Eric Hufstedler <mopar@ehuffy.com> wrote:
: Someone asked me to post when Mopar Action had an article on EFI
: for the older cars.
: The Oct 2006 has some more information.
: Unfortunately (for me anyway) it's about how to put a magnum engine
: in with EFI. Since I just had my LA engine rebuilt, I really
: wanted a retrofit article.
I figured that's probably what they were going to do. Oh well.
The article was interesting, what I skimmed through anyway. It
appears that they actually got together with Mopar Performance (?)
- they kept referring to them as "the factory" to put together a
wiring harness and three different computers for the 360. There
wasn't much info there, didn't seem all that helpful overall. For
example, in one part of the article they say that reprogramming a
stock computer is "extremely difficult and time-consuming, even
for trained factory electronic and computer engineers", and once
its done, you don't want to mess with it; they say that for all
practical purposes, you can't change it. Their "solution" is to
ask the factory to come up with three different computers, one
for a stock 360, another for a mild version and another for the
crate motor. The first problem with this is that there are several
outfits out there who will re-program the factory computer, as
we here on the DML have known for years, so they are wrong on that
count, and also having three different computers isn't much of
a solution - instead of being pigeonholed into one tune, now you
have the choice of three? What happens if your engine doesn't
match one of the three? Plus, I couldn't see in the article any
information about where you actually can buy any of this stuff.
Oh well... Don't get me wrong, having another EFI option is a
good thing, and I'm sure it would be just the ticket for a great
number of vehicles. I might consider it if it is cheap enough, but
for my next EFI conversion, I am still leaning towards the MegaSquirt
route. The whole article just sort've gave off a weird vibe -
hard to describe. I think maybe because they are so personally
invested in the concept, they aren't presenting as objective a
view as perhaps they should. Of course, it doesn't help that
its done in the standard "read two sentences on this page, story
continued in the middle of the magazine, read another paragraph,
story continued further back, etc." Its really annoying - and
one of my pet peeves. :-)
Oh, and I know there are a number of people on the list who
will enjoy this caption that appeared under one of the pics in
this article: "One really nice feature of all Magnum cylinder
heads ... are these cool tap-in spark plug heat shields." :-)
--
-Jon-
.- Jon Steiger --- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com -.
| 67 Dodge Coronet, 70 Plymouth Barracuda, 76 Peugeot TSA |
| 78 Dodge B100, 90 Dodge Dakota Convertible, 92 Dodge Ram 4x4 |
| 96 Dodge Dakota, 96 Suzuki Intruder 1400, 96 Kolb FireFly |
| 99 Jeep Cherokee 4x4, 01 Dodge Ram 3500 CTD |
`--------------------------------- http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
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