Aftermarket EFI, my humble opinions

phydeaux · Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 9:53 pm Post subject:

Also, if you put together a weird package it would be nice to find a factory efi that was close and make it do whatever the hell you want. I.E. no separate engine/trans controller. Case in point: the 98-99 Shelby Series 1 used the Aurora 4.0 engine with a C6 transmission. It was controlled by an LS1 ECU and offered an optional supercharger. In my instance it would be nice to have full customization of ONE computer to control everything including future upgrades (upgrades pending lottery winnings). I'm also kicking around the idea of the Alpha you guys are building at the shop. Wouldnt it be nice to find a solution to use one controller on that thing? Even with boost and whatever trans is mated to that 4.0.

10sec.et · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 1:13 am Post subject:

Big Dave · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 1:47 pm Post subject:

Not to mention that it took six or seven full time engineers a year and a half to reverse engineer Toyota's EFI system so that Banks could produce a hand held tuner to play with the factory ECU. That is a lot of work for minimal gain unless there is a commercial market to sell this to (and still fend off the legal claims from whoever wrote the initial software).

Big Dave

SMOKEmUP · Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 1:42 pm Post subject:

10sec.et · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:11 am Post subject:

well, it has the ability to control a 4L60. so far, ive just used the HP. they have all been manual transmissions. we are finishing one up with the dominator and a 4L60. hopefully, ill find out how well it works within the next week. AFAIK, the EFI side is the same on both.

10sec.et · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:13 am Post subject:

BTW, we're going to be trying out the Quick Fuel EFI soon. ill keep everyone posted on the results.

af2 · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 11:08 pm Post subject:

10sec.et · Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 3:01 pm Post subject:

adam, can you get some more pics of that stack setup?

10sec.et · Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 11:54 pm Post subject:

finally got a chance to tune the Holley Dominator. this one is setup with drive by wire. first thing to note is there is a safety feature that closes the throttle when the brake is pressed. my guy wired this input wire to the constant 12v side of the brake switch. this caused a max of about 10% throttle at WOT. drove me nuts trying to figure out why i couldnt get the DBW to work Evil or Very Mad

. i wired it to constant ground. this defeats the safety feature but also allows you to footbrake the car.

the trans control works really well. took a little driving and tweaking to get the tune right but it shifts great. we had a bad trans to start with (GM crate trans) but once we got a good one, the tuning was pretty straight forward. it shifted well with the base calibration. i just needed it to do better. realistically, it could have been left alone.

one issue i had is harsh shifting into gear from P or N. usually it would stall. we have a stock converter and its a bit tight. there is no input for the ECM to compensate and kick the idle. theres no torque reduction tables for that either. i did cure it by dropping the timing just in the area it was idling/surging and kicked the timing up to about 29° in the 500rpm column to "catch" idle when it suddenly drops. its now a nice smooth transition.

clay · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 7:17 pm Post subject:

Glad you got a foot brake solution worked out😈. Sounds like a really good setup. Good solution on the idle issue also. That would have been a piece of cake with weights and springs wouldn't it? I've got to get back on my wife's Mustang and learn some more about tuning EFI - too many projects. Clay

10sec.et · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 1:05 am Post subject:

10sec.et · Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:37 pm Post subject:

ok, time to resurect an old thread...

we've done a couple EFI systems since my last post. we did do the Quick Fuel EFI. its not a bad system but the down side is it isnt very user friendly. its difficult to learn how to use and the software is a bit clunky. we did two systems... one tuned out pretty well, the other fought us all the way. it was really frustrating using this system. it can work very well but its a lot more work than it should be.... IMO. hopefully, later versions have more features and a more modern set of tables. what i saw was comparable to my old LT1 stuff.

now, the latest system.... Edelbrock's new EFI.
i cant really say a whole lot because we just finished back to back TBI and MPFI installs for a magazine article. what i will say is this... both systems get two thumbs up. MPFI will always out perform TBI but that is the nature of the beast. Edelbrock really did their homework on these. they have to be the simplest, most straight forward systems to install and tune. now, that being said.... these are kind of in a league of their own. these systems seem to be made specifically for the average DIY hot rodder working out of his garage. that's a good thing! i wouldn't have a problem installing either on my car.

SMOKEmUP · Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:54 am Post subject:

That's good news. I haven't had much luck with eddy stuff myself.

I have to give a R.I.P. to Vic Edelbrock Jr .

Big Dave · Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:31 am Post subject:

Ok I know that my tuning my engines with a screw driver disqualifies me from offering any experience based suggestions. But having been reading this I am discovering that not only is there software differences between controllers, but that there are firmware (chip sets) differences as well.

As such I would offer an engineering suggestion that I learned at Apple. When I worked there we would emulate the MS DOS operating system on a Motorola chip set that didn't understand the first assembler instruction for a x-86 Intel chip set. Today the Mac is UNIX based and runs the current Mac OS as a kernel that can just as easily run a Windows kernel on the same hardware.

Why not write EFI engine controller that can run on a PC instead of just using the laptop to tune it. Fire Wire (serial) or USB3 (also serial) inputs can handle the speed needed to transfer the data in real time and the inputs from the sensors are all well established and easily monitored. If greater band width is needed there are 16 bit, and 32 bit parallel and 64 bit wide SCSI interfaces that could form the data bus if needed.

You can buy used laptops on Amazon for a fraction of the cost of a dedicated CPU that still requires a Laptop to tune it. Aside from the larger size of the laptop (which could be superceded by a i-Pad. Once developed you could retire off the sale of the copyrighted software and patented idea.

Big Dave