Holley Sniper EFI advice needed

I have a fresh complete build on a 440
.30
10.5/1
440 source heads
Mild street cam

I have decided to go with a Street Dominator intake and the Sniper EFI

My question is, should I also go with the Holley ignition and dist for the Sniper kit?

Thank you

I highly recommend the Hyperspark distributor when using a Sniper. They are designed to work together and it will allow you to control the ignition timing from the Sniper. Adding the Hyperspark distributor really unlocks the power of the EFI system. I wouldn't buy the Hyperspark ignition box and coil if you already have a good MSD box and coil. If you don't have any existing parts then go ahead and buy the Hyperspark box and coil.

Be super careful to follow the instructions when you wire everything together. The Sniper electronics can be knocked wacky by ignition noise so you have to keep the spark plug wires away from the Sniper wires. You have to run suppression type plug wires and resistor plugs. I use Firecore50 wires in everything I build and NGK street plugs. Make sure the pink wire (switched 12 volts) is from a clean source. You'll need to tie together ign 1 and ign 2 since the Sniper needs 12 volts while cranking and running. So the ballast resistor and all of the factory ECU stuff has to go away.

I make a thermostat spacer if you need a place for the CTS. You can buy them from Hughes Engines.

Thank you so much for the information!! Exactly the reply I was looking for!!

Do you sell the spacers that you make?

We just put the Holley Sniper on my sons 400 Dart. At first we ran it with the normal dist and MSD controlling the timing. Its a stock dist I recurved. About 2 weeks ago we went and put the Holley Sniper locked dist in it and changed it so the Holley Sniper module now controls all the timing. And of course we put in the timing curve we like. But you can change the timing curve to whatever you like that works best for your combo. He is very happy with the system and we have done a few fine tuning on things like the initial squirt from the injector at key on as we have played with that some so its not to lean or to rich at startup and so it starts up without touching the gas pedal. You can program your IAC settings also so it starts easy and for the idle you want. You can do a ton of programming with it. Some things you can change with the little hand held screen and other things you can take the memory card out and put it in your home computer to make changes. So far we like it and have had no problems with it. We still use the MSD ign but have the Holley Sniper module controlling the timing. You just wire the dist pick-up ( looks like a hall effect on the Sniper dist) to the Sniper module and then the Sniper has a wire that goes to the white wire on the MSD box to fire the coil and control the timing . Ron

Andy we dont run resister plugs and have had no problems at all. My son did get the thermostat spacer as we use that but he picked it up and I don't know if its yours or another brand ? Ron

I just had my 512 on the chassis dyno with my 4150 sniper two days ago. When I first installed the sniper I used their plastic cap tool to phase the distributor with the motor at #1 tdc at the same time and it fired right off. I called for 15° locked timing with the ecu (in the complete instructions- pdf download from holley) and only had to twist the distributor back to an actual 15° from 18° and lock it down. I told it 34 WOT, in the wizard then went into the menus and set the simple timing at 15 cranking 24 idle 34 WOT & 44 cruise. The car started instantly, drove great, and didn’t ping on 93 octane.

We did a baseline pull on the dyno and it was good but we got a 20 more hp/tq tuning. Some improvement was ar WOT after the self learning had a chance to visit cells that I couldn’t hit unless I found an abandoned airport (they had to lean out a half point or so of afr) but most of the improvement was from messing with a better timing map. The torque curve had a couple bad dips down low and after tuning it’s flat now.

The change that did all the work was something I read about online I went into the sniper PC laptop program and also downloaded the holley v4 program which comes with throttle body global control files (tunes). You can open the spark map, highlight and copy the entire thing, and paste it on the sniper spark table after you switch it from simple to 2d table. After that we adjusted the idle area down a couple degrees since I had already found optimal idle timing using the MAP sensor to tell me vacuum, and tried messing with a lottle more timing at WOT which didn’t knock but didn’t give more power so we put that back to how it was after the paste.

So glad I did the hyperspark.

Can't wait to install my Hyperspark and Sniper on my 512 Charger. I have customers anxiously waiting to pilot my car so I can install on theirs.

The Sniper setup sells itself once you show customers how it works. Take them for a drive down the freeway with the laptop hooked up so they can watch it tune on the fly and they'll buy it on the spot.

That's the plan Andy. I have a customer with a BB Chevelle that I built a 496 for, runs good (not as good as my 512, lol), and he is ready. Also built his dual quad 409 with factory carbs and Winters dual plane intake for his 63 SS, and he inquired about dual Snipers for it. Installing another one on a 351C 4V Torino, 72 442 and a 79 Lil Red Express.

how does the sniper work with radical cams ? say, 108* in at 104, 256-260 @ .050, .600 lift, 11.5 : 1 compression ?

It will work with a radical cam but it won't tune itself, you'll need to hook up a laptop and build a tune for a big cam.

I can do that ... LOL ...

When setting it up it has like four different cam selections. Its like …….stock cam , street\strip , modified and race I believe. Then as Andy said you tune from there. Ron

The problem with using the Wizard to build a tune for a big cam is that you might need to turn closed loop operation off at idle since the long overlap period will mess up the exhaust. The Wizard isn't programmed to handle situations like that so you have to manually tune the setup tables. The Sniper has the capability of being tuned for big cams but the instructions don't tell you how to do it since Holley didn't want to market it for that type of customer. I've run a Sniper on a couple of different engines that both made over 700 hp. The Sniper works just fine on those engines but the tune has to be built manually.

well this is good to know, as a carb has not been picked yet because the engine won't be installed for several months.
it's also good to know there is someone to help with the tune, because i'm a dunce with pooters ! i'll need all the help i can get with the tune.
first thing being, i'll hafta buy a laptop and learn how to use it.