Meeting my 1st Ultima GTR.. love @ 1st site...
Discussion
Hello mates from across the pond..1st off i must say i was very impressed
with the turn out of quality Ultimas @ the Stoneleigh show 05 & it was my 1st hands on in person look @ the car & i was impressed to say the least.
Having been a piston head all my life & in the high performance engine building bizz 30+ years i was spell bound by the car & brought back found memories of Lemans & GT series racing i'd watch on the tube as a kid..
Talking to the owners i found a split in choices of engines they have in there car & engine they would like to have in them.
Most raved about Chevys new LS1 & LS2 & LS6 & i must say they are nice high tech powerfull engines indeed. But i being an old school piston head / still building high BHP carbed engines i voiced my opinion that they are nice but are they owner tune friendly & driveway fixable?
I'd say not & a lot of buyers of these engines when a problem arises are going to find it very difficult to find a qualified tech/ mech to fix or tune it & when & if they do exspensive to repair or tune.
Here in the US we love to fix & tune what we've built & i'm sure it the same both sides the pond.
Having supplied 60+ high perf engines to the UK & Europe for Ultimas & other kit cars & having guided owners in reguards to tuning & set up of there there engines i could only dream of the nightmare it would be to guide an owner of a high tech FI engine via e-mail & phone calls & sorting out a problem with his LS1 ect.
Just my 2 pence / cents from an old school piston head.. let me know your thoughts here if you wish. Cheers! Dr.Dee
with the turn out of quality Ultimas @ the Stoneleigh show 05 & it was my 1st hands on in person look @ the car & i was impressed to say the least.
Having been a piston head all my life & in the high performance engine building bizz 30+ years i was spell bound by the car & brought back found memories of Lemans & GT series racing i'd watch on the tube as a kid..
Talking to the owners i found a split in choices of engines they have in there car & engine they would like to have in them.
Most raved about Chevys new LS1 & LS2 & LS6 & i must say they are nice high tech powerfull engines indeed. But i being an old school piston head / still building high BHP carbed engines i voiced my opinion that they are nice but are they owner tune friendly & driveway fixable?
I'd say not & a lot of buyers of these engines when a problem arises are going to find it very difficult to find a qualified tech/ mech to fix or tune it & when & if they do exspensive to repair or tune.
Here in the US we love to fix & tune what we've built & i'm sure it the same both sides the pond.
Having supplied 60+ high perf engines to the UK & Europe for Ultimas & other kit cars & having guided owners in reguards to tuning & set up of there there engines i could only dream of the nightmare it would be to guide an owner of a high tech FI engine via e-mail & phone calls & sorting out a problem with his LS1 ect.
Just my 2 pence / cents from an old school piston head.. let me know your thoughts here if you wish. Cheers! Dr.Dee
PHOTO OF OLD SCHOOL ENGINE
www.rodandclassicmart.co.uk/cars/AD1469PFS.jpg
www.rodandclassicmart.co.uk/cars/AD1469PFS.jpg
Well I'm a total EFI convert. Having started from considing EFI to be a totally black art to where I am now - I would never look back again.
I took the Megasquirt approach, mainly because of it's DIY nature - I understand exactly what every single component does (including every single electronic component on the ECU itself) - the learning curve has been steep but very enjoyable.
You talk about having to diagnose a problem remotely.. with EFI this is easy and it happens every single day with Megasquirt - you simply take a datalog and post a copy of your configuration (even if the engine wont actually start) and people can usually solve or at least give valuable pointers straight away.
Indeed, with a laptop plugged into the car, you could actually just remote control that machine accross the internet to diagnose problems. You can even use bluetooth adapter, so you dont even need to go into the garage in order to hook into the ECU.
After a drive, I park the car in the garage,plug the network cable in and sit inside and pull the logs down ect.
Due to the open nature of Megasquirt, adding your own custom features is easy. I wanted to know how efficient the turbo's were running and how well my chargecooler was doing - with MS this was easy - and only cost a few pounds in components, and I now have real-time Adiabatic efficiency gauges integrated into the main tuning software (without needing any programming knowledge)
I'm afraid my carb is something that gathers dust in the loft right now.
