Hilborn Fuel Injection Question

I'm thinking of running a 392 hemi in my 31' coupe. I'm either looking at a log intake with 6 94's or a Hilborn setup. How practical is a hilborn fuel injection setup for street use? What all is needed? Tuning?
Thanks Folks

 

They're not great for street driving. I used to assemble them there with Stuart in the late 80s. Most of the folks that ran them on street cars were not really happy with the tuning, they're really only consistent in a fairly small RPM range.

What I've been seeing lately though is the old Hilborn setups with electronic injectors built into it for the stock look but a more flexible fuel system.

 

From what i hear there are a few companies converting them to EFI .. Thats what id do.. The original setups were designed for alky and really can be a bitch to tune for gas. Its been done but not without problems. If you had it converted to an efi system it would look bitchen and you would get great milage also.. the best of both worlds oh ya reliability too..
Dave

 

I dont think it(Hilborn) is very streetable from what I heard

I had a hard time make my 94s fit on a log intake

It took some altering no big deal

 

The Hilborn systems were designed for full throttle applications,so they are not very streetable.As others have stated,conversion to electronic injection,may not be traditional,but will make it more streetable.

 

I'm running an electronic 4 port hillborn unit in my willys coupe. I purchased it through hot heads but it was setup by andy at hillborn. Had some trouble with it as first but with andy's help we figured out how to make it run and it seems to work fine. I only have about 250 miles on it at this point. I would recomend talking to andy to discuss your particular application. He was very helpful to me. These units are not cheap they run about $5,000.00.

 

I had a Hilborn 4-port on my blown 392. Texas has crazy weather so you have to always mess with the pills. I have a Kinsler Dial-A-Jet that I am going to run this go around since Ive worked the bugs out of the car. I recommend that you think of running a quick change and a 5-6 speed trans as well to cope with the finicky running for the setup.

-Jason

 

Do you have access to a September 1986 issue of Hot Rod magazine? If so, there's a comprehensive tech article on how to run one on the street. If you can't find it P.M. me with your Postal address-I'send you a copy.




quote=busted49ford;2383468]I'm thinking of running a 392 hemi in my 31' coupe. I'm either looking at a log intake with 6 94's or a Hilborn setup. How practical is a hilborn fuel injection setup for street use? What all is needed? Tuning?
Thanks Folks[/quote]

 

[/quote]
Is that the one where they make a holding tank to prime the system before a start up?I worked with a guy who did that on a street car,said it was responsive but picky around town.

 

""" The original setups were designed for alky and really can be a bitch to tune for gas."""

I don't know whether to laugh or ........................Awww what the hell I'll laugh.LMAO

If ya can't Tune a Fish and ya can't Tune a Holley ya can't drive Mechanical Injectors on the street and that's the law.


To the question at hand,anything is doable but to drive MFI on the street you'd need a little imagination and a serious case of tinkeritis to make it work.
Ohh,some prior knowledge and experience with MFI would be a big help too.

 

I knew a guy that ran Hilborn injection on his drag car.

Hilborn told him it will run nice at idle,or WOT.
Not both.

Ran good enough to set NHRA records.


One of the magazines ran an article about some guy who was supposed to have figured out to to run mechanical injection on
the street.

Lil John Buttera put mechanical injection on his son's Novette.

 

Like everyone said, if you set it up as EFI it will behave nicely on the street - here's one Hillborn set up...

 

Get the book from Kinsler.

 

This guy is doing it. Claims he has 5000 street driven miles plus quite a few 1/4 mile passes.

 

Mechanical fuel injectors are exactly what the name implies --> they are mechanically driven, have no clue about load, timing, altitude, air density or fuel type. The easiest way to think about them is a glorified fuel pump -- with nice nozzles to deliver the fuel. The type of fuel you run is not the issue --> they work fine on gas, alky and nitro . . . or combinations there of. Every modern blown funny car or top-fuel dragster runs one -- at least every one I've ever seen.

Have people ran them on the street . . . "yes", but for every one that swears he has it figured out, there are probably hundreds that tried, got tired of constantly tuning the darn thing and gave up. From one day to the next - the system has no ability to adjusts - it can only be adjusted by the tuner. Also - it is REALLY easy to end up with a very rich idle or low-speed condition, which tends to wash down the cylinder walls and dilute the oil - which is not a good thing. Try starting one in cold weather --- see how easy it is to totally foul the plugs.

As many have noted - the best situation is to have an EFI converted system. They are big bucks -- like $5,000 to $6,000 for a complete setup. If you're looking at this, then you should talk to Kinsler, Hilborn, RetroTec, etc.. Also - buy a few books . . . there is much to know. Use the WEB to lookup FAST XFI, MegaSquirt, Motec and other ECUs -- there is a ton of information out there . . . multiple lifetimes worth.

Best of luck!

Dale

 

depends on what type of mechanical injectors yer talking about; CIS systems are completely tuneable with aux air controls and control pressure regulators

 

what are the outside lines for, just looks?

