in light of the recent post by Ryan, re: taditional content on the board i thought maybe i would redirect or rephrase my earlier post to be more "traditionally" compliant. what i want to do is build my own fuel injection system, non electronic, or at the very least non computer controlled. i am convinced i can do this and i am looking to any sources of info on back in the day fuel injection, circa 50's and 60's. i am aware of the tuneing issues surrounding this sort of thing. will it be trouble free ,, no! will it require lots of tinkering and tuning .. yes! will it be hard to start, buck snort, backfire,, and be unruly... god i hope so!!! will it go like hell when it is flat on the floor.. probably. will it look cool, hell ya!!! will it be traditional,,, i think so!! anybody got any old articles, sources, idea's, know how, or other direction,,, all would be appreciated. bob
The book "The Best of Hot Rod Magazine, 1949-1959 has an article on Hilborn injection systems. A mechanical fuel injection system looks pretty staight forward as long as you don't need alot of variation in throttle. I guess that's why they work well in racing and not too well on the street. Any way, the article is from October, 1951. Lots of pics and good text, too!
I know a bunch of European luxury cars and sports cars used mechanical injection up until the advent of decent EFI in the 80's, so it MUST be possible to get it to work on the street decently.
Not saying that it can't be done, but here is what the mfg. has on their website. Tech Support Fuel Injection Engineering provides in-house service, repair, and flow testing of any HILBORN product, as well as technical support by e-mail, phone or FAX. Downloads Download our Metering Valve Schematic Download our Installation Schematic Questions Can I run a HILBORN fuel injector on a street car? How do I change the rotation of the fuel pump? How do I set the metering valve? How do I adjust the metering valve? Which fuel pump should I run? How do I set the Secondary and Hi-speed By-p***? How can I avoid corrosion forming on the mag casting? What difference does ram tube length make? Answers Q: Can I run a HILBORN fuel injector on a street car? A: Our units are manufactured strictly for racing applications and are NOT recommended for street use. The castings are designed for maximum air flow and do not have a metering system for low speed operation. Where most street driving is between 2,000 and 4,000 rpm, racing engines idle at 2,000 and operate from 6,000 to 10,000 rpm!
So what Hilborn is saying is that the castigs are the wrong shape and size for the steet. If Brutus makes his own , he can match it to 800 Idle and Max out at 6000.
hey metalshapes,, my thoughts exactly.. the hilborn units as well as crower, etc were designed to be race units, i dont want to use their units, but build my own. i am looking for 1000 to 5000 rpm tops. i also want to incorporate an idle circuit, an excellerator pump/enrichment and i want to reference the fuel pressure via manifold pressure(vacuum) the bosch systems used air flow on their mech CIS systems, i figure i should be able to use manifold pressure as a reference for fuel pressure. granted it will take a lot of doing,, but i got all winter, and i am gettin tired of rubbing out rustoleum.. i figured this would give me something to switch over to for a break. besides if i can get it to work reasonably well,, would be pretty cool... Traditional??? bob
Brutus I run a old Hilborn unit on my racecar. The best bit of info has been the catalogs and manuals from Kinsler.They service all kinds of fuel injection and stock about everything under the sun.There FI manual has a real good trouble shooting guide thats helped me out a few times. (248)362-1145 It would be a good place to start.---FEDER
Brutus, I like your project. And I'll admire your guts if you follow though ( specially if you get it to run right ). Is it Traditional? I dont Know, you are basicly building something that was was not there back in the day, out of parts that were.... Just like most of the Rods we are building. Style your manifold after the very first one Hilborn build for his Bonneville car and you should be OK. Look at a Crower U Fab too (but without the log..) For the rest of the hardware I'd go for as many Of The Shelf parts as possible, I dont see how you could make a Bosch setup look right with that big flapper valve. So that leaves you with the Hilborn, Crower, Etc. Race setups with thyr drivebillety problems ( maybe....) Or something you adapt from a steet car, and that will push you into the 70s ( as far as when most of that stuff was in the showrooms) My guess is you would have the most chance of success with a Kugelfisher ( German ) or a ****a ( Italian ) Pump, altough parts might be more available with Lucas ( English ).
Many of the CIS systems used an idle air byp*** p***age to allow for idle speed/mixture corrections as the engine warms up. If the racing injection setups do not allow for this, what about making up a secondary carb system that is a byp*** setup, strictly for idle? If it draws air in ahead of the injection ****erflies and p***es thru a small carb, like off a motorcycle or small gas engine, then is mounted to the injection plenum, the system will have a way to run the engine at idle speed/fuel mixtures, and the idle carb will be unused whenthe injection ****erflies are opened up, much the same as a standard carb idle p***ages are then unused when the throttle opens. I would think you could possibly get away with a small carb off a little lawnmower engine or similar, since even flowing full throttle mixtures should be enough fuel/air for a larger-displacement engine to be idling... Doc
You CAN tune it for low rpm but then you will give up wide open performance. With eight holes feeding the motor 1/4 of throttle will give you 5k rpm pretty quick. It can be done with any of the units you just need a very large retun pill so it wont load up at an idle. Street use is pretty much idle to 3 or 4k rpm. It can be done so don't get discouraged.
