires sitting on top of the engine basically forming an electromagnetic "nest" around the throttle bodies.  I thought to myself, this would be great if it worked.  So I began by wrapping the Harness itself starting right up against the throttle bodies and going all the way down to where the harness enters through the grommet in the fire wall.  Then I wrapped the Yellow wire (which he brought up in the post) which is the Tach output lead from the MSD ignition box.  For good measure, I pulled a few of the sensors (like coolant temp and I believe MAP sensor) and rerouted closer up against the throttle body under the oval air cleaner (Basically so they were as far away from the plug wires as could be.

With the ECU and Ign. box on, I hit the start button and the car literally roared to life!  It had 0 trouble even at a cold start as well as the fact that other than the smell of running a tad rich, the car had no smoke coming from the exhaust!!!  I let it run for maybe 1 minute before I remembered why I actually started it!  I went into the handheld to the Diagnostics screen and the IRM's were at Dead "0"!!!  I was ecstatic.  I went back to the Main screen and we were almost perfectly hovering around 13.5 AFR and the RPM's were at 1100 (but working their way lower). 

At this point I did not want to press my luck, so I shut her down.

Other than checking on the oil drip, I just now need to make sure the timing is set correctly (since I pulled the distributor for the intake manifold gasket swap) and also recalibrate the TPS since I disconnected the throttle to remove the intake.

I definitely do not want to jinx it, but with a small tweak to the Idle AFR, I bet I can even get the smell to dissipate a little and we are golden.  Hoping this was it and that I do not really need to get a new Fuel Injection system.  As they say, " A penny earned...."

[cobracammer]

Here is the video of the first cold start after redoing the intake.  I have not tweaked the timing nof recalibrated the TPS at this time.  This is how it was running as soon as I pushed the start button:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aWk0s5Gl1jc

[WConley]

Nice job beating back the gremlins Jason!

Here's one for you on those pesky oil leaks.  I bet you're running synthetic (Group 4) oil in the beast.  That stuff has an unbelievable ability to weep through cork gaskets...

This may sound like sacrilege, but I would try a high quality conventional oil.  You'll save money while tuning in your A/F ratio (throwing away cheaper black oil), plus you may find a lot less oil dripping on the floor.  I had trouble with rocker cover leaks on my old truck until I switched back to conventional oil.  Now - almost nothing!

You're going to be putting very few miles on that car, so I wouldn't be afraid to run dino oil in it forever. 

JMO - Bill

[Leny Mason]

Good for you it's been a long hall sounds like you found the problem, Cool. Leny Mason

[TomP]

I agree with Bill, I've switched synthetic back to dino oil and leaks stopped. I think the big issue is we can't get modern style gaskets like LS and Mod motors use for our FE's

[cobracammer]

Hey Guys.  Sorry for the late reply.  Jay (and others) had suggested conventional all along, so I never went synthetic.  I found the oil leak finally.  It was the backing plate, Front cover and valve cover junction.  After cleaning it well with brake cleaner, I applied TA-31 sealer to the outside to try and seal it up.  It was a small leak, but once the oil got hot, much like water, it found its way into all sorts of inconvenient places (Headers).  So I can now say the oil leak is fixed and with it the smoking tailpipes!

Now, today, I decided to tackle the gauges.  I had hooked up the oil pressure gauge before running the engine months ago, but the others have been sitting in the car unhooked.  Today I went in with renewed energy and decided to hook up the remaining gauges (Vacuum, Coolant temp and oil temp).

Skip ahead 2 hours (nothing really threw me for a loop), and I turned the engine over and again....  started right up.  At 1000 RPM's, I get 10" of vacuum!  Perfect as the EFI system needs 10 to work  LOL

The coolant temp is redundant since the EFI system has a temp sensor to control the fans, but it also came on.  Oddly, the coolant temp crept up to 210 degrees when the EFI screen was still showing 150 degrees.  Large difference, and after doing some reading, I think it may be the ground?  I looped all of the power and ground wires in line.  starting with the oil pressure gauge, I then piggy backed off it its power and ground to feed the Coolant temp sensor, then likewise from the coolant temp to the oil temp.

The oil temp clicked to life as well, but I was not getting a reading.  The lowest reading it has is 140 degrees, and although the coolant temp on the EFI (not the gauge) was showing it at 150, the oil temp was not reading.  In reading on Auto meters website, this is fairly common.  They say you will not really get a reading until you drive the car.  It stated that oil does not heat up as quickly as the coolant.  They say if you go out and drive the car for a while and still do not get a reading, then also check the ground.

So there we have it.  No oil leaks at the moment, Vacuum gauge showing 10" of vacuum at idle. Timing checked and rechecked and I am at exactly 12 * BTDC at idle with the 18 * stop bushing in.  Oil pressure starts out at 75 PSI at a cold start, but goes down to 25-30 when the car reaches temp, Coolant gauge and the oil temp gauge are working (but may require ground wire tweaking),  fuel pressure it still at 43 PSI with the key in the on position, but drops a few PSI when the engine starts (because it has a vacuum reference).  Electronic interference is still at "0" with the aluminum tape shielding.......

