After four years, I've finally turned the key on my EFI conversion. This is based heavily on Josh's conversion (not to mention the various parts I got from him):

  • 3.0L PRV from a 1989 Eagle Premier
  • EDIS
  • Motorcraft EE03A coil-on-plug
  • Megasquirt II
  • XRSE-C5B Injectors (I think that's 19 lbs/hr)
  • TPS and MAP sensors installed
  • LC-2 wideband O2 sensor
  • Stock automatic transmission


I've been documenting this conversion with a decent amount of depth, all of which can be found here.

I'm using a tune I set up myself from the MS docs and specs I was able to find online. This is in part because I somehow didn't notice that people had posted their tunes here.

After cranking for a bit, the engine started, and stabilized in the 600-800 range for idle. To be honest, I was pretty surprised it started at all. It pretty much sat there as long as I didn't touch anything. However:

  • The idle feels rough -- the entire car is rocking a bit as the engine idles. It's not clear to me what the problem is there, if a cylinder isn't firing, or what is going on. Although I get the impression that a cylinder not firing would be pretty obvious, I don't necessarily know what I"m looking for.
  • The exhaust smells very rich (at least I think that smell is "rich"). The exhaust looks a bit white to me, but I'm not good at picking out exhaust colors (attempts at taking photos failed completely).
  • I tried giving it some gas, and while it revved a little, it stalled soon after that. I'm not surprised by this, since the engine isn't even remotely tuned.
  • When cranking, I'd hear a bang sometimes, like metal against sheet metal. I think this was the starter hitting the fly wheel as the engine tried to catch but couldn't quite do it, but still started turning faster than the starter, which caused the starter to smack into the tooth instead of meshing with it. Or something like that. I didn't hear this sound once the car was actually running, so it's probably just the starter.


The thing is, I'm not sure what exactly I should do next.

I did think to turn on logging for my second start, but I'm not really sure how to read the data so that I can make adjustments. These logs are attached along with my tune:




On another note, my attempt at a quiet exhaust isn't really very quiet. I used a sound meter on my phone, which isn't exactly a great test, but it showed ~72 dB with the engine off, and ~92 DB when I was standing next to the exhaust, and in the low 80s when I was about 10-15 feet behind the car. I'll have to do some more scientific tests with a calibrated meter later. Also, the car is in a garage, which is surely amplifying the sound a fair bit.


Here is a video of it running (11 seconds). It sounds rough to me, or at least it sounds more like an air compressor than a car engine, like it should be smoother-sounding:


Thanks!

-- Joe