rvander68

Last year I posted my winter project of restoring the teak dash and gauges and installation of headers. Well I thought I'd share the results of my latest winter project. By the end of last season the motor was starting to get a little difficult to start and running a little rough - not terrible, but enough of a reason to do some work. After looking into the distributor and seeing it needed to be rebuilt along with the carb AND having just read the "EFI for everyone" thread I started thinking.....maybe I ought to fuel inject this thing. After doing a lot of research and talking with Alex Haxby (OP of efi for everyone), I decided to take the plunge. Now not any EFI would do. It had to fit under the hatch and still look cool so I chose the path less traveled and opted for an 8 stack. Well this decision turned out to be quite a project! The following posts will show what I went through....as a reminder, here is the "before" shot of the motor:

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My main criteria was that the intake had to fit under the hatch so the search began. Talking with several people and getting measurements from the block valley china wall to the underside of the hatch less than 12"were quickly ruled out Crower and Kinsler stacks. This left Hilborn, Enderle and Inglese that would fit with the right velocity stacks. The next criteria I quickly found myself wanting is to retain the Merc thermostat housing and water connections. This eliminated the Hilborn because it just had -12 water ports that I would have had to come up with a custom thermostat housing mount. Between the Inglese and Enderle, I opted for the Enderle since it was what I considered a true 8 stack (not that the Inglese was bad, I just didn't want 4 two barrel throttle bodies). I found the Enderle had a casting setup for EFI (the throttle bores are smaller for better flow modulation) and it had pads cast to allow for injector mounting along with an integral water passage and thermostat mount. Here's a picture of the setup I decided to buy. Still needed a lot of work to get it to work.....

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For EFI, the speed density system needed a manifold vacuum reference for the MAP sensor to determine engine load. Since the 8 stack does not have a common plenum, a vacuum log had to be fabricated tying all the cylinders together to create the vacuum signal needed. This also will serve as the idle air control circuit for the IAC motor. Since I wanted a really clean installation, this was mounted under the intake. A 1 x 2 aluminum extrusion with welded ends was mounted and tied to each port with a hardline. Two reference ports were passed through the intake; one for the MAP sensor, one for the IAC.

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The throttle position sensor was next. I mounted this toward the back on the odd port side of the intake - again to be for the most part to be out of sight.

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Next was the throttle cable attachment. Since the push/pull action of our cables typically run along the length of the intake and the common 8 stack is across the width, this had to be converted with the use of a bell crank. I wanted this mounted low to clear the fuel rails and be in the same general location as the cable mount for a carb. Another important aspect I discovered is to limit the sensitivity of the throttle plates opening I had to attach the long arm of the bell crank to the throttle cable and use the short arm to actuate the throttle plates (I needed large cable movement to result in relatively small throttle plate movement to aide drivability).

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I ran across a really clean fuel rail system for a BBC intake from FAST. I really liked the simple and clean stainless mounting studs. Note how the throttle bell crank is low to clear the injectors.

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Since my motor is not making crazy horsepower, I decided to use a cross-over to connect the fuel rails. I'll run the fuel into one rail, cross-over to the other and then out to a pressure regulator and then return to the tank. I probably made three of these before I got the bends right to clear the distributor!

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Before mounting the intake, I decided I didn't like the look of all the anodized red and blue fittings and fuel rails. I broke out the EZ-off oven cleaner and became a polishing fool. I also did an initial setup of the linkage to get it close on the bench (in hindsight I should have done more) and made sure there were no leaks with the vacuum log (it is not going to be accessible with the intake mounted - the trouble with vanity!). Also mounted the injectors and the wire harness to minimize the visibility of all the wires running to each of the injectors. They tucked up real nice under the fuel rails.

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With the intake mounted, I was able to determine the stack height I needed to clear the underside of the hatch. This resulted in a staggered setup because I had to make them fairly short and the bell mouths would interfere with adjacent stacks. I think the staggered look turned out nice. While I was at it, I broke out the buffer again and polished the outside of the stacks and used scotch bright on the insides to give a nice contrast and be somewhat consistent with the cast look of the intake.

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Along the way, I completely remade the engine wiring harness (from the Merc plug to all the sensors, alternator, etc.). Also mounted the MSD box in a different location on the back of the head. While I was at it I blasted and painted all the brackets and even painted the motor too.