Jon Roche Web Blog

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Wednesday, January 02, 2019

Efi time. Collecting parts

I sat through the efi presentation at the amana gmcmi, and I am now convinced this is the route to go.

I had thought that the fi-tech,

Atomic, and now the sniper were the best fit for me, because I need some reliabilty and I did not want to be an expert in efi. I like hassle-free-bolt in installation type things.

After the ebl discussion I am now a believer that system is not that complicated and the benifits of some features the others do not have out weigh any extra cost and work to install. What seems to be the common issue is fuel delivery to the throttle body as being where most of the work is.

So with winter showing up, I decided to start

Picking up parts and pieces and learning on the way. Email me any suggestions or information, for when the snow melts, i will be asking plenty of questions.

First I know there are full kits, but my goal is to learn and I am also cheap. So time to hunt.

I like the idea of a rochester tbi unit over a holly/howell. I was surprised at how tough it was to locate a 454 tbi unit in good shape. However patience i found one:

Came off a running 1990 3/4 suburban. Well- was running. Unfortunatly this was in wisconsin(cheap shipping to Mn) at a wrecking yard, and they said they do not sell the harnesses as the labor to remove is too

Costly to assure the harness in tact. That maybe BS? Either way I have part #1

Next was the computer controlled distributor as they are numous and easy to find. I bought a re-man after the local junk yard one was ? In how clean and shape it was in. I had picked up a few parts for the distributor from amana to make it work on the gmc.

Now the harness I waa struggling with

You would think you could easily find one at a junk yard. The junk yards here are not u-pull it. And it is also getting cold. I checked around and was keeping my eye open. A new harness from affodable efi was like $300. But with a used harness you have some labor in removing it in-tact and making sure it is good.

After going out and seeing the shape

Of some vehicles that could of been a candidate to remove a harness I was starting to think $300 was a deal.

Then facebook marketplace chimed in and I was able to get a “painless” wiring harness. They are like $750 new!! I still need to figure out if the deal I got is as good as I thought. There are some cut wires and the supposedly “never installed” harness may or may not have had someone already do some customization to it. No matter what I knew I had Lots of work to do on the harness to add some of the fancy fearures ebl system offers, such as the intake air temp,

The vehicle speed sensor,

And fuel pressure.

So next on my list of things to aquire are the sensors,

Adaptor plate And then the fuel

Pumps. Those items are fairly inexpensive. My next big buy will be the ebl ecm.

Going to hit the

Junk yards soon for the air intake. Looks like lots of jeeps in wrecking yards here in MN.

Will continue this post as I

Continue with this upgrade.

For those of you wondering what I am

Talking about:

https://www.dynamicefi.com/

https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/Fuel%20Injection.ppt?token=AWxKA5JiRz0wP4p55c75eZlZQkXa3A2PmThgepRlNOZ_oTIDLNT6hXXtkOr9dXWEX61cHq9EKx4771WvZ6rlUzNLtQ7h-C7KUVGu5Ujsx46KuFOIFPg9E1lwlJdL9JmUYR0D3RlX1Xighu6Y2J1DvF8vxaG6YRyUTqwB_O-mf27ikBx8XBTRrPjrEz30--kIDC2tOkhzpyV0b27FPIGfoWHmMqO7iT37w2Ztji9UR5R_Ng

Engine 2018 continued

Found my mondello exhaust crossover blocking plate was cracking. I think 20k miles since i did the intake?

One new ebay china made ultra sonic cleaner. This really is my new favorite tool. Using pine-sol it helped clean up bolts and brackets and any part I could put in it.

Lota of time painting and cleaning parts.

Last summer we cooked, and the oem a/c

Compressor bracket is a pain. So time for some new A/C. The bracket for this allows for easy removal of passenger side valve cover. Hopefully never need to, but if I wanted

To check valve train you really can’t with the old bracket. More to come on this upgrade.

New engine showed up in 3

Weeks

Transmission ready for another ride. Rebuilder was in South Dakota so I had some help from some friends moving it around.

Macy likes the new/clean engine. Comes as seen, palleted and bagged up nice. Need to install oil pump, oil pan, intake and valve covers. As well as the timing cover ect.

Ready to go back in coach.

You are not to trust an oil cooler after engine failure. I was not going to risk that, and did not like the idea of cobbing in an aux oil cooler. So I opted to install a brand new radiator.

Brought tranny down from top. Pretty easy, you can get the bolts from the wheel

Wells with right ratchet.

Final drive installed. My jack adaptor still works well.

Engine next

Gantree is smooth. Think we messed up as

Engine made it from stand to being bolted up in just a few minutes and did not even

Pick up Pry bar. Crazy. The work is all in bolting on everything else. I think this is stopping point on saturday.

Closer. This i think is sunday stopping point.

Too excited for first drive. Forgot to unplug coach.

Carb gave us a hard time on start up. Good thing I had an expert friend helping on the start up.

With excitement the photos ended. We had success so far. I put about 700 miles on it in sept and oct. I am still struggling with some hesitation on the carb, so I am going to install efi in 2019. Not that a carb is bad, but withh the new engine i think i want to keep track of things bettter and the efi/ebl system had an advantage in that aspect on performance.

Engine 2018

Only 8 miles from home the old 455

Lost power and was making some ugly noise.

Prepping for engine removal.

I tried to cover the carpet

On the sides,

But kept falling in the way. So will try to degrease or re-carpet later.

Engine leveler was not needed when the waterpump is removed. It caused a little clearance issue as well, but that could of been me not haing the gantry installed properly.

Ready to

Come out.

The gantree was slick. Smooth and easy moving.

Out. Basically took a saturday

Decided to drop tranny and final down.

Getting the tranny out sucked. Had to really jack up front of coach and was kinda wobbly and did not like that. Going to avoid pulling or installing the tranny that way again. Installed them separately and dropped

Tranny down from

Top was

Easy and safer.

Panoramic. Ready to pull engine.

Tranny out

Ready for a ride to rebuilder. Fyi- should put cover on where final bolts. There is lots of fluid still in torque converer and other spots. Had a super mess when it got to destination. Truck rear bumper should never rust now.