|
I finally took the leap this weekend, and
took the FI setup off the testbed 403 motor and slapped it on the '71 Cutlass .
This is the culmination of probably about 5 years of procrastination, parts collecting,
and information slurping from the DIY-EFI and GMECM lists.
For a timeframe, I think I have one of the first posts on either the DIY-EFI or GMECM
list, I don't remember which. This is just a brief (yeah, right!) detailing
of the install and some related facts. This is made from about 99% stock
GM components, most found in scrap yards, some found in shop trash mainly 'cause
I'm a cheap bastard. Here is a brief rundown of the important details:
- Stock Olds 403 pulled from a '79 Olds
98 Regency. Unknown mileage, but very clean.
- Aluminum intake from '75-'81 Seville with
the port injected Olds 350 motor.
- Modified intake and fuel rail to accept
late LT1 injectors (cause I got them cheap)
- Throttle body from a 4.3 V6 or 305/350
V8 motor, who knows, shop tossed it since injectors were bad. Used
this to easily get IAC, TPS, and throttle linkage. Adapting the stock Caddy
TB would have been more work than I wanted to do.
- Custom adapter to mount to intake.
Made on my home Bridgeport CNC machine (A 50 year old Craftsman drill press)
- 1989 Camaro harness ('165 ECM) modified
for use with '730 ECM (thanks to details from GMECM)
- '730 ECM with AUJP cal. 'Cause
ANHT is hacked can use that as a reference and no MAF ducting to deal with.
Grumpy's gang of dwarves also threatened me if I didn't *grin*.
- TH700-R4 in car for about a year now.
'730 has no problem with that.
- Fuel pump from '77 Seville.
Ford pump I had up and died just prior to install, had it laying around.
- Distributor from mid 80's Olds 307 CCC
motor. Grafted mating connector onto Camaro harness.
- Inline VSS from JTR. $53, 'nuff
said.

Olds motor with stock carb and 80 lbs cast
iron intake. Jeeze, this thing will handle better just 'cause the new intake
weighs about 40 lbs less!

This is the new intake on the test motor,
sans throttle body.

The TB gasket here is from a '75 Seville;
used a bigger throttle body, but the intake was cast iron. I enlarged the holes
on the Bridgeport (err.... drill press). Stock on right, modified on left.

Woo-Hoo! New intake on the motor!

TB on motor, harness just laid on fender
and hooded up to verify that it all fits.

Detail shot of fuel lines coming up from
frame, and fuel filter. This is the Aeroquip "sockless" push-on hose.
Cut down NAPA fuel line repair kit to adapt 3/8" inverted flair lines to a Saginaw
o-ring so I could use a standard GF481 filter.

Detail shot of throttle linkage.
Amazingly, the stock '77 Seville throttle bracket fit with a spacer. Note how
throttle cable just clears distributor cap. BTW, bolts in spacer came out of
the Quadrabog from the old motor. These were the long ones in back behind the
secondaries. Also you can see the TBI throttle body with injectors
removed and hole covered with some aluminum sheet scrap. I moved
the TV cable from the trans to work off the gas pedal, no room to hook to TB.

Ready for harness to be installed.

Harness on floor. List members will
remember asking about where to cut a hole for the harness. Well, should have
used a '727 underhood - hindsight is 20/20. I decided to put all the
extra harness under the dash, since I've got plenty of room - no A/C!
Easier to pass ~20 wires thru the firewall than a full harness and have all that
bulk under the hood.

Harness installed - just need to add plug
wires and it's ready to run! The hole in the firewall is actually the stock
hole that the heater fan motor wire ran thru - right above the heater hoses.
it was about 1" in diameter, I enlarged it to about 1.5 to accomodate the largest
connector (EST from distributor). Still looks stock after I added a grommet,
and it's nice and far from exhaust or excessive heat. The stock
alternator bracket doesn't fit (hits the #2 injector, and no bolt hole for it anyway),
so a turnbuckle to a bar coming up off the front of the block does the trick just
fine....
Oh, here's the car it's in:

Startup and Run:
I ran the fuel pump for about 20 minutes
to check for leaks. One small leak at a fitting I didn't completely tighten.
Popped in the ECM fuse, installed a AUJP
bin with VATS disabled and turned the key. Wrrr, Wirr, Voom! Fired right
up to a crappy idle. Set timing to 8deg, idles better.
Warmed up, no leaks, no smoke.
Borrowed scan tool wouldn't link up...
hmm.... ALDL connector came from a '91 Astro van... hmm.... Snap-On MT2500 knows
which pin in the ALDL to look for data. Seems the Astro van and the Camaro
have different pins! After 2 hours to figure this out, I finally got
data.
It's now 3am - perfect time for a test
drive! Amazingly it's actually not that bad! Throttle response is great,
but it needs quite a bit of tuning. Impressive that you can
take a total mismatch of GM parts and it will run and drive without setting a code,
says a lot about GM engineering.
Really cool to be able change timing and
or "jets" just with a few keystrokes and a chip change.
Big thanks to the GMECM and DIY-EFI for
all the help and knowlege, and putting up with more than my share of dumb questions.
-> Bob
-> bob [at] tecmark [dot] com
|