School me on Hilborn Fuel Injection

Mechanical Fuel Injection On The Street.

Lets see can it be done. Well...............I have Hilborn mechancial fuel injection unit that I run on both my 292 and 331 Chev. cubic inch small blocks. At present I have the 331 in my 40 Willys Coupe with a Munice four speed and a 4:56 Pontiac rear end. Drive this car every week on the street. Cranks great, idles great,high speed is great. No loading up or stalling. No special bypasses etc. Barrell valve set 8 percent lead down. Pill is .025.

Two things on fuel injection. Set the blades all the same or engine will not idle, set the barrel valve right and MOST OF All give the engine as much timing advance and your fuel will stand.

I learned alot about fuel injection watching Chris (Roothog) and his dad set there injection on his car at the track. Thanks Root and Dad. Nothing like watching, asking questions,and learning.

Everyone wants to make this hard and do all kind of crazy things, like bypasses etc. I have found that the more simple you keep it the easier it is to tune.

My car, fast, cool and and a wheel standing son-of-a-gun. Does it for me!

1940 Willys Coupe

 

My small knowledge is the same as willys above . lots of timing and make sure the blades are the same . Locked advance if you can get away with it or a very fast curve in the distributor .

 

Well I see your point, but I still think the idea of using a high speed and low speed bypass is great because if you rely solely on the barrel valve you'll need to switch it out completely to tune it, whereas the bypasses have you switch out just a spring. Although however you can get it to work... Personally I think it would be a good idea to add a vacuum controlled pintle valve to alter the amount of fuel coming in when more load is put on the engine (like if you're towing).

 

jdj ... I had a cast off race set up from a drag car. No bypass. Ran a lot of advance and the throttle response was scary fast but alas ... no reliable idle.

 

I have never tried to run mech injection on the street. But I do know gasoline inj on the strip is a constant battle with the weather. Narrow tuning window. Alky is way less finiky. I would suggest keeping your open end wrenches in your pocket to adj the barrell often. JMO Forget the high speed till you have it running good without it first. Lippy

 

I ran a set of Enderles for years on the street. Never replaced the pump. Ran different at night than during the day. Ate spark plugs with a stock points ignition -- probably wouldn't do so bad with the modern ones today.

My biggest compromise was to set the barrel valve fat so when I put the 4-speed Hydro in gear, it wouldn't die. It idled at 1000, went to 600 or so in gear. Would be a lot easier to live with using a standard trans.

 

I would think a Kinsler dial a jet or something would be a must. Lippy

 

What size nozzle is a good starting point for SBC on gas?

 

This thread started in 2006 then skipped to 2011 then 31 minutes ago. Did anyone ever get their Hilborn working? Did anyone ever buy the pamphlet on Hilborn? I have been running mine since 2009 and while not on the street I have driven it around car shows and in the pits at the track sometimes 15-20 min. stopping, idling at low speed and really had no problems.

Pat

 

There is a guy called. Allydigger that can help all you need .
I don’t think he is on here ,,,,but type that in the internet,,,,and he will come up .
He is located in Nashville ,,,, name is Mike Chilando,,,,sells a ton of stuff for these systems.
He raced at the U S Nationals back in the 60 s,,,,won some too .

Tommy

 

I had a setup on a 401 Buick that I converted from alcohol to gas in the mid to late sixties. The Hillborn guys set me up with the right nozzles and a few pills. It made an unimaginable amount of power, but hardly streetable. To start it I had to stand up and lean over the windshield to give it a shot of ether. Then hit the starter quickly.
I would only do an electronic conversion nowadays and it is hard to make them look right. My 392 in the 51 has 16 Bosch injectors and it took several years to get it running good enough.

 

7A for our 301.

 

Yeah, he is very helpful. I have bought and sold with him.

 

Ditto on Mike he set me up from the start. Roothawg I run 7A also at 327" and 350" and 383"

Pat

 

Root, I thought you were running alky. Was reading an old post yesterday about running with no cooling system and saw where you talked about being frustrated waiting for the engine too cool off between passes. On gas that makes sense.

