The car is still not running, but Accel reports back that the ECM had a bad transistor, and "Oh Yeah" that WOULD cause the ECM to fail to see the ignition signal from the distributor. The ECM is coming back UPS, and will be installed in a few days, and it aught be running again. Total Performance is going to tune it on the dyno, so she should be in top shape here soon. I guess there is still some mystery gremlin that could keep it from running, but I intend to be optimistic here. I don;t think I will take any long road trips for awhile. That doesn't sound very Mopar like does it. The one thing you could always count on with a Mopar was that it would get you home.

Kudos to those who thought the ECM was probably defective. You were right! I will keep you posted.

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Good deal! I know that a Mopar distributor would do the job if everything else was Kosher, but proving everything else was quite the chore.

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Joshua

It seems to me that Accel wanted you to go quite the mile before they would check their stuff for defects. If the car runs after installing the new ECU it strikes me they owe you .....a lot.

The fact that it ran in the first place made me suspect the ECU.

Makes me think their ECU is less than bulletproof.
Makes me think their customer service stinks.

Hard to go wrong with the dyno tune,,,,,cept the cash register part.

I hope it works out Pianoman!

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

It won't be cheap, but it will not be out of line for auto repair in general. I think it is going to cost on the order of $600 for everything, which will include the diagnostic work Total Performance has done, UPS shipping, and then dyno tuning. Fred's plan is to put a basic baseline , non-dyno tune on the fuel and spark maps, and then put it on the dyno for a final tweak. The cost is $80/hr for the basic tune work, and $125/hr for dyno time. He has spent 3 hours on it so far, and says 3 to 4 hours should get it tuned through the dyno phase. At that point I would actually know what the HP figures were as well.

With all that said and done, if you take a new car in for brakes and shocks, (and I am not talking exotics here), they will charge you anywhere from $1000 to $2500 depending on the car, the price level of parts you want, or are required for your model car, and the shop's time card, or flat rate book. This is work that most of us on the forum here would do for ourselves, and it is jobs like that where you can really save big time if you can do it yourself.

The down side of EFI is that few of us have the dignostic tools to be totally independent once we go this route, as I have learned in this adventure. As I said before, I am where I am, and I chose to keep going forward at this point.
Sam

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I agree with Sandy, but you know how they are. They want give you nothing.


Well good luck & maybe this time you will get to enjoy it for awail. Its been a long road hasnt it. Lets just hope its all been worth the trouble & runs better than it ever has.


Jess

I think your posts coupled with Pierres really paint a pretty good picture of what it takes to get EFI up and running.
I know what my non-slant EFI projects cost/take but Im sure many think its a case of opening a box....twiddling some knobs and driving away.

I also think your followup posts with HP #s and driving comments will be very informative.

It sounds like Total Performance is a good vendor.

Keep tromping that path through the snow for us Sam!

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

Glad to hear it sounds like it's figured out. I'm interested to hear how the dyno tuning goes. Will he tune for cruising RPM/load range too?

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Lou, I'm not sure what we are going to do. Do you have any advice for what to discuss with Fred. I shared with him the slant's small bore-long stroke effect on spark curve, so he will take that into account on his first maps, but I don;t know how or where he goes from there. Are you aware of what compromises we are confronted with? What are the trade offs here? Any advice is eagerly recieved, and appreciated. One thing I can tell you is that Fred is an old drag racer, and has a Mopar truck that he tunes and drives. So his bias is going to be drag race tuning.

The closest drag strip to me just closed its doors last fall, so drag racing is not likely to happen much. Drivability and Gas mileage would be my bias.
Sam

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So far I have never seen or heard of people around me dyno tuning for cruise/mileage. But, that is a lot of what you want...

What you should probably do is set the dyno to hold at a certain RPM where you like to cruise, say 22-2600, and then add more throttle and tune your fuel map for 14.5-16:1 AF up to around MAP = 0.8bar, starting around 16 AF and getting richer as you go higher in MAP reading. You will idle around 0.3 bar and cruise between 0.5-0.8 or maybe 0.85 at lower RPMs. I have found that going too lean on light accel (like up a hill, around 0.7-0.8bar MAP) seems to return worse mileage.

Then, repeat this for several RPM points - like 1500, 1800, 2200, 2600, 3000 RPM. I know you like to lug the engine, but I believe that is not a good way to get economy. He may have a way to do throttle ranges while scanning RPM as well, but likely not.

That said, you should also make sure you tune for WOT accel as well to make sure you get the correcte AF and no detonation when you wanna go fast.

As far as timing, DO NOT let him put more than 30 deg total advance at any kind of hard throttle. 225s like about 4-8 deg LESS timing advance than V8s, but 225s like MORE advance at idle. With the turbo, you want to end up around 18-22 at WOT from talking to Charlie and Cameron Tilley. Probably pull a bit more out as you increase RPM. I would aim for about 50 deg total advance at part-throttle cruise and 15-18 deg at idle.

Hope this helps,

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Lou,

Tuning for steady state operation like cruise requires an eddy current dyno which can hold and vary a load at a given RPM. Most chassis dynos like the Mustang and Dynojet are inertia only so they are only good for tuning under acceleration.

Loyning's Engine Service in Portland has an eddy current dyno.
http://www.loynings.com/Chassis%20Dyno.htm

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Joshua

Sam - If I remember the details of your saga, it ran for a couple seconds before it quit right? It wouldn't hurt to go through the wiring one last time before re-assembly just incase something was miswired and caused it to roast.

Remember these things are as static sensitive as computers are - make sure power is unplugged, assemble harness and everything else first, ground ecm body, then plug in harnes to it. Insulate the pickup wires in a metal sheath and ground it, incase the plug wires arc onto them.

Total Performance has a web site, and it is www.totalperf.com. Their dyno is described there. I will look it up, and see if I can tell anything from their description. Anyone who is interested and knowledgeable about this might want to check it out, and get back about what they can tell from the web site.

Thanks for the tips Pierre. The car actually ran for about 20 minutes before it failed. I started and stopped it many times in the process. Fortuneately, I did not decide to road test it, and it died in the garage. Lou, I will print out your post and take it up to Fred before he starts to tune. He may already know this, but he is a good guy, who is open, and easy to talk to, and I dont; have to worry about him getting all huffy, or defensive.

Thanks again for the interest and advice. A group like this is invluable when you are feeling over your head, and alone in your project. Because you guys are here, my wife doesn't have to listen to me as much. She is such a dear, and if no one else is available, I will bore the heck out of here with details that go completely over her head. She owes you alot!
Sam

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Cool, their dyno does have eddy current capability. They should be able to tune your car very thoroughly.
http://www.totalperf.com/dyno.html

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Joshua