speed density has no problem with headers

 

I had a '97 F250 CC 4X4 Speed Density, that my ex-wife now has. She is a tomboy and really wanted the truck. It has a 4" lift and 35's. I just got separated this past fall.

Anyways, I gave it to her b/c it wasn't a MAF truck, which is what I will be buying shortly.

Before giving her the SD '97, I had Hedman headers and a 4" single diesel exhaust put on, knowing that backpressure is mostly irrelevant to EFI vehicles(from experience). It was super quiet, and had to have picked up at least 50-60 hp. It had 33's on it initially, and after the full exhaust from 0-60 it would stomp on several friend's '05-up F150's. they had better top end, and were slowly catching up, but not for over a 1/2 mile. Like nearly 2 seconds faster to 60.

I would say that where a stock '97 460 is 250 bhp factory rated, with the full exhaust it would be def. 310+ bhp.

Now, with all that said, my plan is to do this to a MAF truck this spring, plus modify the intake for a BBK dual 65mm TB and 4" intake plumbing, plus a 90mm MAF, ported heads and full roller conversion if it will work on efi heads. I'll be checking with Reincarnation Auto about the roller conversion, as they are 460 specialists.

I'm hoping for 500 bhp, and will post everything as its done. The separation/divorce set me back a year, but this is something that I will do no matter what, I love the old 460, and want to stomp some diesel butt with it.

If all goes well, then next winter a custom Turbo or Supercharger setup will be done, and 700+ hp will be achieved.

 

I am new to this fuel injection stuff and was wondering if I could ask a couple quick questions here.

I have a 95 F350 460 EFI, how do I tell if it is speed density or MAF?

If I am following this thread corredtly, I can rebuild the 460 as a 514 and not change anything in the fuel injection?

sorry if this is a bit off the thread.

 

hey littlejohniii,

be aware that the BBk t-bodies for the 96 and earlier 460's are not 65mm thru and thru. the front 1/3 of the t-body is the same bore as the stock ford piece. the final 2/3 that includes the butterflies is bored to 65mm. i sent mine out to a local machinist to have the unit bored 65mm all the way thru. but he screwed it up.

having no $$ at the time, i went to the boneyard and bought a t-body from a pre '05 V10 w/ the pedal assembly for $75, drilled the mounting bolts outs slightly, installed my TPS in place of the V10 piece and bolted it on. i also used the pedal assembly and cable from the V10, modified the cable bracket, and bolted it up. only thing difficult is adapting the old cruise control cable to the new t-body. if you hit up a tranny shop or speedo shop you can find an adapter. the other choice is to bag the cruise unit from the V10 and just bolt it in instead of the stock piece.

i also took a t-body spacer and carved it up to allow each upper intake manifold runner to pull from either t-body butterfly - note the V10 upper is a common plenum, both butterflies feed the entire motor - something the 460's don't do... using the spacer also made all linkage installation much easier and allowed a nicer transition between the t-body dual outlets and the upper manifold

also, the V10 t-body is a single oval inlet whereas the 460 is a dual round inlet. it made no difference to me as i am completely redoing my intake plumbing to accomodate a new filter arraingement and relocating my IAT sensor as well as adding H2O injection.

the implication from the BBk website is that the V10 stock size is 57mm. i had ported my upper manifold to suit my BBk 61mm t-body. when i went to install the V10 piece i found that the ports were pretty much matched. next time i am in there, i will measure all bores and report.

you could run the BBk dual 65mm 97-04 t-body on the 460 engine.
you could run the BBk dual 62mm 97-04 t-body on the 460 engine.
you could run the BBk dual 61mm 87-96 t-body on the 460 engine.
you could run the Ford dual 57m 97-04 t-body on the 460 engine.
you could run the BBk dual 56mm 87-96 t-body on the 460 engine.
you could run the original Ford dual 51mm? 87-96 t-body on the 460 engine.
you might have to add a bit of weld to the outside edges of the upper manifold if the porting gets too close on the larger t-bodies, but that is simple.

neil

 

Hey Neil,

Haven't been on this site since winter, but I have finally got the Cobra BBK dual 65mm TB on the truck, with an '05 Mustang cai custom fit with some 4" intake tubing. It's a little redneck looking, and fitting the throttle cable bracket to work with the BBK unit without a spacer was an issue.

I port matched the inlet as well, and it has worked so good that I am now having a lean condition up top. I am going to put on an adjustable fuel regulator and gauge, and play with the pressure and hopefully cure it.

