I was wanting to know if anyone has converted a mechanical fuel injection system like Hilborn to a electric system? If so, could anyone point me in the right direction on how to go about doing it. I called hilborn today and they said they have done it but do not recomend it.
He did tell me the reason, but I must first tell you what I have. SBC Hilborn fuel injection system with 7A nozzles and crank driven fuel pump. I am not very good with the fuel injection lingo so bare with me. I want to use this system on the street, so I talked with my older wiser hot rod buddies. They said that mechanical fuel injection is a pain to run on the street because so many variable plays into how it performs. But they did say it could be done. One of my buddies showed me his set up he use to run on the street. To do this set up like he has his I would need another set of nozzles which are about 250 - 300. I have been looking on here and eBay for some cheaper, but all I find is 18 or greater (which are for alcohol) and I need 6 or 7A. I also need a small moon style tank and other misc lines and fittings. With that being said all together I think I would have better than 800 to make it work (like my buddies system). By the way he will not sell it. I have heard of people sending their off to get converted and thought maybe I should take the 800 and put towards converting it. He tech man at Hilborn told me that because my nozzles are on the inside of the intake it makes it that much harder. But his reason is that welding the holes up and moving the nozzles to the outside could warp the ****erflies and ruin the system (I think he just wanted to sell a new system at 7000.00). But I was thinking of buying a multi port injection system and moving the nozzles to the outside and using pipe plug (instead of welding) to close the holes up. Using the original ****erflies and buying the throttle control sensor from hilborn which they sell for their electric fuel injection system. I know there is more to it than just that so I need a little help. I really what to do it my self.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
Small displacement gas nozzles seem to be hard to find used. Enderle stuff might be better, as the nozzles are in two pieces. For converting to EFI, the only part of the entire setup that is reused is the intake and ****erflys, which is used as a throttle body. The rest is replaced with electronic stuff. If this is the route you want to take, you might be best off selling your whole setup and buying a bare intake that would be better to convert. So far as running a mechanical setup on the street, many talk about, everyone thinks they know how, but mostly it ends there. I suggest reading instead of talking, literature from kinsler, hilborn and enderle. While none of the literature you'll find says anything about street use, the principles are the same and there really is no magic to it. Likely the only way of finding any success is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the system.
Thanks for the info. Yes they are very hard to find. I bought this system used off a drag cars, but got the whole sytem at a very good deal. You are right i probably would come out better buying another intake to try this.
The is lots of info,try the search for mech fuel injection.I am getting parts together to run one on the street.I have met some people that have done it with sucess and without the surge tank.Depending on what type of nozzles you have,you can find them I bought 2 sets of kinsler equal to 8A for 150 for all sixteen The large nozzles are for alky,but sometimes guys run 16 nozzles on sprintcars and the run 8 of one size and 8 of another,thats how I got mine.
I ran them on the street. They ****ed. They like idle and wide open. They hate partial throttle. When running on a cold engine,,,,,,shiiiiiit ugly. And talk about ****ty gas mileage. Mine got about 2 mpg. BUT,,when nailed, they hauled ***
this is an article from HOT ROD. It definitely is feasible and not too complex.(with a little creativity, you could use junkyard GM sensors for fairly cheap). have you checked out megasquirt? http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/mechanical_to_electronic_fuel_injection/index.html
I'm doing a 341 Desoto with Hilborns right now. Danny at Hilborn drilled and tapped some 1/4" pipes threads on the outside of the castings opposite of the 1/16" pipe holes for the standard mechanical injectors. I then made some adapters for a set of 72 lb injectors used on Fords. Rather than going with fuel rails on the outside of the castings, I got a set of adapters for braided #4 hose to connect to each injector from a guy on Ebay who goes by FOCARMAN. At $100.00 bucks a set it was a good deal. They include quick release clamps that allow the hoses to be disconnected with a needle nose pliers in just a second. The hoses go to fuel rails that sit between the ram tubes and look more nastalgic than the rails sitting out in the breeze. The distributor is a Joe Hunt mag converted to Pertronix ignition. It accepts 8 mm wires and maintains the nastalgic look. The computer system is a Megasquirt V-3. It will control the timing. The advance in the mag will be locked out and the computer will control it all. Each side of the block has a 1/4" pipe hole for drain plugs. One of them will hold the knock sensor which screws right in. Have yet to add the O2 sensor bung to the headers. The V-3 system includes the engine and ambient air temp sensors. The air temp sensor will just sit in a cage hidden behind the ram tubes. The 1/16" pipe holes on the inside of the casting will be used to send vacuum to the map sensor. 8 hoses will connect to a block manifold that will connect to the map sensor and a bleed hole from the block will draw crank case gases from a PVC valve on the cam cover ( the old crank vent tube hole ). So far the setup is going well. I will need help in tuning the system and have had several locals offer their expertise. Can't wait. Hope this helps, Bill
Hi Fire338, I know a great guy in Nashville that can help you. He will explain it all to you and let you know what to do to make mechanical work on the street. It is not as complicated as some guys make it to be! His name is Mike and he is a racer from the good old days. Type in www.alkydigger.com ,,this will take you to his store page. He has a lot of great stuff,and he can set up your small stuff,,nozzles and fittings ,,check valves,,to make it work for you. He has Hemi stuff and small block and big block Chevy stuff. He specializes in Hilborn parts. He also has magnetos too. Check him out. Tell him Tommy sent you Good luck. Tommy
Megasquirt is really the way to go if you are looking to turn that thing into an IRTB setup. Register over at msefi.com and do some searching. Megasquirt is cheap, and it's only a 10 wire harness to get it running. Not only that, some of the software out there damn near tunes the thing for you as long as you can get it to fire up and rough idle. I'm not sure how hard this will be, but I've had my hand in converting a few Bosch K-Jet Volvos to EFI. One was Megasquirt, and the others were LH jet (basically stock EFI from a latter car). The MS install took alot of general mechanical and electrical know how to make it work. There is a very helpful support forum, but that only goes so far. If you are concerned about getting in over your head, I'd look long and hard at dropping a late model Chevy MPFI manifold, along with the stock harness/ECU/etc. That's a pretty straightforward route.
i just scooped this thing up yesterday. polished enderle converted to efi by blower drive service. Its got a port for a laptop. i can tune it from inside the car while driving down the road.
I'm running one right now without a surge tank (old 265-C-8 3-piece casting with 1.5" throttle bores). I don't think you need it unless you plan to race it, and only then for the high-speed byp*** (which I didn't need in my set up). There seems to be a lot of misleading information out there about how to set up Hilborn units. Either way (mechanical or electronic), plan to have a good amount of down time on your ride to set it up right. If you want to run it as mechanical on the street, be ready to by a lot of fittings, do some tube bending, and spend some time tuning once it runs. I have no experience with electronic, but if you have an older unit, you might consider getting one already made for electronic instead of modifying the one you have. Jay
This guy is Fran Olson - great guy and knows his EFI stuff. He has a T bucket with a Lamborghini 4 cam V12 enigine which he converted to EFI. He specializes in early hemis. Here's a link for you - well worth checking out: http://foxengineering-efi-fuel-injection-hemi-g***er-mopar.com/index.html If you contact him, tell him to join up and get his sorry *** onto the HAMB - I am surprised not to have found him here already. http://foxengineering-efi-fuel-inje...ages/ebay-_mitsu_stuff-decals_426-747x562.jpg http://foxengineering-efi-fuel-inje....com/sitebuilder/images/Hurricane-600x449.jpg
MR RICH on the board has done a few now using some factory stuff Hes got it down pretty damn good. Maybe He will chime in. FEDER
Check out this site for converting to EFI... he sells kits and parts... most uniquely threaded adapters for inserting modern fuel injectors into the mechanical nozzle threads. http://foxengineering-efi-fuel-injection-hemi-g***er-mopar.com/ I would also recommend Megasquirt for and EFI controller... great price, function, and lots of online support via their user forum. I have been acquiring parts to do the same conversion. The sensors are straight forward, mostly common GM replacement parts (see http://www.bgsoflex.com/megasquirt.html) The real thing to remember on Hilborn setup is that you need to tap the manifold under the ****erflies on each cylinders throttle body for manifold pressure. These 8 pressure taps need to be connected and balanced so you can get one manifold air pressure reading for the whole engine. There is lots of info out there if you search around. I have been collecting parts to do the conversion myself, I just haven't bought a manifold yet. If you want more info, I can send you what I have collected.
I'll say that MegaSquirt is an interesting process. Get ready by having their "Downloading" 14 yard dump back up to your front PC's port. Then run for cover! After 120 pages of detailed tech guidance, I am slowly finding it approachable. Manageble? Not yet! Fair in cost, some support online, and some board discussions, but nothing like here! BTW Fox Engineering is Fran Ohlson..one of the top rod builders from years ago, back then, in the Boston area.
since this thread is about four years old at last post, bringing it back up again to see who/what is out there to convert mechanical fuel injection to electronic. Any ideas? Some of the 2009 links no longer work.
Check this thread out: (Megasquirt is the way!) http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=8610059#post8610059 http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=8661845#post8661845 Aloha Tommy
I've often wondered if the GM truck Vortec injection (****py as it was) might be a more traditional looking means for this swap. It would centralize the injectors and you could use the original type of flex hoses to the poppet valves. As far as I know, all the GM units were m*** air, but using a Ford or generic speed density ECU shouldn't complicate things. The injectors don't know which computer is controlling them, they only know when they are told to open... Anybody want to step up and pay for the development?
Funny. I brought this up a few months ago for stack injections. There were a bunch of guys interested but the moderators shut it down for not being traditional enough. Look at Inglese and Hilborn web sites. Also Mooneyes had an electronic injection converetd Stromberg setup ..
As pointed out above, Blower Drive Service offers the ability to install EFI (they make a Tool to thread the Injectors into the casting), and, of course, there is Fran Olson at Fox Engineering (great guy btw)-he is a big proponent of MS- Then, there is Kevin Thompson who will also do the conversion: http://www.hotrodsolutions.net/Index.html I know that Mike @ alkydigger will recommend Fran Olson (generally)- In terms of pricing (that I did during my search), Fran Olson was the cheapest (using MS), Force Fuel Injection was next (he likes Enderle), then BDS was next, and Hilborn was the highest (but I think they offer the best after sale support)-here is Force: http://force-efi.com/ I decided to go full-on Hilborn (and they have been very good)-here's my setup-
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