!Gn|T|0n

The day finally arrived! Yesterday Rollin and I said goodbye to my HO inlet manifold. This operation was followed by the installation of the following.

Cobra upper and lower intake manifold

ED XR8 Sprint 70mm MAF

24lb injectors

65mm throttle body.

My smile is beyond quantification. I’ll get to the results a little later… first some background.

The prep work for the job was tainted only by my painful search for the two grade 5 high tensile 5/16th UNC thread 7” bolts that join the upper and lower manifolds together. They were the only things missing from the gear when I purchased them and I found that Ford did not stock them; nor did Queensland Fasteners and numerous other bolt specialists. Finally I found a bolt supplier (Bolt King) at Cabalaba who had some in grade 8 high tensile in stock

I had the injectors ultrasonically cleaned by Eletronic Injector Services. This service included new rings and lube.


The installation was what I would call flawless. It took us 5 hours with interruptions. Everything worked a treat and there were no parts left over!

The process was very easy. Out came the coolant. Off came the intake guts, upper inlet, fuel lines (we used EL1XR8’s coke bottle trick which worked very well), wiring, distributor, hoses etc.





Because this manifold had been sourced from an E-series V8, we were fortunate enough to have all the sensors, vacuum lines and EGR related oddities in exactly the same place as they were on the original equipment. The only modification that was required was a minor sanding of the airbox lid and a minor filing of the bottom of the airbox side of the MAF to enable the bolt holes to line up. I also needed 3 longer bolts (m6 x 40) to bolt the new MAF to my airbox. I’ve read that you can purchase an adapter plate but this took ½ an hour and worked very well. Here the new MAF is pictured beside the old one.



Once we’d taken the lower manifold off the satanic nature of the cursed HO(e) manifold could be clearly seen! The manifold to the bottom of the following picture flows about 125cfm/runner, the one to the top around 200cfm/runner (thanks goes to RaceCraft for the painting).

!Gn|T|0n

Then came the removal of the old gaskets and a polish with an air buff. Rags were placed in the valley to minimise the amount of waste gasket material entering the valley, and a vacuume cleaner was used to suck any nasty particles of gasket and buff pad that sneaked their way into the inlet ports. We buffed along the intake side of the heads, the lower manifold to head / block surfaces, the upper to lower intake manifold faces, the upper to egr spacer faces and the throttle body faces.

















On with the fun part… the 24lb injectors were inserted into my freshly polished fuel rail, bolted to the new lower and torqued down.



In goes dizzy, upper manifold, EGR spacer, throttle body, airbox, tubing, wiring, hoses and coolant…


… turn key…

!Gn|T|0n

Bwooob bwooob Bwooob bwooob Bwooob bwooob Bwooob bwooob Bwooob

!Gn|T|0n’s knees go weak. Such a deep note. She sounded very impressive indeed! I climbed into the cockpit, backed her out and took off up the street. The behaviour seemed akin to that of a sex deprived feral animal. She just wanted to take off, loving every poke, jab and prod of the loud pedal.

Much more pull up high and wheel spin more of an issue from idle







I’ve had a play with it again today. She is running rich which is not surprising with the all the changes to AFR altering components. I’ve had a before power and AFR dyno run and will get an after one in the next couple of days once the computer has relearned a little to see exactly what the results are. At that point I’ll scan and post both plots.

A worthwhile modification in my mind! Many thanks to Rollin for his time and expertise. The sound on song is orgasm inducing. See ya, I’m off for a drive :s6:

barry_v

great photos! are you planning on colour coding the cobra cardinal red as you did with the HO?

__________________
1992 DC LTD 5.0
Duel exhaust, Genie extractors, Ported E7 heads, ported lower HO inlet, 70mm maf, Underdrive Pullies

galaxy xr8

Good job, great pic's.

__________________
AU II XR8
Herrod mod's,mmmn.
XW Wagon 221-2V,
Laser a maser.

psycho chicken

I want that sticker for my tool box!

Congrats mate, I'm so jealous right now.

!Gn|T|0n

Thanks. The manifold is now set in cement. The rocker covers were painted in a mixed colour and using black was just easier. It's been covered in clear now. I've noticed a decrease in fuel consumption (going by the trip computer) since the work. This is interesting considering how rich it is running. I've heard that the trip computer makes estimates based on injector pulse width so the higher rating injectors could be confusing it. It certainly seems as though the ECU fuel maps are a required to match the MAF with the injectors. It certainly makes sense to me as you'd have a qantised and finite set of MAF sizes if the only way you could attain correct AFR is the injector rating.

EDXR8

The problem I see is that the Sprint MAF is actually still calibrated for 19lb injectors, the conversion is done in the Sprint EEC itself. So if you are running the standard V8 EEC you will be running very rich.

!Gn|T|0n

If the MAF is matched to 19lb injectors then going by the ratio of injector ratings I'm running 26% richer. Such symptoms exist. Momentary hesitation going from idle to WOT, black smoke, she's running as rich as Kerry Packer. There were so many differing opinions on MAFs injectors and EECs that I decided to install the 24's and see how she goes. It may be worth sticking the 19's back in before the 'after' dyno run. What do you think? It sounds like there is little chance of the EEC learning it's way around this and even if it does that would only be in closed loop mode. Then I'll have some ultrasonically cleaned ford 24lb injectors for sale I guess.

When we were playing with the timing yesterday I found that it pinged a little when set to 31.9°ish BTDC. Running only 98 octane it was happy set on 32° before the work. Is the motor more prone to pinging when running rich? It's been backed off to a fly's retirement plan shy of 31° BTDC now and is running well.

I'd also like to add that in my mind the fact that the car not only started on the 3rd or 4th crank after the install but also that there have been no temperature problems, leaks or issues of any sort save the AFR to date is a testament to the pride Rollin takes in his work.

EDIT: ...just to provide some figures, fuel consumption has fallen from about 14.7L/100ks to 13.0L/100ks. Again I'm not sure if these figures are accurate, perhaps we will notice a return to the 14's upon reinstallation of the 19lb injectors. I should probably get these properly cleaned also. There goes anther $200

EDXR8

Yeah don't think the EEC will be able to adjust that much, I would think changine back to 19lb's would be the way to go. BTW, running that rich will probably cause your spark plugs and oxygen sensors to foul up really quickly so if you are going to get on the dyno you might want to clean them up first.