Last thing to do is fiddle with the AFR's but they should be small tweaks since it was really responsive when I was driving it last.  Right now, I lowered the Idle AFR to 13.8 from the stock 13.5.  Still runs perfectly at idle (not in gear).  I will set it a little more rich (13.7 or 13.6) if I have problems in gear.  Then tweaking the Cruise and WOT (getting as close as I can and then using the Accel fuel option on the hand held).  Really coming together now.  Thank you all again for all of your help.  Any idea, opinion, tidbit of knowledge.....  it all really helps when learning :0)

[cjshaker]

Any idea, opinion, tidbit of knowledge.....  it all really helps when learning :0)

Yes, some quality video of the car cruising or going down the road, so we can properly, um...evaluate how it's running

Glad to hear you're getting it all sorted out.

[preaction]

Jason, thanks for taking the time to post so much information about your project as Im sure it will help countless other members who take on one of these engines !

[cobracammer]

No Prob!  I took it out for a spin today, but unfortunately my wife did not want to be seen in it so no video  LOL

I have the AFR for idle at 13.5.  Idles well, no black smoke from the tailpipe at idle when not in gear, and does not stall out when throwing it into neutral from any gear.

I have the Cruise AFR at 14.0 (this is the value the EFI computer came with stock).  It cruised well with no noise or popping.

The WOT is set to 12.7 (Also the stock value from the company).  When I accelerated, I started to get a small hesitation and popping (I believe the Accel fuel was -2?).  I put the Accel fuel to +1, and the hesitation /popping seemed to go away.

So as it stands, I think 13.5 is fine for Idle, and 14.0 for cruise is good........  What do you all think about the WOT in conjunction with the Accel fuel feature?  As I understand it, Accel fuel is supposed to be a small tweak to an already pretty dialed in AFR.....  What would you suggest for a WOT value as well as a value for the Accel fuel?   Ah-hem......ROSS!  lol

[machoneman]

https://www.enginebasics.com/EFI%20Tuning/AF%20Tuning.html

Think your WOT is already right on the money.

[cobracammer]

Thanks Bob

[newfalconowner]

I managed to start my car again with the taller plenum I made, and started the car, idled great at 900 rpm, but the AF was at 9ish. I didn't give it a chance to warm up yesterday and go thru the learn curve but hopefully that changes when I get a chance to let it run for abit and hopefully stop smoking too..

Seems your on your way to figuring it out,, that's awesome

[cobracammer]

OK guys.  Another update.  So with the Fast EZ efi, you wait until the engine is up to operating temp (Around 170 per the instructions).  Then you adjust the IAC to be around 15-20.  The last time I did this was a few days ago.  Today when I turned on the car, it was way off again.  Don't know how this happened, so I waited for the car to get to 170 degrees, and adjusted the IAC to be bouncing between 15- 20 (Idle AFR at 13.5 and Idle RPM at 1000).  Satisfied with this, I wanted to recheck the fuel pressure.  With the car running, the fuel pressure gauge reads 40 (because of the vacuum reference).  With the car off, its spot on 43.

So off I went.  Idle AFR is 13.5, Cruise AFR is 13.7 and WOT is 12.5.  Accel fuel is -1.  I drove the car up and down the area I am in now.  Each pass was 1.5 miles.  I did notice that the car started to run better with each passing mile, however at each turn around, I would notice that the Idle RPM's were around 1500 give or take 100 an the IAC was stuck on 5 (Which I believe is closed).  Not sure how this could change from the idle setting I just set in the garage.  The only thing that would have changed during the first few miles was that the temp went up to about 200 degrees for the coolant, and about 190 degrees on the Oil temp.  SO on my next pass down the road, I pulled back up to the garage, and with the car still running and the temps about the same as just mentioned, I readjusted the IAC so that my Idle RPM's were bouncing right at 950-1000, IAC was at 20 (would go a little higher and lower, but seemed to be right at 20.  Satisfied and now curious, I pulled back out and drove on for another 5 or 6 miles.  This time, checking the handheld at each stop or turn around, my IAC was perfectly at 20 whenever I pulled the car out of gear.

When I got back into the garage, I was satisfied with the way it was running (as it was only getting better as I drove), and the temps all seemed normal (to me).  With the car in the garage, I wanted to recheck the fuel pressure again.  with the car OFF this time, and expecting it too read 43 PSI as it did only an hour before, I was at like 37?  WHAT?  my only guess is that I have a clogged fuel filter or something along those lines?  So I loosened the nut and readjusted to 43 PSI.... and tightened back down.

So I can actually tell you what's going to happen tomorrow....  Car with not start!  I think that when I have the IAC adjusted at operating temp to be perfect, the blades are closed to much for a cold start.......And the fuel pressure??  Anyones guess.

On a better note, wife watched again from the balcony....  no black smoke at all on hard acceleration!  Last time I much have just blown out all the old carbon!  So running clean at this point.

This is the link to the video I took as soon as I finished driving today and was just about to garage it up again (Disregard the Autometer coolant temp gauge as the sender must be broken... the handheld shows the correct temp.  The oil temp and the vacuum gauges are correct.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiwGWPH30VQ

[cobracammer]

Ah Geez.... leaking oil again!!!  Back to trying the oil dye. Im starting to hate the mystery leak  lol