We just removed all the cooling system from the coupe last week and are planning on running it dry, at least for now. It was hard to build any heat, even with the pump and fan off.

 

Don Enriques at Hilborn is probably one of the best on these. Remember the Adams and Enriques junior fuel dragster. That's him. Gene Adams helped me on the Enderle injection on the dragster in my avastar.

 

There's a Hemi T bucket running around here on the street and running fine (like a regular car). Don had a big hand in it, Don is in Bowling Green Ky. at Holley since they bought Hilborn.

He's still running/driving one now.

 

Well, that is true. We started out on gas. It was the setup dad ran when he set the National record way back when. He was familiar with it so we started there. Switched over to alky and then we hurt the motor and it sits in that state to this day....

 

Time flies. It'll be 15 years or so since I saw y'all at the Hamb Drags.

 

Wow, has it really? I really need to get back on the Fly. I pulled the intake and heads. It has 3 bent push rods and valves. Not sure what happened. Something didn't clear obviously.

 

Rusty Sampsel on Facebook runs FI on his 55 Chevy gasser. Very knowledgeable on fi systems. He made a video also

 

I drove this roadster on the street with Enderles off and on for 25+ years. For 3 years it was my only car. It ran lean, it ran right, it ran rich – all in the same day with temperature and humidity changes. Oh, if I'd only had a Dial-A-Jet. And the 4-speed Hydro didn't help things.

When first set up, I ran a 3/4-inch hose from the rear fuel tank. Upon sudden acceleration it would run out of gas as it surged back into the rear tank. I fixed that with mounting a simple electric fuel pump to a smaller line that ran to a newly-installed Moon tank in the front. I fabbed up a Holley float bowl assembly behind the tank to keep the Moon tank about 2/3s full. That helped a lot.

Here's the roadster at El Mirage. I'd driven it up from San Bernardino to help my friend Steve Batchelor with his Monza. Steve still holds the C/Classic Fuel Altered records from 1992 at Bonneville at 243 and El Mirage at 213. The roadster, with the same engine, still holds the C/Street Roadster record from 2009 at El Mirage at 193.

 

Wow ! Loved reading this post.

 

They are temperamental and troublesome.... But that's never stopped anyone from getting married. So why should it matter on FI?

 

Did you ever get your setup going ?

 

I cant imagine running one in the kind of traffic we have here in Pittsburgh.. Get a nice set of trips or dual quads...

 

I put this on my son's Model A in 2008. It's the first version Hilborn made for SBCs.....1.75 inch. 7A nozzles. Port matched intake runners/manifold. Motor is a Z-28 off-road Trans America 302 unit (not the factory Camaro one). Trans is an M-21. 3.,50 gears. Ignition is '62 'Vette dual point converted to Pertronix. Runs perfect on the street....hardly ever need to make adjustments on a daily run....set it once each day....unless the weather changes dramatically. Idles very well, spins up instantly.....to 7200 RPM. Modified barrel valve, by-pass valves, Dial-A-Jet (made up tables for temp, humidity, barometric press), wide band gas analyzer on board active all the time. Start-up/prime with an electric fuel pump on a by-pass line with a check valve....fires up from cold right away. Runs OK on 93 octane pump gas, but prefers 100/110 octane. (11,25 CR)

Critical tip.......I set the butterflies hot using a UNISYN tool, and a feeler gauge. Everything moves a lot while warming up.

Makes for a nice hot rod.....

 

That is cool!....