I have only done some 0-60 runs for testing b/c of the lean condition, but the truck dropped a full second, and turning 35's at that. As it sits, it runs from idle to 60 mph in 9.9 seconds, where a friend's stock one with stock tires from idle-60 was 12.5. My work truck, an '07 GMC 2500w/a 6.0, and 345 hp, with gear in it so weighs similar (6400 lbs), only runs 11.9.

I will try to post some pics, hopefully tonight.

 

Hate to jump on an earlier topic, but since you can't bolt up any aftermarket heads (since the intake won't bolt up) couldn't you get a aluminum air gap intake and have a machine shop machine some fuel injection bongs into it? How much would that run if you could? Would the throttle body elbow bolt up? Also will the factory tach work with the mustang MAF conversion?

 

GasGuzzler, sorry i never answered your question. my bad. anyway, if you have a speed density system, there will be an air filter over on the fender and two rubber hoses going to your throttle body with a plastic box thing just before the Tbody that has a hose coming out the bottom going to a round valve on the upper intake manifold. there will be no wiring going to any part of the intake plumbing. MAF is pretty rare.

actually there is one set of heads that will bolt up, i think..., and the manufacturer has a manifold that includes bosses for machining in injector ports. TrickFlow. now if only i could rob a bank and get away scot free...

littlejohniii, great to hear of your success! guess i am headed to a 65mm dual TB. so is this rig a MAF setup? if so, the pressure regulator trick should work. a mustang reg bolts right on. i could loan you one if you want to play before you spend the bucks... esteyes@***.net

if you have a speed density system, there is nothing you can do to change the mixture via the pressure regulator. the computer will readjust the mixture over time. and not a long time either. wonder if you could just add an injector to the upper manifold. steal fuel off the rail, maybe buy one of the h2o injection kit controller boards and use that to drive it. that would offer rpm and manifold vacuum as parameters to trigger the injector. i have seen boards for like 25 bucks. hell i will build it for you if you feel solder impaired.

i have been talking to shannon wall at western motorsports. his bank fire conversion system does not even use a MAF. smart guy, maybe drop him a line and see if he has a thought. he has been very helpful via email with me.

Mr. Shannon Wall
Western Motorsports Inc
www.wmsracing.com
Phone: 403-243-6205
Fax: 403-243-8102

best wishes, i am just finishing up the edelbrock victor hipo water pump nstall in the van so i can finally get the cooling system finished and filled so my ac guy can come charge me on monday so i can run to my tranny guy and find out what *****ty little bearing died in my tranny. jim at ATO did the tranny 150k+ miles ago. knowing him he will probably fix it under warranty. he is the god of E4OD's as far as i'm concerned.

once agin, great to hear of your success!

neil

 

It is a speed density. I do want to either convert this one or pick up a MAF truck down the road. What about going to larger injectors, say 30 lbers, or would that throw off the idle too much? I am not fully up on the workings of fuel injection and it's variables for tuning. I know the basics, and that they adjust within certain parameters, I thought with SD one could fool it with higher pressure or larger injectors.

I posted some pics in a photo album, still not quite done with the intake and still making a plastic heat shroud.

 

i thought that too a while back maybe tieing big injectors with ignition upgrade to get full burn i was told it would just pump less SD only measures rich or lean as far as i understand it would read rich and lean it out

 

first, an correction. i wrote <<the computer will readjust the mixture over time>> what i mean is that if you change the fuel pressure the computer will compensate and negate the gains you made via fuel pressure change. SD really just lives on the O2 sensor reading. that is why i liked the western m'sports solution. fuel pressure regulator changes then become a valid tuning method.

anyway...
i am not the expert on EFI, but i am learning. my first purchase were i you would be to buy and install a wideband O2 sensor. and hook up a fuel pressure gauge to find out if that in tank pump is just too old/slow to feed the new toys. then i would look into the next size up injectors. also, you might check the injectors carefully if they are older. bad spray pattern and clogged sediment screens are not unusual and definitely affect performance.

at one point i had a thought to lean out the mixture at cruise to be able to replace it with alcohol/water mixture and thus improve fuel mileage. the only way i could figure to do it was to add in a box between the O2 sensor and the ford computer with a preset correction factor that would fool the computer into leaning out to the air/fuel ratio i want. the pieces are out there but seemed pricey for the return. i originally tried the adj press reg... that is why i have one i can loan. i have not looked hard for a mixture adj device but am pretty sure i saw something a few monthes ago that was reasonably priced but it used a wideband setup and then fed the computer your adjusted value.

