update: Installed and running. I have a few things to tie up yet but here is the deal. The install took a lot longer than I expected. some of the time it took was because I was unsure of a few items with the new distributor. I removed the charcoal canister and expected to mount the unit right in it's place. there was not enough room between the radiator shroud and the fender well. I also had to remove the washer bottle. the mount for the fuel command center (FCC) is a circle with a pinch bolt. The front of the circle would touch when tightened all the way but it was not tight around the FCC. I wrapped 2-3 wraps of electrical tape in 4 locations to make up the difference. now it's tight and you cant see the tape. it blends in with the mount and the FCC has a big muffin top that cover the mount. My FCC has a cracked low pressure gage. They said no problem they will send another one out. the plumbing for the FCC was straight forward but the Push Lock fittings are a real pain in the butt.
the straight fittings were easier to work with than the 90* or the 45* fittings. I used boiling water and WD40. still really tough, but they did not leak. wiring is super easy for the FCC 2 wires ground and 1 wire from the harness. The water temp sensor is temporary. it uses a 3/8" fitting. my intake on;y has a 1/8" tap. I did not want to take the time to tap a larger hole. I don't know exactly how to do that. I tee'd into he heater line out of the top of the water pump. it works fine and the temp matches my other guage reading.
all other wiring is really straight forward I removed the ballast resister and of course the ignition box. I jumpered the blue and brown wires together and ran that to the White wire on the FItech that gives it 12V in crank and run. I'm using timing control so I have a new Billet distributor. I found TDC on the #1 cylinder and pulled my mopar dizzy. paid attention to the location of the rotor. it was where it should be. when I stabbed the new distributor in, it was pointing at about where #2 cylinder is. this confused me for a while so I kept messing with that. I even took the distributor back apart and re clocked it from the lockout position to see if it changed anything. it did not so I just proceeded and wired the #1 post on the cap like I would our normal cap and followed the firing order around. when it was time to lock it down the clamp has 2 long fingers and 1 small one in the middle. the mopar dizzy has a relief cut into the shaft for this finger. the new one is straight shaft. I had to go to the bench grinder and grind some of the finger down to get the clampp to line up with the mount hole in the block. I had to make all new wires because it uses a male HEI style cap.
The actual install of the TB was just like any carb, 4 bolts and good to go. the problem I had was there are 2 ears that hang down past the base of the carb. I can attach a pic if needed. my intake was too wide for those ears to slide by the mount on the side so the TB would not sit flat. I had a 3/8" thick spacer that i used under the TB. that was just enough space to be able to mount it flat. The O2 sensor was a bit challenging to drill but a right angle attachment gave just enough clearance at the trans pan. 7/8" dia hole and a clamp on bung. seems cheesy but it works fine and no leak. the wire is not very long so plan accordingly.
the startup was good it fired and ran immediately. it was rough for about 20 seconds and the started to get things worked out within a few minutes it had adjusted the AFR to 13.6. the idol came down from high but not tto where it was set. I needed to adjust the air blade and reset the unit by key off. you need to make very small adjustments to this. it's not immediate and if you go too far it will quit and you may have trouble starting it again. not even a 1/4 turn is required. now it idols down to 700 jsut as programmed. I decided to go for a ride right away it was really running nicely and very responsive too, amazing. I got about 8 miles from the house and it started to spudder and backfire and then it died. I was sitting on the side of the road with no clue what to do. it would only crank and not even try to fire. luckily I had a good battery. after sitting for about 10 minutes, when I would crank it would start to fire and then quit. 5 more minutes of that and it finally started right up. I drove home immediately. it was running great again. got to the garage and it started to spudder again,. this time I looked at the handheld and it went to 20 AFR very lean. I looked at the gauges and the high pressure was at 20 PSI and low pressure was up to 12. it quit and again I could not start it for 15 to 20 minutes. I have since realized the low pressure is flooding the FCC and then the computer is shutting off the pump. the directions say 8 PSI low pressure is max. I sit around 7 PSI when idoling but it slowly climbs to 12 PSI I ordered a fuel pressure regulator to solve the issue. I don't know why my stock fuel pump can give so much PSI??? Anyway, the timing control works great advancing and retarding timing although out of the box it was throwing 18.5* at idol. I use 12* at start. the car did not idol great at 18.5* and it would not change it's self but maybe I did not give it enough tie to adjust it'self?? I manually changed it to 12* at idol and it smoothed it right out. Cold starts a super easy , more importantly, hot starts are just as easy. it was never easy to start it with the carb when at running temp.
I will get the pressure regulator on the 16th and hopefully that solves my issue with the FCC and I can get out and get more than 8 miles on it. So far I'm really happy with the unit. sorry for the book, but I wanted to be as informative as possible.
John