Eliot.
I took the Megasquirt approach, mainly because of it's DIY nature - I understand exactly what every single component does (including every single electronic component on the ECU itself) - the learning curve has been steep but very enjoyable.
You talk about having to diagnose a problem remotely.. with EFI this is easy and it happens every single day with Megasquirt - you simply take a datalog and post a copy of your configuration (even if the engine wont actually start) and people can usually solve or at least give valuable pointers straight away.
Indeed, with a laptop plugged into the car, you could actually just remote control that machine accross the internet to diagnose problems. You can even use bluetooth adapter, so you dont even need to go into the garage in order to hook into the ECU.
After a drive, I park the car in the garage,plug the network cable in and sit inside and pull the logs down ect.
Due to the open nature of Megasquirt, adding your own custom features is easy. I wanted to know how efficient the turbo's were running and how well my chargecooler was doing - with MS this was easy - and only cost a few pounds in components, and I now have real-time Adiabatic efficiency gauges integrated into the main tuning software (without needing any programming knowledge)
I'm afraid my carb is something that gathers dust in the loft right now.
Eliot.
Here here, I too am enjoying my MegaSquirt albeit I am some way off actually finishing, end of March being my on road target. As regards carbs I have found it quite difficult to find anybody in the UK that can sort out my issues (mainly with over fuelling) going electronic will give me the ultimate control.
Hello mate so far Mega-Spurt has the lead in + opinion.. yes i've seen a few home made Mega's this side the pond & am impressed with the end results
when the chap finally got there. It took a lot of fiddle'n & fool'n & teak'n
to get it right... And also so do carburated engines .. nothing is bolt on & go out'a the box..It's a huge mistake to think that you open the box bolt it on & go .
Reason i'm more pro carb is the simple everyday tools that are needed to work on them & calibrate them to the engine & if your not a computer guru & and electicly savey fellow... huge amount of time & trouble will be spent FI tuning.
Here is a sample case / cross the pond...
Fellow with big bad BBC 502/ Victor intake & 850 Holley DP carb dialed into engine.. car runs 10 sec 1/4 miles all day long.. no problem..
Fellow says i'm going FI tuned port high tech system spends $7,000 US on trick FI system 100's of hrs later & 100,s of phone calls to supppler
& many trips to dyno.. he gets it finnaly run'n pretty darn good.
Goes to track & tests sets up with lap top bolted to cars dash... as he needed it always.. he hard wired it to the car...
Anyway he flogged that system & teaked & reset & recurved & recalibrated
& fussed with it till the cows came home... result.. car ran slower over all then his carb set up.
This even after the designer & tech crew from the company showed up to help set FI system up....He let them do there thing , then we bolted the Victor & Holley back on for back to back comparisons.. result.. carbed setup was quicker... needless to say he was not impressed & out 1,000 of Ben Franklins
Now before you mates beat on me i know there are 1,000's of varibales here & dozens of FI systems in the game of get'n the A/F were it is suppost to be.
Bottom line i believe is there are no short cuts when it comes to get'n fuel curves & A/F ratios right carbed or FI system , and just think carbed
is more laymen / non guru freindly.. my 2 cent/ pence CHEERS! Dr,Dee
when the chap finally got there. It took a lot of fiddle'n & fool'n & teak'n
to get it right... And also so do carburated engines .. nothing is bolt on & go out'a the box..It's a huge mistake to think that you open the box bolt it on & go .
Reason i'm more pro carb is the simple everyday tools that are needed to work on them & calibrate them to the engine & if your not a computer guru & and electicly savey fellow... huge amount of time & trouble will be spent FI tuning.
Here is a sample case / cross the pond...
Fellow with big bad BBC 502/ Victor intake & 850 Holley DP carb dialed into engine.. car runs 10 sec 1/4 miles all day long.. no problem..
Fellow says i'm going FI tuned port high tech system spends $7,000 US on trick FI system 100's of hrs later & 100,s of phone calls to supppler
& many trips to dyno.. he gets it finnaly run'n pretty darn good.
