Which fuel injection???

Mild 440 (basically a stock 440 Magnum), dual plane intake (no option here unless there's a single plane the same height as the factory iron), and iron manifolds. What's the best out there for this setup? My son is willing to spend the money for the distributor and all that it takes to work best. He's looking for turn key reliability and good performance.

Holley Sniper. I have installed a few different brands and they are the best for the money. I have never had any issues with running them on dual plane intakes. The Hyperspark ignition is nice, but not necessary if you want to save some coin.

You can get a factory reconditioned Sniper for $799. That is what I'd recommend for your engine. If it was me I'd add the Hyperspark so you can control engine timing and if Tanks Inc. makes a drop in EFI gas tank I'd install that too.

https://www.holley.com/products/fue...refurbished_-_sniper_efi/parts/FR550-511

Yes, we are going with a Tanks Inc. tank. His tank and pickup were in bad shape when I pulled them out last year so he needs a new tank anyway. That's a great deal from Holley vs. Summit's price. Might try to get all the parts that they sell from them.

I don't have any experience with the throttle body EFI systems but if I were to buy one right now It would be the holley sniper. I follow lots of EFI stuff and for that application that is what I would do for sure. I would stay away from Fitech.

A friend of mine has a shop that has installed a few of the MSD Atomic EFI systems and they have had great luck with them as well.

I've installed/tune a FiTech and will be trying out a Sniper for my own truck. FiTech does work out great, but the controller and user interface leaves a lot to be desired.

Another vote for the Sniper. Been on my car for two years now on a 512 and it's been great.

I've been looking at the Edelbrock RB injection set ups
If I still had a MOPAR street anything I would be going this route.

I have a neighbor friend that has the MSD Atomic on an LS in his Chevelle. while it works fine, getting tech support for it has been a challenge. I guess there is a group that he belongs to on Facebook and they have managed to figure out most of the issues on their own. He really wants to switch over to Holley.

Holley has owned MSD for awhile but I imagine the support is better for the products under the Holley name.

I to have done some MSD Atomic, very basic system, works great, IF I was to do a T body EFI it would be the Holley Terminator Stealth

I was looking at that at one time also. I wonder what is limiting power to 550hp?
Injector size, throttle size, plenum size, runner length, volume, cross section?
All of the above? Could it be as simple as just needing bigger injectors?

I went out and read reviews of the Holley Sniper 4-bbl and no one was happy with it. I have a friend with a FiTech and it turned out great but as previously mentioned, the interface and owner's manual leaves much to be desired. His is on a Ford FE and it took four (yes, four) hours on the phone with tech support to get it to work properly.

Your son will be happy with the Sniper as long as he has a basic understanding of computers. You need to know how to move around in a file system to find files, copy files, load files, etc. If your son has a laptop computer then he will be super happy with the Sniper. He can buy an interface cable and hook up his laptop to the Sniper and super tune it. Can even tune it while driving down the freeway. The Sniper contains a very advanced EFI system but you have to buy the special cable to access it. The Super Snipers come with the cable but they cost more. For your car I'd buy the reconditioned unit then add the cable later if your son wants to hook up a laptop to access the other features.

Yes bigger injectors HP to 800ish...thats what they told me back in June.

I recently put a sniper xflow on my Satellite. Install went well. Only got to drive it once on Dec. 13th. before they began salting the roads around here. Locked the trusty old mopar perf. distributor and set it up to control timing too. So far so good. Gonna have to wait for spring to do much more with it.

Yes you can order the Edelbrock unit with the larger injectors to handle more power. The Edelbrock systems that I've used work okay but they are a black box. They don't have any data logging capability and you can't make many adjustments to the tune. If they work then great, if not then there isn't anything you can do about it.

The success is heavily dependent on your ability to either A) Understand how EFI works B) Your desire to know about how EFI works. The systems are sold as "plug it in, fire it up and go". While they're quite good, they require tuning if you want it to drive like a new-ish car.

Understanding of IAC operation, how coolant temp effects fueling, rotor/timing phasing, acceleration enrichment, RFI/noise suppression, cold start enrichment, warm-up enrichment, etc. are all going to be necessary skills to execute the swap well. YouTube is loaded with helpful videos on this stuff, but one has to want to learn how to do it. A large portion of the TBI kit buyers simply don't want to do that.

