OK, here goes a big post but I had a day and a half on the car doing fiddly jobs. I am also documenting my build on a website I have started for the car -
https://bargegarage.com - and I will be uploading more posts going through what has happened with the car, what will happen and how it is all happening.
One of the biggest individual projects I've undertaken is fitting fully programmable EFI to my '64 Pontiac's engine. I had a rebuilt carburetor on a new intake manifold all set-up ready to drive when I realised I wanted the easy starting, improved fuel use and cleaner running from EFI.
Firstly, my ECU – an Australian Haltech Elite 950. This is a new product they have launched to the V8 market specifically to help make it easier to convert old carburettor-fed V8s to EFI.
While a "bolt-on" system from Holley, FiTech, FAST and others seemed appealing I work in the aftermarket industry and have seen too many people replace the ECUs that come with those set-ups for something that can be fine-tuned better to consider them. I also wanted to run two four-barrel throttle bodies for the vintage "dual quad" muscle car look. At the time I embarked on this journey the only way for me to do this was by using the Haltech and if I had my time over I'd definitely stay with the Haltech product.
This is a complex swap, but is easy to knock over if you are methodical and read up a lot as you go (thank you, King Google!). Wiring is definitely NOT my forte so I was dreading the job of diving into the wiring loom which came with my Haltech Elite 950 ECU.
Most of the pieces of the puzzle... *gulp*
This diagram (below) is the God sheet... well, this is the God sheet for the Haltech Elite 750 not my 950, but it is close enough. Basically, you match the wires on your loom to what the below says. Haltech have really saved the bacon of all of us who are pretty good at the old Shadetree Mechanic schtick, but are still a fair way short of professional status.
After working out what wires go where, I noted what each wire was for and loosely grouped them together into their basic formats. So i had the 8 fuel injector wires together, the four wires going to the coils together, the wires going to the throttle bodies (idle air control, throttle position sensor, intake air temp, etc).
Yes, beer was involved.
The next step from this is to take the loom into the cabin, mount the ECU and push the various wires needed to run the different functions through as they're required. I'll do this once I get my intake manifold back so I can work out how much wire length I need for the various sensors on my FAST universal throttle bodies.
Along with the various sensor plugs I needed, I sourced my Hall-effect digital crank angle sensor from EFIhardware.com a company based in Melbourne, Australia. They also sell this tidy little billet mount to house the sensor. I'll mount this to the fuel pump block-off plate I made (see below) once I get my balancer back from having the toothed signal wheel fitted to it. I can then set the sensor up to read where the toothed wheel sits.
Instead of a distributor I am using 8 coilpacks from a 5.7-litre LS1 Chevy V8. This should be a better, tidier solution to firing my 400cui Pontiac V8. The coilpacks are mounted on a pair of cool brackets from Australian company Tuff Mounts, which I will custom-mount in the engine bay once I have my intake manifold back from being machined to fit the injector bungs as this gives me the best idea of how much space I have around the motor.
Removing the distributor meant I needed this billet-machined oil pump drive from BOP Engineering in the USA. Wade made this piece up and it could also be used as a cam sync if I wanted to go full sequential ignition later on down the track.
As I'm going to run an electric in-tank pump I no longer need the engine-mounted low-pressure unit hanging off the timing cover. A block-off plate was nice and quick to make.
To make this part, which ticks yet another job off the list of many required to finish my Pontiac, took 20 minutes. I used:
- a box cutter
- some scrap cardboard
- a Sharpie
- some thin aluminium (aluminum) sheet
- a drill with one cutting bit and a step bit
I also got around to mounting my electric power steering pump. This would tidy up my engine bay and reduce parasitic loss on my engine.
Pump as delivered.
Painted, cut-down bracket.
The new rivnut on the left. It threads onto the riveter, which you then close. The riviter then pinches the rivet into the hole and it looks like the one on the right (smaller). You can then bolt directly into the rivnut!
Rivnuts fitted
Bracket mounted
The bracket was mounted in 10 minutes, clocked so the power steering lines had the clearest route straight to the steering box, and it would be easy to service should I need to. I also left plenty of space to fill the reservoir with the required LDAS fluid (not Dex III as many hydraulic power steering pumps require).
One thing to note is I have since added a support strap to the radiator support panel, to brace the pump fore-aft. This was bent up out of 3mm aluminium (aluminum) flat bar, with holes drilled in to pass through the Astra pump’s bracket, and a threaded hole in the radiator support panel.
I had initially thought about hiding the pump under the bottom of the guard out of sight. However, I didn’t want to have to jack my car up and pull a wheel off to check or fill the power steering fluid. I really want this car easy to maintain.
With the pump mounted I then got on with the job of working out how to get the power steering fluid from the steering box to the pump. Rubber hose didn’t really appeal to me, so I went out and bought a couple of tube benders, seeing how I was going to need to bend some more hardline when it comes time to redo my fuel lines for the new fuel injection set-up I’m installing.
I had some spare stainless steel 3/8″ line in the garage so I set about teaching myself how to bend and flare piping, and I reused the old fittings as they were all in good shape. Thankfully the Astra pump uses the same size fittings and lines despite being made in a metric country (and 50 years after the car was built).
Once I get the new hardline I’ve ordered I will put up a more detailed post later on for how to bend lines, showing how I did