 

you can see the fuel rails on the inside of the stacks

 

Right, the CIS Hilborn, silly me.

Have a nice day.

 

Yes, that proves how streetable Hilborn is.
Look how sparkly those little art-deco screen inserts are, almost like they've never been outside...
They must get washed frequently from that overflow fitting that ends in mid-air.

Yah, that car must see a lot of miles - what is it, like 50 feet onto the trailer?

 

I run a Hilborn 2 port on my blown flatty in the '33 (see avitar). It was converted to EFI by Hilborn and tuned by Steve at Uncommon Engineering. It works pretty good. Flathead Jack told me he has a way to set up mechanical injection for the street. Something about an accessory fuel pump that is used for start up and idle. I didn't go into it in detail as I had already decided on the EFI setup. Call him and I bet he can walk you through it. I still think it would require more fiddling than I'm capable of messing with on a regular basis. Good luck.

Doc.

 

If you need a start with Hilborn on your hemi I have a set. 2 7/16" send me a pm.

 

Mfi on the street is badass but if you are scared or you dont have any common since stay far away from mfi. To make mfi street worthy you need a dialajet for the adjustability from pill to pill, a idle bypass and maybe a hi-speed bypass and maybe set your barrel valve a tad leaner. Put engine on a dyno, tune it to the best of their capability by looking at the fuel numbers, take fuel out or add fuel. Make a bunch of low rpm steady state pulls in the rpm range in which you will be driving in, look at the fuel numbers and richen or lean it out according to what the fuel numbers are. ect ect. ( I wont go into detail on mfi as far as tuning goes but it can be streetable.) Eric Carter

P.S. fuel pressure has a lot to do with it.

 

The fuel logs look like crap, as does that late model MSD cap. Not a very good example. The EFI conversion on the Hollywood Hot Rods '32 has very noticeable spacers that really kill the look. You might want to consider a Weber setup from Inglese, which is now owned by Comp Cams.

 

Hello everyone. I hope you don’t mind if I throw my 2 cents into the MFI debate.

I receive questions all the time at the tech line about using MFI on the street and our position at Hilborn is that it is not recommended
<O
I would like to offer some information on how a MFI system works and why it is very tricky to run on the street.
<O
The Mechanical Hilborn is very basic in design. As a constant flow injection system all that is required is a pump, barrel valve, main jet and a set of nozzles. As the engine rpm increases so does the pump output. The size of the nozzles and the main jet establish the fuel curve based on pump size and rpm. The barrel valve controls fuel flow at idle and the transition from idle to WOT. Additional bypass valves can be installed to remove fuel as engine rpm increases as a mechanical pump can easily over fuel most engines. The big problem with a mechanical system is its inability to compensate for engine load. To understand how a barrel valve works, picture looking at a funnel sideways. The large opening of the funnel looks like the barrel valve at idle where it will bypass most of the fuel. As you advance the throttle to WOT it will look like the bottom of the funnel where it bypasses the least amount. It was mentioned that you can modify or adjust the barrel valve to supply different fuel for a certain throttle angle. But on the street you can have different loads at the same throttle angle. Keep in mind that more load on the engine the more fuel is required. For an example, you can be at throttle tip-in to accelerate the car and at the same tip-in you could also be keeping the car at cruising speed on the highway. These two different scenarios which require different amounts of fuel due to the difference in load. Now if you where to adjust the barrel valve to clean up the engine at cruise speeds there would not be enough fuel for acceleration, and if you adjusted for acceleration, there would be too much for cruise. That is why for all those years you never saw Hilborns on the street until the advent of EFI.
<O
There are guys on this board that are much more savvy than I am in trying to get a mechanical system to work on the street than I am. The use of a dial-ajet, additional bypasses, and valves to control fuel can be used but it is compromise at best and not recommended even for the guy that is smarter than the average Joe.
<O
Now I am not saying you can’t use it for a fairground queen (and I am sure that there aren’t any of those on this board) or to run a couple of blocks down the street. But for those who drive their cars and I mean really drive their cars I don’t believe it should be considered.
<O
I am sorry I had such a long post and I would like to thank you for allowing me to share my information and my opinion. I hope this will help clear up some of the confussion.
<O
Andy

 

Thanks Andrew. You've put the facts together very well.

 

Hey Andy,

It's Doc from Shreveport. We've talked many times during my setup. You were very helpful. Thanks for posting your info. And welcome aboard.

Doc.
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Thank you very much hog mtn dave.

Hi Doc, thank you also. I am happy to be here.

 

Hey Andy,
Welcome aboard. It's Smokey here from Doug's. We just talked 'bout this thread today. You didn't waste any time gettin' on the HAMB to help out.
No, I didn't finish your heads yet.
You may want to check in with Ryan about Hilborn becomin' an Alliance Vendor.
We are lucky to have passion jobs. I'll talk to ya after PRI.
Take care,Smokey

 

Now that would be cool!