Only slow cars need excuses.



"HEGOs nothing!"
The only categories a carburetor beats fuel injection in are price and wicked IATs under boost.


9.1.06
It looks like I'm finished making stuff....for now. At least I have everything I need to start making noise and annoying the neighbors with molten rubber bits everywhere.....

The making of an EFI intake. Kind of like the taming of a shrew, except without all the gay sex. The actual manifold was scored on eBay for $45 shipped. This is really just a temporary fix until the A/W tunnel ram is finished. I blasted it, chopped the heat riser out (to allow a flat valley plate later on), milled the pads so it would sit flat, milled the ugly "left-overs" of the heat riser, then flipped it over, popped holes into the runners, milled the plenum divider out, and milled away the choke tower. I also milled receiver "pads" for the rail hold-down clamp system that I devised. Next, I made a fresh set of bungs - this time around I left the I.D. undersized, and also left a generous counterbore to serve as a "top-hat" catcher (those little plastic things at the tip of the injector that always seem to pull off), and also possibly provide less flow loss across the orifice (~0.375" hole vs. 0.535" hole). I left the bungs undersize so they could be reamed to size later - this way, any welding sins could be (and were!) absolved without too many rosarys. It also makes for a better product - the bores are all perfectly round and very smooth.

Next, I ordered up 6' of blank rail extrusion from Ross Machine. 3' for my intake, and 3' for another extra special intake Shaunthony's was contracted for. I cut them to approximate length, then faced them to length in the lathe, while adding what I would call a semi-chamfer - I don't know, you decide - the point is, the ends are fully machined and look kick ass. They may be completely obscured by the fuel fittings, but at least I know I didn't go anywhere near the grinder to "take the edge off." I also drilled the ends a bit and tapped them to 3/8"-24 NPT. Next, I had Robert pull up the old file I'd made for my old intake rails. I screwed up the bung spacing real bad on my first intake, mostly due to machining inexperience, so they were all over the place. This time, I nailed the bore spacing, so both rails are identical. After a bit of reprogramming, the rails hit the Bostomatic for milling. When they were sized with a regular endmill, we went after the inside and with a ball endmill for a nice radius that the O-rings can seat downward on.

Now, originally, I was going to make a quickie plate to adapt my freebie/stock 4.6L throttle body to the 4150 flange. But, after looking at how tiny and ugly it was, I decided against it. Where to turn? Some type of Hot-Rod Mustang throttle body with an adapter plate? One of those overpriced Accel 4-bbl retrofit pieces of shit, replete with kindergarten-designed (and funded!) bronze shaft bushings? Fuck it, I'll just make one myself. I knew I was on the right track when Professor Trendz said: "And I thought I was the only one goofy enough to build my own throttle bodies!" Inspiration came by way of a 3' section of scrap STAINLESS 3.5" round bar found laying in a corner. Hmmmm, 3.5" comes out to almost 90mm....then, all of a sudden, I remembered I'd found a HUGE chunk of 7075 in the shop, and always swore I would do something cool with it. I asked the higher-ups if I could use it.....right after I bored a 3" hole through the center of it. The trickiest part of the whole operation was turning the 6° bevel into the blade - which I did a pretty kick ass job of, if I do say so myself (see pics). Once I had the finished diameter figured out, I finished the bore to 0.003" over size. I turned up a shaft, complete with O-ring grooves (to seal the shaft to the bearings), then milled the slot and drilled/tapped holes for the screws. Bostomatic'd the outer shape, bolt holes, counterbores, shaft/bearing holes, and adapted the cable "saddle" and return spring of the 4.6L throttle body I had. In the end, the puny return spring, despite being set to KILL, would still not "pop" the throttle back, because my damn gas pedal is so heavy! That's being resolved. I also made a cable clamp out of stainless hexagonal bar stock, which slides into the Ford cable saddle. Details!!! Oh, and it accepts the stock (and HUGE) 4.6L TPS - super common, super available, and super free at junkyards. This thing ALSO allows me to ditch the fucking stupid "jungle gym / Rube Goldberg" kickdown linkage, and replace it with a regular cable.

And here's what it looks like, all put together and on the motor (with paint & plumbing). Also notice the TFI distributor, clamped in place, along with the UPR cap reducer, the homo-erotic red MSD cap (they don't come in black), and mini rotor (hiding underneath).

All purpose fuel case. I was originally going make a plate to mount my pumps, but then I thought - why not a plate with some walls? This began life as a 4.5" x 4.5" extrusion from a commercial doorway. I snagged it from the guys next door, sectioned it an inch or so, milled the tops of the "walls" and then milled receiver grooves in the top plate. Currently it houses my Walbro 392GSL, JAZ filter, and Y block, and there's room for my secondary pump, its filter and its check valve. It keeps all that little crap nicely organized, it protects everything a lot better (good when you travel I-65 a lot - basically a dumping ground for shredded semi tires), it unbolts quickly and easily, and best of all - it's black and hides everything!

The rest of my old junk, laying around since 2004:


This intercooler is out of an abandoned Mack truck. Let me say that the "abandoned" price is hard to beat. It had ONE fin bent in a tiny bit; the rest of it is rock solid. It will be seated on 8 fabbed runners, which will be welded to some machined intake flanges. On top will be a common plenum with 4 sideways facing throttle bodies (each facing its respective compressor outlet). The rest of it will be encased in a plenum which will allow water to be pumped through the IC. Will it work? Put it this way - at 13" x 8" x 8", its surface area is inbetween Precision Turbo's "600HP" and "750 HP" air-to-air ICs. I'm quite interested in input from people running A/W ICs and their core sizes/power levels/boost levels/pressure drop #s/air-temp differentials.

