Cracking and banging of of exhaust

[madmike]

and this is just my Holley jets

[Clonebug]

.........And they say FI is sooooo expensive.......

[madmike]

FYI Art, I paid $5. at the Buggy Builder Show up here in Lansing,,This guy always has deals,worked for Lola in Indy ,guess they went F.I

[advinnie]

I’m looking at FI systems now and they seem very expensive. They seem to be coming in at £1000

[madmike]

I think Clone & Pete Chip and a few others built their own systems?

[advinnie]

I was getting excited about FI but the large bill has put me off

[Clonebug]

I spent a quite a bit of time and money jetting my carb too.......I should have switched almost right away and saved myself some frustration.
I think 6.0 lbs would have been easy...maybe 10 lbs. too.......but you never have enough with a turbo so that always becomes an issue.

All you carb guys should be hitting swap meets and perusing ebay and craigslist type sites looking for the right parts.
You can score on a fuel pump, filter, injectors, and other bits and pieces to help in the costs.
Get injectors that will support at least 200 hp if running a sub 2.0L engine. That would be 32# at minimum......45# would be better.
Parts for WI are on Ebay all the time like solenoids and Hobbs switches....watch for them and hit it when they are cheap.
CB Performance has the FI endpieces available again.....at the least I would buy a pair as soon as possible if you ever want to go FI.

It cost me about $1300.00 to do my FI the first time. I spread it over a 2-3 year period....if not longer.
I have upgraded it many times plus sold the MS1 and replaced it with a MS2.
I'm not sure what price it would cost now but watching guys on theSamba spending $1300.00 just to get their Dellortos bought and rebuilt by Blackline Racing along with all the other stuff needed.....really makes EFI look pretty reasonable.

The problem is....Mario has sooo much stuff that just works and is bolt on you really can't screw around trying to make your own stuff anymore.

Take his crank trigger for example.......I'm lucky that I live about 100 miles away and could bring him a pulley I already had......But you can easily ship it and have it machined and then purchase the rest for a little savings if you have an aluminum pulley already.
His setup is so nice it really isn't worth messing with the old finger severing setups that are available elsewhere.
Especially in a sedan going turbo where real estate is quite hard to find.

I didn't do it the cheapest way either since I bought my ECU built and have Mario do all the upgrades......my forte is in running wires and building the turbo setup. I let Mario handle all the intricate soldering stuff since I have old eyes.

If you build a bare bones ECU and don't add all the extra stuff you can still get them pretty reasonable.......adding all the extras cost money and time unless you can do it yourself.

The end result with this EFI is you can drive it like a daily driver and take it on a 3500 mile trip and not worry about anything.....that's why I swapped over.......plus I have no limit to the hp I want to extract...until I run out of head or injector......the computer doesn't care.

[Clonebug]

I was getting excited about FI but the large bill has put me off

How many carbs do you have now??????
Were they all free???

Do they work perfectly????

When you blow your P/C's again because you are running lean you have to add that to the Carb turbo cost....along with the first set.

My P/C's were damaged with the carb......I have not had any issue since going to EFI.
That issue cost me almost $600.00 by the time I bought the P/C's and had them installed plus pulling the buggy apart and delivering the engine and picking it back up at $4.00 a gallon gas and 240 miles of travel.

You can't say EFI is expensive while you are still trying to get a carb system working.......every penny you put into that carb could be going to FI and offsetting the cost.....

[advinnie]

Good point there I have easy spent over £1000 on the carb set up now so I guess I should of gone EFI straight away but my intentions at first was to do a check turbo conversion but it’s been anything but cheap

[Clonebug]

Good point there I have easy spent over £1000 on the carb set up now so I guess I should of gone EFI straight away but my intentions at first was to do a check turbo conversion but it’s been anything but cheap

Bingo.....

Been there.....done that too.......
I don't even want to know what I spent on carb mods and jets and bits and pieces and time and frustration.........and on and on.....

[madmike]

But we carb guys are saving money by doing our own work .. you pay guys to build your motor and tune/up grade ect. and let talk reliabil. I can fix mine on the side of the road without a laptop if I lose spark ,I carry a spare dizzy all 'Timed/set.' all I do is remove ONE nut and washer to replace,,done...

[Clonebug]

But we carb guys are saving money by doing our own work .. you pay guys to build your motor and tune/up grade ect. and let talk reliabil. I can fix mine on the side of the road without a laptop if I lose spark ,I carry a spare dizzy all 'Timed/set.' all I do is remove ONE nut and washer to replace,,done...

It cost me $300.00 in labor to have my engine built........I couldn't even find the tools needed to do it myself for that price.
All tuning has been done myself......I go to Mario as a treat to myself for all the Overtime I put in........I have to buy my friends you know........
We tweak a couple areas but the tune is already there.

I don't have a distributor to go out or break.........in fact.....there is nothing to break.
Do you carry spare parts in your Wife's car too???

Worst case is a wire could come loose at the ECU or Relay board......possibly......But I check them before going on a long trip.
Just like checking the oil.........
I have never been left on the side of the road with my buggy either carbed or Fuel Injected.
If you build it right......it will be reliable.........and for a total of 60,000 miles since 2004 it has been.......and 2011 with FI.......to the tune of 26,000 FI trouble free miles.

You do need to make sure all your wiring is high quality.....no cheap solderless connectors on my setup. Every connection is has the plastic cover pulled off, it is crimped, soldered and heat shrinked with the correct sized connector.
Use quality terminal strips and draw a wiring diagram as you go so you can remember what you did.

Do not fall into the trap that you are just hooking it up to make sure it works.......do it permanently the first time........ nice and neat.......You will need about 1000 zip ties though....and a good side cutter pliers to make sure you don't leave a sharp edge on the zip to cut yourself the next time you put your hand in there.

Here is Mario's back seat.........hope he doesn't mind me using his as an example. This is why I don't have MS3......





If you want reliability.....you have to take the time to do it right.........plan it out.
I spend hours just staring at something and then leaving and sleeping on it to come up with an idea that works. It happens in the garage and also at work where I have to design a parking lot to flow water and the Engineer had his head up his you know what........

[madmike]

My Wife's got AAA Towing,, Hope you do too Art, I'm sorry I just don't trust 'Electronic's'

[Clonebug]

My Wife's got AAA Towing,, Hope you do too Art, I'm sorry I just don't trust 'Electronic's'

Hey Mike,

Old dogs can be taught new tricks.........contrary to popular belief....

[buguy]

I do like that I know I can fix my car on the side of the road. Well.... At least I could before the turbo. I have a feeling once it breaks with the turbo on it, it will be much more serious! But I also am excited to have total control over every aspect once I go FI. I have enjoyed building mine and I did it very very very cheap. I had $300 in my used engine and turbo set up before I started messing with it agin. A bit more now that I have picked up another cheap carb and rebuild kit, hoses, bolts and nuts, and the new turbo and exhaust pipe. Probably have another $200 or so in that. I really just did mine for something to see if I could do it back when I lived out in the middle of nowhere Iowa. I did it and I did it on the cheap. Goal met! Now it's time for a new chapter. I've always wanted to learn about FI and I can't think of a better way to do it.
Although, if my car ends up looking like Mario's I will surely have committed suicide before I finished with that wiring nightmare! Never been much of a wiring guy. Guess that will all change soon enough it seems!