Goes to track & tests sets up with lap top bolted to cars dash... as he needed it always.. he hard wired it to the car...
Anyway he flogged that system & teaked & reset & recurved & recalibrated
& fussed with it till the cows came home... result.. car ran slower over all then his carb set up.
This even after the designer & tech crew from the company showed up to help set FI system up....He let them do there thing , then we bolted the Victor & Holley back on for back to back comparisons.. result.. carbed setup was quicker... needless to say he was not impressed & out 1,000 of Ben Franklins
Now before you mates beat on me i know there are 1,000's of varibales here & dozens of FI systems in the game of get'n the A/F were it is suppost to be.
Bottom line i believe is there are no short cuts when it comes to get'n fuel curves & A/F ratios right carbed or FI system , and just think carbed
is more laymen / non guru freindly.. my 2 cent/ pence CHEERS! Dr,Dee
If all you're going to do is do 1/4's then stick with the carb...
It's when you want decent part throttle response and better fuel economy (more precise metering, better fuel droplet size), not to mention emissions, that the EFI system will rule over a Carb.
I have a Holley 750 on my 383 SBC, and it's fine over 2000 rpm, but under that she gets a little ropey, and in a light car like an Ultima, that means an uncomfortable ride at low speed. Though to be fair, my cam is reasonably hot, and the heads a well worked, but, I'd swap the holley for a kinsler stack with a motec ecu anyday!
I think most guys these days are more intimidated by manual/analogue items like a carb, than they are by the idea of using an ECU, laptop and some wires!
It's when you want decent part throttle response and better fuel economy (more precise metering, better fuel droplet size), not to mention emissions, that the EFI system will rule over a Carb.
I have a Holley 750 on my 383 SBC, and it's fine over 2000 rpm, but under that she gets a little ropey, and in a light car like an Ultima, that means an uncomfortable ride at low speed. Though to be fair, my cam is reasonably hot, and the heads a well worked, but, I'd swap the holley for a kinsler stack with a motec ecu anyday!
I think most guys these days are more intimidated by manual/analogue items like a carb, than they are by the idea of using an ECU, laptop and some wires!
Fuel injection wont necessarily give you any extra power. As outlined above On a drag run, carbs are fine - just dump fuel in at the correct AFR.
The bulk of the complexity of carbs is for all the other scenarios (cold start/ idle / part / mid range / accel) for which EFI is far better.
The bulk of the complexity of carbs is for all the other scenarios (cold start/ idle / part / mid range / accel) for which EFI is far better.
fastco said:
Bottom line i believe is there are no short cuts when it comes to get'n fuel curves & A/F ratios right carbed or FI system , and just think carbed
is more laymen / non guru freindly.. my 2 cent/ pence CHEERS! Dr,Dee
I can just imagine in 20 years, "youths" extolling the virtues of hybrid engines while I whitter on about piston-only setups. Ultimately for me it comes down to cost/performance, but given a choice I prefer the hi-tech approach.
You still need a guru for perfect carb/engine tuning, and computers are now simple everyday tools (for the nintendo generation anyway). It just depends on whether you feel comfortable with a mechanics stethoscope or a laptop? I'm willing to bet the 'puter version will be more accurate. If you find the technology scary then its best left alone and stick to what you know, but its better to embrace and learn than to tinker and burn.
Aside from building your own EFI there are alternatives for self monitoring/tuning. Information from the Stack range of sensors can be recorded and connected to a laptop running their DataPro software which can tell you what you're engine is doing. In fact Stack solutions can also be used for rolling road dyno tuning as well.
By 2008 car manufacturers have to standardise to run their ECU/sensor info via CANbus for which there is plenty of software around to analyse whats going on. I'm not sure about the GM ECU's but some of the delphi ones send messages via CANbus. Basics of CANbus described here: www.algonet.se/~staffann/developer/CAN.htm
Once you attempt to understand the electronic stuff its not that bad
my tuppence
P.S Gendan in the UK supplies a whole host of dianostics tools: www.gendan.co.uk/
Gassing Station | Ultima | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff