ronw
Well-Known Member
Anyone put a Holley Sniper on there 360? Bought my Little Red new in 79 and now thinking of replacing the Thermoquad with a fuel injection system. How difficult and expensive would this be to switch?
1979 Little Red 360 sniper kit
- Thread starter ronw
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RegularJay
Well-Known Member
I own a 79 Li'l Red - I'm going to put a six-pack on it sometime soon - It's just bolt on stuff, easily reversed OP, Go for it!
jos51700
Green Bearing thread connoisseur
If you're going to go to the trouble, go multiport and do it right.
Throttle body EFI is all the drawbacks of a carb, all the drawbacks of EFI, and none of the exclusive benefits of either one.
Throttle body EFI is all the drawbacks of a carb, all the drawbacks of EFI, and none of the exclusive benefits of either one.
ronw
Well-Known Member
Thanks guys for your input. My little Red has 50,000 + miles on original tires with over half tread. It's been sitting in the corner of my garage since 87. Getting it ready to go back on the road.
abodyjoe
Well-Known Member
after the expense of the sniper kit you'll have the fuel system expense. best way to do it is an in tank pump. no way I'd cut into an original LRE plastic tank. too hard to find them not cracked. you may be able to use a newer D150 tank though. one that used efi like the late 80's.
know a few guys running the sniper and they love it. one friend has installed a few on cars for customers and they have all run nice.
whats wrong with the thermoquad? they run awesome when right.
This is just my opinion which aint much . If you are not planning on running some sort of boost in the future i would stick with a carb there are lots of nice carbs on the market like the new Demon or lots of holley styles or you can get that great TQ rebuilt to new. But i'm still stuck in the old days .
67Dart273
Well-Known Member
Nonsense
ronw
Well-Known Member
I have rebuilt my TQ back in the 80's when I was working at a Dodge dealership. Just thinking of having fuel sitting in the carb for weeks or months and not being driven. My other car have electric fuel pumps that I can turn off and run out of fuel.
abodyjoe
Well-Known Member
use a good fuel stabilizer
RegularJay
Well-Known Member
Please buy some new tires before you put it back on the road, Plus, it's a Li'l Red at least one of the rear ones should be mostly bald
junkyardhero
Well-Known Member
if the truck is in really good shape or excellent condition I'd shy away from modifying anything on such a low mileage piece.
rebuild the carb, fill it with the highest octane zero ethanol you can easily procure and run a fuel stabilizer and you should be okay, even if it's sitting for ages.
but yeah, new tires. and probably other rubber bits before road duty.
rebuild the carb, fill it with the highest octane zero ethanol you can easily procure and run a fuel stabilizer and you should be okay, even if it's sitting for ages.
but yeah, new tires. and probably other rubber bits before road duty.
ronw
Well-Known Member
Yes, It will get new tires, they do reproduce them but there 600.00 a piece. I'm also pulling the engine and replace all the seals and gaskets.Please buy some new tires before you put it back on the road, Plus, it's a Li'l Red at least one of the rear ones should be mostly bald
jos51700
Green Bearing thread connoisseur
Any support to your argument? Or just "Nonsense"?
Carb drawbacks:
wet manifold design has inferior air/fuel distribution
no individual tuning to each cylinder's volumetric efficiency
poor fueling when cold requires excessive choke which accelerates cylinder wear and decreases oil life
EFI drawbacks:
cost
complexity
requires additional plumbing
increased diagnostic requirements.
You don't really see fuel economy improve much over a properly-tuned carb until you get to a multiport system. You don't really gain control over timing until you go to a multiport EFI system.
TBI is a crutch, designed to bridge into EFI for as little cost as possible, and that's why the industry went away from them. They suck, plain and simple. I'd take a carb over a TBI. At least I can diagnose a carb. No matter what you do, you're still over-fueling some and under-fueling other with ANYTHING that dumps fuel in at the mouth of the runners. That is, especially in a dual-plane intake, the literal long n' short of it.
A-Body III
Well-Known Member
Who is reproducing the tires for LRE's? Thanks.
Hellrats
Just another dumbass
Is this going to your daily driver? I would hope not in PA. But who knows. People have been driving carbureted cars for a long time. I would think you can tune it to how your are going to drive it. There is a lot more to fuel injection than just bolting a bunch of parts on. Yes I have done conversions on vehicles and if you brought that to me I would not take your money to do it. I'm just saying what I would do. I understand it's your vehicle and you can do what ever you want with it. But I think your would be shooting yourself in the foot.
67Dart273
Well-Known Member
You are full of crap. TBI EFI today is nothing like the OEM junk of the 80's. The less expensive stuff like Sniper have a definate place in hotrodding, and there are some great running cars running these systems, some of them with dual 4 throttle bodies
Of course they are not for everyone, but if you don't want to spend the extra (and consididerable) money on a multiport system, they are a great way to gain easy tunability and fix some of the issues with modern fuel, AKA fuel boil and vapor lock.
If carefully/ properly installed---and that issue is no different between multiport or TBI--they can provide great startup, reliability and fuel mileage. THE FACT IS THAT carbs are getting more and more difficult to get parts for in any case, and quality parts in particular.
If you cannot see "the place" for an in between EFI you are an idiot. I feel no need to "prove" this to you
I'm not going to argue the nonsense of wet vs dry manifolds because for most street rigs and even many drag/ race rigs, "it just doesn't matter." ****!!! Some of the stack injection setups use injectors down the throats!!! (Stand off or whatever they are called)
LET ME ASK THIS SIMPLE QUESTION Since you are so anxious for the OP to spend way more money on a multiport system, ARE YOU GOING TO DONATE THE MONETARY DIFFERENCE?
I thought not.
TT5.9mag
Two atmospheres are better than one
@67Dart273 Del, you make good points but @jos51700 does also, he is not full of crap. I for one tend to wholeheartedly agree with what he is saying and I wouldn’t spend a red cent on any TBI system. But I’ll agree with you that there is a place for them in the industry for the guy that won’t take the time to learn how to properly tune a carburetor and doesn’t want to take the time to set up an aftermarket multiport efi standalone ecu system. The sniper (and similar fitch type tbi systems) are a decent “in between”. But they do have all of the inherent disadvantages of both a carb and an efi system.
Although I agree that the EFI kits sold today are much better than the stuff was on cars from the 80's and 90's, and that there are certain improvements that will be had with modern EFI systems, and they they can provide easier starting, reliability, and fuel mileage over a poor running carburetor, If you have a good running carb there will little to no difference in starting, reliability, or fuel mileage, especially with a well set up spread bore carburetor. A good spread bore carb may even give you better gas mileage than a square bore EFI system. I think the biggest difference is in starting, the EFI kit will start on the first crank of the key, a carb that has been siting, not so much...
I will start with the reliability factor and the claim that carb parts are getting more difficult to get. While this may be true, I just rebuilt a 72 Thermoquad for my Duster 340. This carb is 50 years old and parts are still available. Now, I used to own a speed shop on the 80's and 90's, and sold performance parts into the mid 2000's. I sold quite a few of the first EFI kits that came out at the time. I recall the B&M Superjection, the original Halletec F8, The early Electromotive systems, the Holley Commander 950, Accel DFI (with their SuperRam intakes), and a bunch of others ones that I can't even remember. Guess what? almost no parts, or no parts are available for many of those early systems and no one supports them, they are now mostly useless, and every day another one gets tossed into the trash. So, while the cool new EFI kit may be more reliable than a carb, and you could argue the contrary, eventually ALL the current EFI kits will get superseded by newer EFI kits, and the manufacturers will stop supporting them. Since these kits were not produced in the tens of millions or hundreds of millions like an OEM EFI, as soon as the original manufacturer changes to a newer kit or just gets out of the EFI business, or goes out of business, no one will support them, and your fancy EFI kit will be one bad part away from being in the trash can. What parts you can find for these old kits can also skyrocket in price. Look at what Holley wants for a Commander 950 O2 sensor:
Holley 534-190 Holley Commander 950 Wideband Replacement O2 Sensors | Summit Racing
This has to be taken into consideration when doing one of these kits. You may not be able to find parts for the Sniper EFI 10-20 years from now, the parts could get outrageously expensive, and since the aftermarket has moved on, it will get more difficult to find someone that knows how to work on them. Eventually Holley will move to a newer EFI system, and discontinue all the previous stuff, or they could just get out of the EFI business, or could completely go out of business.
Now, if you do not plan to own your car for more than a decade this may not be a concern, but judging by previous history, all these kits will eventually get replaced by a newer better kits, and the older ones will start to get dumped. As the older kits start disappearing parts will no longer be available. I am pretty sure that even 20 years from now I will still be able to get a rebuild kit for my 72 Thermoquad, Carter made millions of these and unless people stop working on and restoring these cars, they will be available.
You can still get rebuild kits and parts for the OEM carbs of the 1930's to 1950's Ford Flatheads, and its been almost 100 years. Try to get anything for a Sniper EFI kit in 100 years, ain't going to happen.
Other consideration is that if anything happens to your EFI kit, and eventually it will, you are on your own trying to diagnose it. It has always been difficult to put a screwdriver to an electron, and most people have no idea how EFI works. You start getting a bad miss on your engine with an aftermarket EFI kit, and you are not an EFI guy or a DIY guy, who do you take it to? Call Holley tech?!?! Almost anyone can diagnose a carb and points engine, and if you cannot, someone in your town will know how to. These old carb/points/early electronic ignition systems have many drawbacks in efficiency and reliability, but they are very simple and easy to work on. My Hellcat dies in the middle of the road, it is towing time and it probably needs to go to the dealer, my Duster dies in the middle of the road, I take the tools out and start diagnosing it. I have a good extra ballast resistor and ECU box, and I bet you that I will most probably make it home, and if I do not I will know what the issue is and I can fix it myself.
jos51700
Green Bearing thread connoisseur
I would've told OP to keep the carb and just make it stock, but I'm not all bent out of shape about it like some other people in this discussion.
jos51700
Green Bearing thread connoisseur
Thank you for addressing the differences civilly.
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