The real question that the production mechanical FI outfits (the old Rochester, the Bosch K-Jetronic, etc.) had to address, and which the Hilborns, etc. do not, is how to reference fuel flow to load. In most mechanical systems (EFI too, but there's more to it than that there) pressure=flow. Has anyone tried adding a vacuum-referenced EFI type pressure regulator to the return circuit instead of a fixed metering 'pill'? Full open (e.g. low system pressure) at idle and other low-load conditions, high-restriction (high pressure) at WOT.
Guys and gals, brutus t maximus' last post is dated 08-22-2004 12:15 AM, so I doubt that he will care much about responses to an 8 year old thread.
No he won't care - Someone else might though. This thread didn't get much traction last time around but it might this time
That's damn right; Why is the age of the thread of any relevance if the question is still legit now? If i asked the exact same question today then it's ok?
I ran a Hilborn on the street for about a year's worth of daily driving and weekend drag racing. This was around 1990. The main drawback to modern EFI is people think it's the same as mechanical FI but with better manners. But I've never driven any EFI car that had the razor sharp, violent acceleration of a mechanical system. A mechanical system is RPM based in that the fuel pump is directly driven off the engine - if you gain one RPM, the pump instantly puts out more fuel and that translates to instant response. My car was very well tuned with a Holley 800 and I overnight gained about 4 tenths in the quarter. I don't think it made any more HP on the top end but the amount of power it gained between 1000 and 6500RPM was amazing. Why did I take it off and go back to the carb? As many will tell you, there was really no way to create a fine enough mist of fuel so that it would cruise without loading up. Anytime you were accelerating at all, it ran great. But it just didn't like to cruise. I even talked at length to Kinsler about it and they said there was no way to create a nozzle small enough that wouldn't quickly clog up.
For anyone who really IS interested, there was a recent thread (within a year IIRC) where a father and son modified a Hilborn type setup that they claimed worked great on the street. They pulled a bunch of tricks with the byp*** valves to get the system to work at idle and part throttle.
Mine had a full array of Kinsler parts including a byp*** and a VST. Still doesn't help the loading up issue.
We beat this to death on that particular thread........which refered to the Hilborn on my son's rod. Those who say it cannot be done are woefully misled or insufficiently educated to figure out what needs to be done to make Hilborns streetable. You cannot bolt on a stack injector out of the box and expect it to work on the street......something the Hilborn techs say over and over. It cannot be done by tial and error. I ran several pages of engineering calculations, designed the system to work under all load conditions and fabricated a few parts to make it happen. If you understand the engineering principals behind Hilborn injectors, it's not that difficult. BTW: One way to get the mixtures correct is to run a vacuum signal to a vacuum control on the barrel valve or main by-p*** pill......something a non-engineer would never think of. There are a few other things that need to be done also. My son's Hilborn has been great for 3 years now.......his only problem so far has been the destruction of the O-rings from the ****py ethenol in pump gas.
^^^^ use viton(sp) o-rings... Same ones used for nitro..... We use these in all our alky setups and they give long life over STD ones
"I ran several pages of engineering calculations, designed the system to work under all load conditions and fabricated a few parts to make it happen. If you understand the engineering principals behind Hilborn injectors, it's not that difficult." I'm so sick of guys who hold themselves forth as engineers and brag about their calculations. But it's especially bad when they brag how they figured something out and how it's really not that hard - but only because they are engineers and everyone else is stupid. It's kinda like when I meet someone who instantly mentions what a good person he is on account of he believes in God and is very active in his church. By the time he's done blabbing I think to myself - "Now there's a ****er I won't leave my wallet open near." The average hot rodder - myself included - simply reaches a point of diminishing returns and moves on to something else. When I mention above I took the system off after a year, that means I had better things to do with my time and money (like attending engineering school) than dink with a fuel delivery system. But I'll tell you what - my system ran well and anything I learned I would have gladly shared with anyone who asked. The last thing I would do is strut around like a pea**** and try to make like my poo-poo didn't stink. And after all, you couldn't even figure out the o-ring material....
I would like to say one last thing. I had a lot of help from people more knowledgeable than myself. I got it running good enough you could cruise around town, at about 7 mpg, I could not find a way to overcome the bad gas mileage. Also, would not run the same at different al***udes.
The O.P. may be long gone but he or some of you might find this interesting. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=393569&highlight=ornermotive
And I guess the next thing from you will be that your Dad could beat up my Dad, and my Mom wore combat boots........feeling better now?? BTW - as I noted, the BUNA-N o-rings were put on by the Hilborn company.......
Whoa, who peed in gregcon's post toasties? Just because you didn't get the problem figured out doesn't mean somone else couldn't. And what has a persons religion got to do with mecanical fuel injection on the street? This site is full of very intelligent people that are willing to share their knowledge with other hot rodders.
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