EFI on a FE

[Ranch]

Planning on installing a Holley Sniper (550-510K) on my FE and a guy was telling me that my MSD Distributor (8594) could interfere (EMI) with the Sniper‘s ECU since the proximity is so close, he sez that I would need a Holley Dist.  He also noted that Fuel Injection doesn’t work very well with a dual plan Intake, but installing a 1” open spacer would help.  Right now my plan is to install and let the Sniper take care of the fuel side and leave the MSD (MSD 6AL2) take care of the ignition and maybe after I get use to this new gadget I’ll plug into the MSD box.  I called Holley and they didn’t see a problem but of course they want to sell a unit and let you figure it out later
I’d like to hear from anyone who has a Sniper and MSD combo and their experience any help would be appreciated.
My Parts would be…

PI intake       C6AZ-9424-H
Dist.             MSD 8594 Pro Billet
Controller     MSD 6AL2
Coil              MSD 8200
Plug Wires    Taylor 8MM Resistor core Plug Wires

Holley Sniper 550-510K    Not purchased yet
The 1” spacer is no prob. Since I already have a 1” insulator under the carb
Forgot to mention, this is a 4 speed car

Thanks in advance

[Barry_R]

Plug it together and run it.  I have done several, and they seem to work just fine on milder builds.  Make certain to give it some time to "learn" the engine at cruise and part throttle before putting it under higher loads or flooring it.  No issues with the MSD.  Open spacer might help a bit but its a tuning thing - they do work just bolted to the manifold.

[Falcon67]

If the Sniper were that sensitive to EMI, it's be a pretty poor engineering design. 

[Ranch]

Thanks Barry and Chris on your response.  No this is not a race car and may never see the track.  I had my 406 +.030 dynoed at 430 hp and 460 trq. Solid lifter cam Comp 282 S. Though I have no real complaints with my Quick Fuel SS 750 An, I want more dependability on hot day in traffic hoping this will finally get rid of vapor lock. Tried about everything ‘cept a cool can.

    Bill

[RustyCrankshaft]

Can't speak about the Sniper specifically, but I just did a FiTech on a 351w with a dual plane and MSD (low rpm truck app) and it runs fine. Smooth power and the FiTech wideband and my standalone agreed pretty closely on the tuneup after a few self-learn drive cycles. It's what the owner wanted and so far he's been happy with it. About 5-6k miles on that combo in an 85 F250 4x4 with a C6. Even at fairly high RPM the dual planes still seem to do fine with a good TBI unit. Although from my limited experience, like everything, some dual planes do better than others.

I agree, plug it all together and run it.


351w efi by Patrick Oilnut, on Flickr

[66FAIRLANE]

Heres a link to my install if it helps. Car has been off road now for about a year while I fix a few things but it was great while I was driving it. A little more vacuum will make it even better I assume.

http://fepower.net/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=5429.msg58251#msg58251

[Rory428]

Ranch, I have no input on the EFI, but wondering what headers you have on your 58 Ford.

[My427stang]

Agree, no issues. In fact most of my customer work has been all-make installs on RPM intakes with MSD. No Snipers yet, but comments seem silly.

The injectors are in the TB, the engine won’t know how the fuel got there once it passes the carb base gasket

[Ranch]

Thanks , I appreciate the replys Barry, Chris, Rusty, Andy, Ross. She's not a Trailer Queen or a Garage Princess, I do drive this car to all events and nice mornings I'll take it out for a run.  Would like to be able to go to shows a lot farther and would have liked to been able to make it to the FE reunion but I don't have the confidence (especially with the wife) if it's hot out, even have my headers ceramic coated but still gets hot under the hood.
  Andy I was thinking the same thing about the vacuum I would like to see more than 10-11 inches at Idle (800) also
  Rory these headers are 1 7/8" slip joint  1,2,5,6 drop down in front of the lower A arms 3,6, cross under the pan 4,8 go out and back around the frame rail all into 3 1/2 collector. I bought these way back in 71 at a speed shop for 100 bucks.  they said someone else tried them on a FE 57 combo but didn't work, but worked for me(?).  Yes I've had this car for that long and finally got a good paint job 2 years back, so I like to show it.  It's different



nearest hsbc atm

[Cyclone03]

Didn’t all of this thread but I fixed my  interference problem with an MSD capacitor installed in the power and ground  wire circuit. Easy and has been problem free for 6 years.

