The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

[SuperBuickGuy]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

Perhaps you should update your screenname to TheSilverBuickgeek? or DieTheSilverBuick? hmmmm the second sounds just wrong ;D

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

Ok, made some adjustments to the timing and trigger angle. Cool enough my landmark method worked like a champ, picked a spot out, shut the car off, turned the engine over until that spot was right at the 0* mark on the timing cover, sharpied a line, fired the car up, and set the timing light to zero and sure enough the sharpie line was right at zero :o Shut the engine down, put the sharpie line back at zero, popped the distributor cap (easy on a Buick ;D) and the rotor was just at the #1 plug, and probably for sure on the #1 terminal tab on the cap.

To do the work I saved my MegaSquirt file, then started changing things on the laptop. First I bumped the IAC way down to idle it up to ~1400rpm, then set the ignition table to 50*. Adjusted the trigger angle at that rpm and timing. Then loaded my saved MegaSquirt file, the engine instantly idled down, and re-entered the trigger angle I had set to as it was over written when I reloaded the saved file. Then checked timing at idle 25* and it was right there. Perfect

Here is a 30 second YouTube video of the timing at 50* and the engine running at ~1400rpm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLeG1TQY84M

I hurried along, it's amazing I didn't drop the camera into the fan or loose a finger :P

DieTheSilverBuick?

I don't get it ???

[squirrel]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

die (selgeek) + TheSilverBuick = DieTheSilverBuick

now that you're an electronics efi guru you earned part of Scott's screen name

[dieselgeek]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

way to go!!

so, what's next? lots of testing I presume, or a big road trip? I am curious to see whatkind of economy you can eek out of the big inch Buick... even though you need different gears, etc. it should still make for an interesting comparison.


And, now that you have the timing mastered, I now have a backup tuner in case I can't make it to Bonneville!!


Next trick: figure out how to get squirrel & rebeldryver on the MS bandwagon!!! :D

[SuperBuickGuy]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

die (selgeek) + TheSilverBuick = DieTheSilverBuick

now that you're an electronics efi guru you earned part of Scott's screen name

sometimes I get too clever.. thanks for the assist Squirrel

[Bamfster]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

Well he's dam near convinced me....but my problem is this; when I start looking around at different systems, I get overwhelmed and lose track of which one does what, etc. DIYAutotune looks to be the best but everything is clear as mud for me with the MS.

Randal, you continue to impress me with the Skylark....my hat's off to you sir.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

sometimes I get too clever.. thanks for the assist Squirrel

And sometimes I'm a little slow :P

way to go!!

so, what's next? lots of testing I presume, or a big road trip? I am curious to see whatkind of economy you can eek out of the big inch Buick... even though you need different gears, etc. it should still make for an interesting comparison.


And, now that you have the timing mastered, I now have a backup tuner in case I can't make it to Bonneville!!


Next trick: figure out how to get squirrel & rebeldryver on the MS bandwagon!!! :D

Road trip this friday, 500 miles to CA (whoo hoo, low elevation and dense air to play in!), a few hundred miles of driving there, 500 miles home early next week. Road trip enough? My Old Man is riding down to CA with me, think I can teach him to have "Spirit Fingers"? :D haha.

As for Bonneville, I can change a bunch of stuff but I'm not at the point of knowing if I'm changing it for the better :P

As for Jim and Scott.... Come on guys join the bandwagon ;D (how's that??)

Thanks Bamfster

[dieselgeek]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

Well he's dam near convinced me....but my problem is this; when I start looking around at different systems, I get overwhelmed and lose track of which one does what, etc. DIYAutotune looks to be the best but everything is clear as mud for me with the MS.

All of the systems out there, from MoTec to Megasquirt, do the exact same thing. With the MS, you save money by doing a little bit more yourself (wiring harness, etc.). My *personal* opinion is that, when you assemble your own EMS, you learn how these things work from the inside. Kinda like assembling your own engine. A FAST or BigStuff3 is the "crate engine" of computers... sometimes, a perfect fit for a project! But if you have problems, it's also nice to know how they work so you can fix 'em yourself, if you have a mishap (which 99% of the time, happens during the installation/initial tuning).

EFI isn't easy. I'm not sure that it will ever be "easy" - but to me, it's just like everything else on the car. We start from zero, learn how the systems work, then start being able to use that knowledge to our advantage.

[67prostreet]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

I got some ribbing today in our safety meeting for the traction issues my car has in the employee parking lot :P In all fairness the parking lot is gravel and the clutch is a little grabby (1200rpm clutch drop?). And honestly I do try to keep slippage at a minimum as I respect other people's vehicles and don't want to be chucking rocks at them.

Hahahaha :D
Last winter a security guard wanted my super to wright me up for doing a donut in the snow covered parking lot. The super laughed when I told him that I was surprised he saw anything at all. He's been caught sleeping on the job.

[Scott Liggett]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

Next trick: figure out how to get squirrel & rebeldryver on the MS bandwagon!!! :D

The only thing holding me back is $$$. I always wanted to build a big inch sbc with efi and a Procharger.

[dieselgeek]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

Next trick: figure out how to get squirrel & rebeldryver on the MS bandwagon!!! :D

The only thing holding me back is $$$. I always wanted to build a big inch sbc with efi and a Procharger.

this is the honest truth right here: you'd be far better off to do the EFI on one of your cars now, even if it's a Holley TBI, like Randal did. Then, when it's time to do the supercharged freakmobile, you'll already have the EFI learning curve figured out. Of all the peope I have seen that abandoned EFI, 100% of them was because they were trying to do too many new things at once.

Given how well you understand an engine to work already, I'd think the EFI thing would be, at worst, a weekend project for you. Given how much you drive your cars already, you *might* actually be able to pay for the EFI parts with fuel savings...

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

That and SBC EFI intakes are dirt cheap comparatively to other makes.

[squirrel]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

hey Randal, when you get the thing tuned to your satisfaction (or at least as good as it ran with a carb) let us know how many hours you spent playing with the laptop. I'm curious how much effort it takes for a newbie to do all the tuning.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

hey Randal, when you get the thing tuned to your satisfaction (or at least as good as it ran with a carb) let us know how many hours you spent playing with the laptop. I'm curious how much effort it takes for a newbie to do all the tuning.

It was pretty much two days after I got it fired up on the EFI it was running waay better than the Q-jet. I've have some electrical noise issues I'm still sorting through (doesn't seem to be plug wires....) but once I figured out how to minimize the effects of it (basically going to a map sensed accel enrichment instead of a TPS based) the car has been fantastic to drive. The at times now the ignition will hiccup now from the noise :-\ but I'm still looking at different things to solve that. You'd probably have it solved in minutes :P Once the noise issue is solved I can go back to a TPS based accel enrichment and it'll probably accelerate better, but as it is it's way better than the Q-jet (which mind you I spent no time on tuning the Q-jet).

But the day it first fired up with the EFI I was driving it.

[SuperBuickGuy]

Re: The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

I have an old air research fuel injection that I'm now tempted to at least try on my current project..... I guess we'll have to see - I certainly have enough parts to do it.
thanks randal, just what i needed was another project :-\