My Father in Law is who I installed the FiTech kit for, he has pretty good carb knowledge but was initially clueless on EFI. Without someone knowing EFI around [me], I can see the process for him being very frustrating, which is where many people who write reviews online find themselves. That said, his truck has never ran better!

Yes, I see this every day of the week on the Sniper forum. The people who are unhappy with EFI are typically people who don't have good computer skills. They don't understand how to debug computer issues so they get frustrated. I worked with a car builder a while back who was super frustrated with an EFI system. This guy has been building high quality street rods for 40 years but he didn't know how to find a file on a hard drive so he couldn't upgrade his firmware. The guy knows how to fabricate any part on a chassis but he was stumped when it came to upgrading the firmware on his EFI system. I went over there and it took me less than 30 seconds to find the file and do the upgrade. So there isn't anything wrong with the EFI systems, but there are a lot of hot rodders who haven't yet learned how to install, tune or debug them.

Another thing I see a lot of is that when hot rodders put EFI on their car they then blame the EFI system for anything that goes wrong. I got called out to a local hot rod shop last week to help them get a EFI conversion sorted out. They were all upset that the Sniper was not working and asked me for some help. I show up and after fiddling around for a while I see that the throttle body wasn't bolted tight so they had a vacuum leak which was causing an issue with the idle speed. They fixed that and then I noticed that the throttle linkage wasn't properly adjusted so the throttle body wasn't getting full throttle. That was why the engine didn't have very much power. They also had the system wired wrong and they had a leak in the fuel line. There was nothing wrong with the EFI system, it was just a bunch of mechanical problems. Had they had a carb on there they would've found all those issues. Since it was EFI they just assumed that the EFI unit was bad. These are guys who have been building hot rods for 50+ years. They have build hundreds of cars so they know what they are doing but they weren't familiar with EFI so they just assumed it was causing all of the issues.

Yeah, Jeff is very familiar with file systems, etc. and has a lap top. He's also messed with a modified factory system (Ford 5.0, big cam, big injectors, big throttle body, and aftermarket manifold). He never quite got that one dialed in, but everything indicated that 30lb injectors were too big for a good idle. None of this scares either one of us (I've got greater computer experience) and right now he has the money to do this right on the fresh motor. We're also going hydraulic throwout bearing. He wants his wife to be able to jump in and drive it, from time to time. It will also be his weekend driver as he has a company truck for a daily.

I'd love to do this to my Barracuda, but I don't have the funds.

Hmm. I go onto Holley's website and this is what I read:

Simple Calibration Wizard (Answer a few questions about your engine and it creates the base map, then starts tuning on its own!) - NO laptop required!
Self-tuning ECU means you don't have to be a computer/tuning wiz to have EFI!

But yet I read here I need a minor in IT to get it to work. It's not a question of whether I could do it or not, more like why should I have to? I recall the dealership training when the Lean Burn was introduced. Admittedly, it just controlled spark advance but I remember the instructor stressing that there were no maps or arrays in the system, the operating point was a unique variable determined by the inputs. So now 44 years later with all the advances in solid state technology and closed loop control with a number of sensors we are faced with the need to use a laptop to optimize a system? I always put more faith in the user group than the vendor (as Packard put it “Ask The Man Who Owns One” ) but it seems to me that Holley is either stretching the truth or outright lying. This thread has shaken my faith in aftermarket EFI keeping in mind that a vendor can use a standard configuration for thousands of cars without problems.

I didn't mention anything about a laptop or a minor in IT.

Can you tune these systems a bit more with a laptop? Sure!
Is it necessary? NO!

In fewer words, what I said was, you need to understand the basics of EFI and how it works. Period. The installation wizard lets you plug in some basic inputs about your engine and it creates a basic VE base table and tunes from there. You will need to make adjustments to the parameters, via the handheld controller, to dial it in and tune it. This isn't scary, it's just different than what you may be used to. Trust me, adjusting timing with a few clicks is way easier than popping the hood, loosening the fastener way back there, dragging the timing light out and running the engine as the fan blasts hot air in your face...

I feel that the basics of EFI tuning are just what I said, how an IAC works, acceleration enrichment [think accelerator pump], installing the system so that the rpm sensor wires are not sitting on plug wires and giving erratic readings, etc. Holley is in the business of selling units, they do a better job of trying to educate users more than most, but some understanding is required. YouTube is loaded with helpful videos that give you the basic knowledge to be successful.

EFI is not hard, but like anything new to you, you do need to have a drive to understand it. Pushing buttons on things you don't understand isn't going to help.

Deleted

The Sniper internal programming makes a lot of assumptions. If you have a very generic car (350 chevy crate engine for example) the out of box Sniper will work okay. Most of what I work on is 600 to 700 hp big block Mopar engines with performance cams. The default programming will not work very well on an engine like that. It really isn't much different than a carb. If you have a stock 350 crate engine an out of the box carb will work. If you have a race engine you most likely need to have the carb tuned by a professional. EFI is the same way.

AndyF, thank you for an intelligent answer to my comments.

someone mentioned the lean burn system, and that reminded me of timing input.
is the lean burn distributor the one to use in a sniper system because it has just the reluctor/pickup[s] internally ?

I suggest using the plug & play Holley dist. for the Sniper.

No. Throw away that old stuff. It is the wrong type of signal for EFI.

We put the Holley Sniper on my sons Dart and we love it. Its worked fine and we like how much programming we can do and change on it. Ron

thanks andy, charlie, and ron. eventual plans call for EFI on my charger, hence the in tank electric pump.
plus the fact my AC compressor is where the mechanical pump used to live.
a sniper system is my choice when i get there, but i have to get the car running first.
as to the lean burn distributor, just trying to use up some of my accumulated "stuff" [if possible].

Andy - in your opinion what is the right application these days for multiport injectoion, or have these TBI's advanced far enough that there's not much application except for max effort engines?

Port injection gives you better fuel control. Cylinders can be trimmed individually if you run sequential and because you are injecting right at the back of the intake valve, you no longer have to depend on airflow to deliver the fuel. How much better this all is I think is not so much measurable on a dyno as it is in drivability and efficiency. From an emissions standpoint it will run slightly cleaner and should depending on application burn less fuel, not enough less to pay for it in this lifetime but less.

Kevin

I have no empirical evidence but I wonder if that's actually true in the case where you convert a carb intake (designed as wet now dry) as I did for my turbocharged 383. Definitely understand the per cylinder tuning you can do and I've never done it on mine, since it's not a max effort build.

I wouldn't put aftermarket multiport injection on anything where I could use a single throttle body. The Holley Sniper Xflow is good for up to 800 hp so that should work just fine for almost all street cars and most bracket type cars. I'd go with multiport for engines over 1000 hp. On engines in the 750 to 1000 hp range I might go multiport or I might use dual throttle body on a dual quad intake. Just depends on what the guy wants, how big the budget it, what the options are, etc.

That is true from an OEM standpoint but I don't think it is true for cars that people on Moparts build. Typical engine built by a Moparts member is going to be a street car or a bracket car using 1970's technology. A throttle body setup like the Sniper works just fine in that case and is a very economical and fairly simple solution. The average Moparts member is not going to be able to take advantage of anything that multiport injection offers.

If you ask me to design an OEM system then sure, I'll pick multiport.

I LOVE my Hilborn EFI

Andy, do you think multiport would be worth the expense when using a manifold with unequal runners like the slant six?

I wouldn't put multiport injection on a daily driver /6. Maybe if a guy is doing a serious race car and is making a bunch of power then it might be worth it. Aftermarket multiport injection just isn't very cost effective these days. The equation might change down the road.

I did some dyno testing today for a guy who is switching from an older multiport system over to a Sniper. A new Sniper system is cheaper than repairing his multiport system so he is switching. There isn't any difference in power so the guy doesn't see any reason for all the extra complexity.

Good info and perspective if my Classic FAST ever konks out. Back when I did my efi there was no TBI option that was workable with boost.

To get the most out of a setup like that, you would want well-defined individual cylinder fuel trims. So that all injectors aren't firing the same amount of fuel at the same rpm/load, since the air going into each cylinder will vary. Typically an engine dyno with multiple o2s setup to tune each cylinder is required for that initial cylinder fuel trim. Otherwise, a typical TBI would get you very far.

I too, have been looking at converting to EFI for my car (71 RR) and looked at all of the responses. Even before I stumbled on this topic, I've been looking at Holley. Currently, I have a Quick Fuel carb on my 470 stroked and dynoe'd at 600/610. The funny thing is I contacted Tanks Inc and Aeromotive about a tank with the pump mounted in it. Tank said no, they don't have one. Aeromotive emails me saying "Not current and don't see in the future" Within a month, Aeromotive has the exact tank with the pump installed . Thanks AndyF for that link! Holley suggest FR550-510
https://www.holley.com/search/?q=FR550-510