[Yellow Truck]

Not that I think EFI is a bad idea, but I had vapour lock issues with the original 360/2V Autolite combo, then with 410/Edelbrock 600 4V I put in next (cast iron intakes with the exhaust crossover), I ceramic coated the headers and it still happened. With the 445/SS830 4V I added a phenolic spacer and I also routed the fuel in from the passenger side frame rail, then up high and into the back of the carb away from the block and the rad.

It has never vapour locked with this engine. I can't say for sure it is the spacer, but a lot of heat migrates up the intake into the carb. I think adding a spacer is an inexpensive thing to try, assuming you are happy with the performance otherwise.

[Ranch]

Paul, I have a 1" Thermal spacer an electric fuel pump back at the tank, ceramic coated headers wrapped my fuel line with reflective sleeves any where near a heat source.  I think the elec. pump helped some
   Since my hood open clam shell I've even gone as far as letting the hood lift about an 1 1/2" to a stop I have on the fender, but that defeats the air conditioning because the fresh air inlet is in the cowl.
   I was wondering if my drop down air cleaner pan is trapping hot air under it.  But then I would have to find a standard flat type pan and a 14" x 2"  blue element.  But thanks for your help

Bill

[338Raptor]

I’m no expert in EFI systems but I have been doing a lot of research on this for my own engine. I have read a dozen threads discussing tuning problems with engines that make only 10 inches of vacuum. 
Like I said I’m no expert but I think you may be in for a lot of frustration and disappointment with any EFI system especially a self learner with only 10” vacuum.

[66FAIRLANE]

Mine was pretty good really with only 7" of vacuum. Better than carb in all respects. I think you will be fine with 10". The parameters are quite tuneable too after it has finished its learn. You have to keep in mind what the learn is. It doesn't just self tune the best for the engine. That's the tuners job. You pick a base map that has pre-set AFR's. The learning just means the puter learns how much fuel it has to inject at that throttle opening, at that vacuum,  at that temp etc so next time that individual parameter occurs it knows exactly how much fuel to inject to hit the target AFR. So once it has finished learning I would save that table & tune on PC if you really want to optimise. Its worth it, otherwise you are just using a generic table. Like putting a carb on out of the box. Works ok for most applications, not great for some & real good for others. But nothing beats a proper custom tune.

[Yellow Truck]

Paul, I have a 1" Thermal spacer an electric fuel pump back at the tank, ceramic coated headers wrapped my fuel line with reflective sleeves any where near a heat source.  I think the elec. pump helped some
   Since my hood open clam shell I've even gone as far as letting the hood lift about an 1 1/2" to a stop I have on the fender, but that defeats the air conditioning because the fresh air inlet is in the cowl.
   I was wondering if my drop down air cleaner pan is trapping hot air under it.  But then I would have to find a standard flat type pan and a 14" x 2"  blue element.  But thanks for your help

Bill

Bill - when I look at the first picture it seems the fuel line runs across the front of the engine and then back down the passenger side to the carb inlets. I ran mine in from the rear and up the back of the carb. I did this because I was hoping to put a stop to the vapour lock. If I had had the chance I would have run a return line as well - I have read that this will also help with fuel heating since it is constantly cycling and not sitting in the line - but I am running the original in-cab tank and I couldn't without changing out the tank. I did put in a bigger line but was strongly advised against running a return line in the original fuel line as the difference in size would result in high fuel pressure at the carb.

In any case, what I did solved my issue before I had to go to further lengths. Since you will have to run a high pressure fuel system with a return anyway, you might just start there and see if it sorts you out.