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327 fuel injection questions. Help from the gurus

Vombrown

Vombrown

Mountain Man
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Great Falls mt
ok I am posting this here for a local friend. He has a mild 327 in his 69 3/4 ton truck. 400 turbo trans and 205 t/c if that matters. He is having some issues with angles climbing hills and has been after me for a while to help him out with his truck woes. I suggested going fuel injection, for various reasons. Now don't misunderstand, I know very little about stand alone injection systems, I'm a diesel guy. He, like a lot of us isn't in a position to spend a lot of money. I am trying to recommend a simple setup for his needs to get his truck up and running.

My first thought was the DIY fuel injection systems using a TBI setup and tunable ECM.
 
Vombrown said:
ok I am posting this here for a local friend. He has a mild 327 in his 69 3/4 ton truck. 400 turbo trans and 205 t/c if that matters. He is having some issues with angles climbing hills and has been after me for a while to help him out with his truck woes. I suggested going fuel injection, for various reasons. Now don't misunderstand, I know very little about stand alone injection systems, I'm a diesel guy. He, like a lot of us isn't in a position to spend a lot of money. I am trying to recommend a simple setup for his needs to get his truck up and running.

My first thought was the DIY fuel injection systems using a TBI setup and tunable ECM.
Click to expand...
@bp71k5 may be selling off his tbi and tuning equipment. Tagging him in case he is going to be doing that.
 
I just stripped a 88 350tbi . ran when parked over 6-7 years ago .

I can plug in the computer and test it on my other truck if need be .

it had just over 40k miles on it . tbi needs clean up or rebuilt .

pm me if interested.
 
Make sure to think through the wiring portion before digging into this.

The older rigs just weren't setup for a bunch of "accessories", so the fuse panel is near worthless. Not sure how the ignition switching works either.

IMO the best idea would be to use a TBI fuse panel and as much of it's wiring as possible, but it will take some work. No question it's doable, but these projects nickel and dime you.
 
EFI is a good idea but the true culprit of his truck is certainly the carb and it can probably be remedied for far less than the cost of fuel injection. I'd be willing to bet he has a Holley double pumper on it that was set up for a car that does straight line drag racing. Look into the term fuel slosh in regards to Holley and you will find a lot of information regarding to the poor results experienced with offroad vehicles when the Holley carb is not setup for an offroader. Your friend can spend some time and research and fix that issue for very little money if he does indeed have a Holley. One other altnernative, he could go to a junk yard or old school mechanics shop and get a early 70's quadrajet and clean and rebuild it properly (yeah yeah, I know, lol), or staying in the realm of a performance oriented alternative, swap over to an Edelbrock Performer carb and eliminate the fuel slosh problems. Also, there are Holley carbs that were offroad friendly, but I think the fuel slosh problem gets ignored until someone gets off center and starts to experience the unexpected fuel starvation that happens when those carbs are not set up properly.
 
He actually has a Holley truck avenger on it now. While it helps with angles it still leaves a good amount to be desired. Montana has a habit of being up hill or down hill....not too much flat around here.
 
I have a 66 C20 with a 327. I'm still thinking about keeping the carb since it's not an offroad rig but if I do decide on EFI I'll probably get the most basic FiTech system that is about $800. It doesn't do the timing control but that's fine with me. After pulling a factory TBI setup out of my 89 and doing a Holley Sniper EFI, I think the new aftermarket EFI systems would be a lot easier and simpler to do in an older vehicle. Realistically the price is probably going to be real close to the cost of making a factory system work. Heck this is exactly the application these companies made the newer EFI kits for.

Plus the FiTech or Holley Sniper would still look like a carburetor equipped motor - ish.
 
This guy isn't an off-roader, per say. He cuts firewood out of the national forest with the truck and it gets a little sporty in there sometimes. Having a truck die, or spit/sputter while back about ten miles from anything resembling paved road isn't fun at all. Here it's all about reliability. I have tried to convince him to go diesel but he likes his 327. There is no contest of the reliability of FI vs Carb. I was explaining this to him yesterday.
 
I don't blame him for wanting to keep the 327, I feel the same way. The EFI is nice. This morning it was 33°F, I turned the key to run so the fuel pump would pressure up, then hit start and it fired up. No pumping the accelerator pedal required. I think he would like that.
 
i feel that unless one is a parts hoarder or gets a running TBI setup cheap it would be very difficult to do a Junkyard Sourced EFi setup. Can it be done, yes, will it be cheap, yes but once you look at all the worst case scenario as far as rebuilding the TBI, rebuilding Injectors, possibly having to buy a fuel tank, all new sensors etc, you would be hard pressed to beat the price of the standalone from Holley or FiTech.
 
RubberFloorMat said:
i feel that unless one is a parts hoarder or gets a running TBI setup cheap it would be very difficult to do a Junkyard Sourced EFi setup. Can it be done, yes, will it be cheap, yes but once you look at all the worst case scenario as far as rebuilding the TBI, rebuilding Injectors, possibly having to buy a fuel tank, all new sensors etc, you would be hard pressed to beat the price of the standalone from Holley or FiTech.
Click to expand...

You are correct that these swaps can/will nickel and dime you to death if you don't get them complete. I'd think $300 out the door from a wrecking yard would get you a complete TBI setup. I doubt the aftermarket can match that, even if you are dealing with replacing sensors, which really isn't a necessity. Even the throttle bodies don't have the same issues that carbs seem to with the throttle shaft, but they are also a fair bit newer.

If you can afford new out of the box, go for it. But for those that don't have that kind of money, factory swaps can be done fairly cheap. Just time consuming.
 
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