Here's the rest of the system, which I don't think will change much

Shaunthony's Y-block. This is an old pic - a new one would show two 3/8" NPT inlets and one big, hairy 1/2" NPT output. With brazen fuel consumption like this, OPEC members won't need girlfriends.

Wild Rides fuel sump. I dig it! I need new pics; I brushed all the rust off (to keep tiny sand particles from becoming embedded in weld pockets). Currently it's waiting for it's day at the nickel plater and then attachment to the stock C-body tank.

Sidebar - why a sump? Well, like Tony Mixon said to me after he found out I was doing a sump, he said something to the effect of "Hey, just paint some big numbers on the side of it to let everyone know your car is fast!" He's right, there are other ways to feed a fuel pump without giving it all away. In fact, his setup was a big fuel cell sunk in the trunk - actually through the trunk boards and into a chopped out gas tank! The bottom shell of the tank kept the stock look, which I thought was quite clever. However, #1 - I don't want to give up trunk space (it's a driver, cmon!), #2 - I wanted to keep the 24 gallon tank for long road trips, so I didn't have to jerk around with a new sending unit, etc.

Megasquirt! This was a lot of fun to build, and the best part is it passed all the build tests on the first try. Well, second. I haven't run it in a car yet, but I have done a lot of testing and tuning using a bicycle pump and a hand held vacuum pump (to simulate manifold pressure) in conjunction with the stimulator, and I have no reason to believe it won't perform under the hood.

Everyone's favorite EFI regulator - the Aeromotive 13101! It is soooooo pretty you guys. Dual -10 inlet ports? KICKASS! With 16 injectors and 4 rails to feed, both inlets will be busy.

Walbro GSS-392. If it sounds familiar, you're right, it came straight out of Shaun's car. 255LPH @ 45 psi makes it good for 600 boosted HP (depending on how much boost, of course). Multiply it by two, and that's what you'll find whining under my car. I also ponied up for the correct metric to -6AN adapter fittings, which reduces the hose clamp count on my car by 4. I'll save my rant about OEM pumps vs. "aftermarket" suck-fest pumps for another page.

UPDATE: 7.18.05

Just as you think life is finally going to get easier for our protagonist, the plot thickens. When I finally buckled down to start buying stuff for my wiring harness, I remembered all at once that I still had that 4.6L intake in the basement, with it's harness! I chopped all the convoluted tubing and factory taping away, revealing an unmolested injector harness. Word! The factory power splice was there, and each signal wire had a nice female pin on it, which, bonus, fit inside these really neat connector 8-pin housings I'd found elsewhere. All good news, right?? So I figure, "just find the pin re-pops and go to town." Right?

It turns out Hitler and Mussolini (them, or Tyco) teamed up to destroy and/or discontinue this particular pin. So, while junkyards are filled with an infinite amount of these totally sweet connectors (perfect for, well, you name it), you can't buy the pins at all, or at least this is the suggestion I get from the 30+ hours of digging I've spent. Eff.

Not to be outdone, I found a way to hack up the old pins without too much fuss. When I get more pics, I'll be able to describe it better, but I'll say that unless you know what the factory connection looks like, you'll think my adaptation is pretty fly.

Even though I have the Megasquirt's flyback board assembled and ready to solder in, I just don't have the guts to, yet. (The flyback board uses pulsewidth modulation to jam and keep open a bigger, low-Z injector, instead of a solid zap, which eventually leads to driver failure.) Since it seems like something a lot of people make mistakes with, I think I'm just going to get the car running with some resistors and my 83 pounders, or borrow some big high impedance injectors. When I get the confidence to de-solder components from my working board, I'll give it a shot.

I did end up re-tapping my Y-block for a 1/2" NPT outlet. Did anybody notice that some vendor JUST RELEASED a reasonably priced Y-block, for like $30? Dammit, but hey, I learned a lot about NPT tapping and angle milling in a Bridgeport with this one. Sometimes education carries a hefty pricetag, but at least you'll have it forever. That, and there's enough meat in the block I made to tap out to dual 1/2" NPT inlets and a 3/4" NPT outlet! I can stick my index finger inside the 1/2" NPT outlet, though, so I'm sure it's more than adequate for now, hahaha.

I finally got around to chopping out my intake's heat riser crossover - something that should have been done long ago. This will give me much needed clearance for hiding my injector harness, and also for my totally sweet custom (Indy-style) lifter valley cover. Nobody really makes a version for Edelbrocks that I like (mostly because the people who tried are idiots - that, or they realized the right way to do this would cost $70+ in materials alone), so roll your own, right? Not really an EFI tidbit, but it's sort of a miscellaneous mod, with arguably a poor cost-to-benefit ratio, but I like it, so that's what matters...or so that's what my cult leader told me.

I washed my gas tank out, and it's currently waiting its turn to be sumped. This should be fun.....

Pics to follow.

Special thanks to all that helped: Danger Dan Hanson for giving me his mom's entire 4.6 manifold, Kevin "Feets" Alexander (of TT440 Belvedere fame and fortune) for sending me the EEC-IV list, Tom, Mike, and Rob at American Engraving for letting me trash their tools and waste company time, Bud Clements and Mitch at Engintecs for letting me be in the way and trash tools, Shaun and Aaron for being pirate pooners (and support), and, probably other people that I'm leaving out - they'll be included later.

What's next? Megasquirt for $200? EEC-IV + Tweecer? F.A.S.T.? AEM? We'll find out!


Ok, so, ja wanna throw an EEC-IV on your ancient Chrysler motor (or any ancient motor, for that matter)? Here's a start: Kevin "Feets" Alexander's Ford EEC-IV essentials list:

Mopar or Motorsport?


My addendums to Feets' original list: