Wed afternoon I got a call from Spectre Performance in Ontario CA, asking CI for a little help with a project they were working on with Hot Rod Magazine. Spectre purchased a 74 Maverick with a 200ci motor and decided to install their new EFI/NOS system on it. The project was very low budget, for a very specific reason, so it was more or less just tossed together form parts they had lying around, or could purchase cheap. Classic Inlines donated a used header and a new 264-10 cam, which needed to be hand delivered to get it there by Thursday am.
Last week, they did the baseline dyno and some 1/4 mile runs with the stock motor, and with the EFI/NOS added. The motor only has 20K miles since rebuild, but has a severely scored piston in one cylinder causing some major blowby and loss of compression in that cylinder. When I got there Thursday morning, they went straight to work installing the new cam and headers, and still managed to do a few dyno pulls that evening.
Friday morning they buttoned it up and we headed off to LACR so they could do some comparison runs. We got to the track around 2pm and unloaded the Maverick. We made two passes without juice, and then attempted to make a pass with a 35 shot of NOS. Unfortunately, the solenoid decided to take a dump, and with no spare, we had to run without juice the rest of the evening.
Next week, they plan to install a new solenoid and take it back to the track for testing (probably Fontana). The plan is to add NOS in increments, up to a 250 shot, so I was disappointed I didn't get to see it. But they told me they would send me pics, and copies of the time slips and dyno pulls when they’re done.
The article will be in the Nov issue of Hot Rod, and should be pretty interesting to anyone considering either fuel injection or nitrous.
We will be working with them over the next two months, building a new motor with EFI/NOS and a turbo, helping with the install, and getting it tuned and tested. The car will then head off to Illinois mid Sept, for Hot Rods Drag Week. For those who don't know what that is, basically the car must be street legal and driven to five different tracks, in five different cities, over the five day event. The idea is to produce as much power as possible, yet maintain reliability and drivability, as no support vehicles are allowed. You either make it, or you don't. I'm not sure how they do the scoring, and come up with the winners? But it should be a blast.
I'll be posting a lot of info on the EFI/NOS system, as its based on a megasquirt design, is loaded with features, very reasonably priced, and is super easy to tune (for even a novice installer). We'll be working with Spectre Performance developing programs for various inline setups. So all the customer needs to do is install the system, download the appropriate program from either their website our ours, and upload it into the onboard computer. The programs can even be shared between users.
The project we were working on yesterday was to determine how much juice a stock motor could handle before coming apart, and to determine what was going to let go first. Which is one reason why it was a low budget build. They also planned to swap in a V8, but had so much fun with the inline, they convinced themselves to keep going with it. Well, maybe we had a little to do with it. :roll:
Unfortunately, the NOS part of the project was delayed until next week. But I did get to see first hand, how much is gained with a mild cam and a set of headers. It was pretty impressive. However, I've been asked not to publish any of the test results, for obvious reasons. I can say, it was in excess of 30%and before adding the cam, they couldn't get the rear wheels to light up.
Last week, they did the baseline dyno and some 1/4 mile runs with the stock motor, and with the EFI/NOS added. The motor only has 20K miles since rebuild, but has a severely scored piston in one cylinder causing some major blowby and loss of compression in that cylinder. When I got there Thursday morning, they went straight to work installing the new cam and headers, and still managed to do a few dyno pulls that evening.
Friday morning they buttoned it up and we headed off to LACR so they could do some comparison runs. We got to the track around 2pm and unloaded the Maverick. We made two passes without juice, and then attempted to make a pass with a 35 shot of NOS. Unfortunately, the solenoid decided to take a dump, and with no spare, we had to run without juice the rest of the evening.
Next week, they plan to install a new solenoid and take it back to the track for testing (probably Fontana). The plan is to add NOS in increments, up to a 250 shot, so I was disappointed I didn't get to see it. But they told me they would send me pics, and copies of the time slips and dyno pulls when they’re done.
The article will be in the Nov issue of Hot Rod, and should be pretty interesting to anyone considering either fuel injection or nitrous.
We will be working with them over the next two months, building a new motor with EFI/NOS and a turbo, helping with the install, and getting it tuned and tested. The car will then head off to Illinois mid Sept, for Hot Rods Drag Week. For those who don't know what that is, basically the car must be street legal and driven to five different tracks, in five different cities, over the five day event. The idea is to produce as much power as possible, yet maintain reliability and drivability, as no support vehicles are allowed. You either make it, or you don't. I'm not sure how they do the scoring, and come up with the winners? But it should be a blast.
I'll be posting a lot of info on the EFI/NOS system, as its based on a megasquirt design, is loaded with features, very reasonably priced, and is super easy to tune (for even a novice installer). We'll be working with Spectre Performance developing programs for various inline setups. So all the customer needs to do is install the system, download the appropriate program from either their website our ours, and upload it into the onboard computer. The programs can even be shared between users.
The project we were working on yesterday was to determine how much juice a stock motor could handle before coming apart, and to determine what was going to let go first. Which is one reason why it was a low budget build. They also planned to swap in a V8, but had so much fun with the inline, they convinced themselves to keep going with it. Well, maybe we had a little to do with it. :roll:
Unfortunately, the NOS part of the project was delayed until next week. But I did get to see first hand, how much is gained with a mild cam and a set of headers. It was pretty impressive. However, I've been asked not to publish any of the test results, for obvious reasons. I can say, it was in excess of 30%and before adding the cam, they couldn't get the rear wheels to light up.
:wrench: 