 

I've run mechanical injection on the street for over 30 years . Current system is a 3 piece hilborn 3" butterflys . With Kinsler barrel valve ,pump and nozzles .I like the consistency between Kinsler nozzles. For the fellow asking in original post
Yes you can totally street drive mfi. Here is the main things to simplify the process. As many people that have posted before . most used systems are on a swap meet bench because they have been used in alcohol drag or dirt track or totally screwed up ..So there is work to be done . They won't be a direct bolt on. lol
1 . Look at Kinslers vapor separator system,for ease of starting the car . and Shutting it off.
You use a small electric pump to start the car . then the mechanical pump takes over when the car is running . Electric pump just keeps the vapor canister full and keeps mech. pump supply full .No chance of starving mech. pump
and hurting it . Will last for ever. fuel is the lubricant .
2. Use a good fuel shut off . very important .
3 Excellent fuel filters . don't cut corners .
Nozzles you run on gas on the street are usually air bleed and don't like debris. Plug one with shit ,that cylinder will go lean .
4 Jet selector . Good idea . In my car I built my own . it has 3 jets ,
One for street driving which just sends most of the fuel back to the tank in the back of the car. And doesn't load the motor with fuel . Big hole jet
Second one is for burn outs
3rd one is for racing small hole putting lots of fuel to the motor.
5 Always kill the fuel before the ignition ,When shutting off. Will help with restarting and not loading the motor with fuel.
Vapor separator system keeps pressure in system so make sure fuel shut off keeps closed or it will put fuel in the motor . not good ...... will lock up motor when trying to restart.

Not the end of the world . Just pull out the plugs spin the motor over and pump out fuel.
6 , Call and get the right size nozzle , pump and barrel valve from a reputable mfi manufacturer.
Alky digger,lots of parts and a dealer for most mfi , kinsler or hilborn etc. The more info you can tell them about your motor the better. Cid ,cam, heads ,compression,, rpm , etc.

MFI isn't for everyone , Street driving . But once you get there they work fine.

 

Hello,

Back in those old freelance photojournalist days, we met a lot of people. My wife was usually with me when we went to those rod runs and picnics. (Andy’s, Prowlers, Early Times, LA Roadsters, etc. ) It helped as the girlfriend or wife came up to us and started talking about the hot rod or picnic, etc. That made it a little easier to talk to the husband to see if we could not set up a photo shoot for inclusion in a magazine. With the idea of a magazine photo shoot, the wife/girlfriend and my wife started gabbing like old friends. Women do like to talk, and talk they do… (Advantage: Plus 1)

I was busy taking photos and talking to the owner of this cool looking 34 Ford coupe. It relatively stock on the outside, with a few custom touches. But in the motor compartment was a nasty looking Hilborn Port Fuel Injection System that we normally saw on race cars back at Lions Dragstrip. As much as we liked the Hilborn Port Fuel Injection for power and looks, it was very difficult, at the time, to make the port injection system function well for daily street driving. So, our teenage group stuck with triple carbs, dual quads or one big 4 barrel for carburetion. My friend with the 57 Chevy wanted a fuel injection system from Hilborn over the stock fuel injection system from Chevrolet. It was those multiple injector ports and stacks that won most people over.

But, hearing the 34 Ford coupe roll into the parking photo shoot location, it sounded very strong and powerful. The stop and go felt similar to any car setting up for “the” COVER shot. No stumble or throttle malfunction. The Queen Mary ship had been in Long Beach Harbor since 1967 and no one used the location for the photo shoot background. The 34 coupe was moved to several places to get the background and composition correct. It fired up as if it had one carburetor and was in perfect tune. When he opened the side hood, I was taken aback at the Hilborn stacks on the injection system. It was impressive. We definitely took a time out of the photo shoot to have the owner explain how he got the system to run right on the daily driving trips.

Jnaki

Larry Cerny’s 34 had the look and the colorful background for FULL center spread magazine layout. Despite the wonderful first time historic background, it was not a full center spread insert, but a single page. (editor’s choice) The red color accents of his girlfriend and hot rod blended in quite nicely with the location. The impressive Hilborn system was still puzzling all of these years later. It was one of the earliest Hilborn Injection Systems to run well on the street for daily driving.

I was going to go to the local So Cal offices of Hilborn Injection Company, (12 miles away) and inquire about the mechanical fuel injection system, straight from the horse’s mouth. But now, we are “locked in place” with only emergency trips allowed. So, maybe an email will suffice.