go look at western motorsports stuff. last time i was there they were moving to a new website so you really had to work to find stuff. but the manuals are there and the tuning guides are there. good reading. shannon speaks of 2 to 3 mpg improvements plus unlimited tuneability as engine parts change. the only reason i hesitate is that the van computer controls so much stuff that other fords (like mustangs) do not use the computer to control - like EGR, A/C, trannys... yeah, if you do western's deal you will need a baumann trans controller for your E4OD. killer toys but my brain is only so big.

let's keep this going and then maybe narrow it down to something we can throw out to the efi community for answers.

neil

 

What I want to do with my build, well once she's back up and running again is get the heads ported by reincarnation, do a nice roller cam/rockers, injectors, headers, mustang dual 65mm throttle body with low enough compression to possibly throw boost at it someday. Now how difficult is the mustang MAF swap? Can you keep your stock tach working? Also is anyone running the baumann trans controle? wondering how hard it is to tune it

 

START HERE: http://eecperformance.com/mafconversion.html

http://wmsracing.com/wmsweb/sds.html...php?content.22
http://www.mass-floefi.com/mass-flo.html
http://www.becontrols.com/index.htm
http://www.powertraincontrolsolutions.com/
http://www.sdsefi.com/index.html
http://www.flowmanagementunlimited.c...2426ca0fc3b5a8
http://www.dunne-rite.com/home.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/5...-write-up.html
http://www.off-road.com/trucks4x4/ar....jsp?id=198382
http://www.ag.auburn.edu/~parmega/efi/carb2efi.html
http://www.fullsizebronco.com/forum/...p/t-13398.html

that is all i have in this computer on this topic. enjoy!!

neil

 

I talked to a Ford Tech, and he told me that Speed Density works off of Manifold Absolute Pressure, throttle position, and the O2 sensor.

So I don't understand how the computer would recognize the higher fuel pressure, unless you went too far and the engine was rich. If it's lean right now, with the computer maxed out trying to richen it up, raising pressure will push more fuel through the injectors, and with the right amount of extra pressure it would be spot on, yes/no?

According to what he said, one could possibly run larger injectors for the lean condition, if they were too rich the computer would decrease the 'on time' of the injector. I just never got a clear answer on what idle characteristics would be or WOT, b/c he said at WOT the O2 sensors don't do as much?

I am going to put on a regulator and a gauge this week, just to see if my pumps are getting weak, and try it out and see. I then may try 30lb injectors, as they are reasonably cheap on ebay. Can't hurt to try.

 

if i wasn't clear, please pardon me. what i meant to impart is that if you change the fuel pressure, the mixture changes, so the O2 sensors see the change and tell the computer which then changes inj pulse to compensate and bring mixture back in range.

when you get the gauge hooked up, check your fuel press leakdown. if you cannot hold pressure in the system for any length of time, that will also help point to beat up injectors.

i have that problem and am just gonna pull them all out for a cleaning. i hope that will do it... poverty is killing me right now...

 

Hey Neil,

I think my problem is that I'm out of the range that the computer can handle, and that I'm running lean. That is why I thought that upping the pressure would richen it up to where the computer wants it to be; and if I went too far it would lean it out. I really think that with the ported inlet, dual 65mm tb, and 4" intake plumbing it's getting a ton more air, more than the computer can handle.

To illustrate, the factory tb has little hole in the blades, that are 5/32" in diameter. I presume they are to help with idle, when the blades are closed. The BBK unit has a large 1/2" hole below the blades. I drilled out the inlet to match this hole. With the hole wide open, the truck idled at 16-1700. When I put a reducer in it with a 7/32 hole(basically 5/32 + 5/32 area), it now idles at 1000-1100, still high. The blades are closed, the hole is similarly sized to the old 2, so why is the idle still high? Does it draw air through the 1" bypass hose that goes down below to the base of the upper inlet? If so, it must be getting air that much easier(less vac) that the idle does not want to settle down?

I'm not sure on what I'm saying, just throwing ideas out there.

The gauge will be here in a couple of days; I will see what my pressure is at. How should it be checked? I've heard of key on/engine off pressure, idle pressure, and WOT pressure. With the gauge on the rail, how do you check the WOT pressure? Or is that with it in park, no load on the engine?