EFI tech stuff

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Erik712m
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Post by Erik712m »

Why the drastic price dif. In the controllers?
russ
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Post by russ »

Erik712m wrote:Eric, 1977 was the year I was born, can't say I remember Carter. :lol:

Russ, or any one in Alan's area seen his or driven EFI pinz?
I haven't seen any EFI units. Thought Wayne R said he was getting one at one point. I don't think he went down that road. My only concern with EFI is waterproofing it! :D
Image
Pre Snorkel

I'm not a Pinz electronics fan, in fact I took out my 24V-110VAC converter and A/C unit. Good thing too, FL swamp water is conductive! I even took out my Pertronics which functioned perfectly. I may consider putting that back in. BTW, did I mention I'm an electrical and computer engineer? :lol: Perhaps that's why I like the Pinz.

My carbs get me around off-road and on-road I wuss out and trailer my Pinz to events. Still drive around town for fun but I don't really want to kill my LTB-08s on evil pavement.

'77! Now I feel old...

OK, enough thread side tracking, back to EFI.
If you didn't get stuck, you didn't try hard enough.
'74 710K

1984 in 2009
Jim LaGuardia
United States of America
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Post by Jim LaGuardia »

Ka, yes I can do an install and charge by the hour. I will be completing an install On Bruce's truck in the near future,
I plan on doing a write up with pictures on building the harness for an EMS 4860,6860, 8860 series sequential set up 8)
Cheers, Jim LaGuardia
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v510/Goatwerks/
"Arch Magus of Machines."
ka
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Post by ka »

sounds good. i guess i need to make some choices re efi. i also need to make some choices re where i end up next - left or right coast. it'll be gr8 to see what you've done!
Last edited by ka on Tue Dec 02, 2008 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
1973 710m
"it is not in the best interest of the shepherd to breed smarter sheep." ~ author unknown

press any key to continue or any other key to quit. ~author confidential
MASSIVE PINZ
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Post by MASSIVE PINZ »

First off:
I am busy trying to get our kits shipped out and therefore I don't have much time for any content here at the present.

I will state now that I have a multitude of data from the same engine using 3 different ECUs, none of which made more than a 2% difference in engine output or BSFC when tested comparatively in my lab, or in field testing with a 28 channel data logger employed in the Pinz.

The key is the plenum, the differences that we saw with plenum and injector changes were huge and spamnned from the engine's smoothness id idle and at speed to MPG and overall power across the entire RPM range, both on and off road.

My truck was a completely different vehicle after making the final plenum changes that the current kit employs.

I have over 3Gb of data, 2 folders full of notes and all the drawings of my plenum available for sale if the right dedicated souls would like to purchase it. Its over 3 years worth of research and testing. This will not be sold cheap, it has cost me thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of my personal time to gather.

When I deliver these 16 kits that we are completing now, I will not be offering future units. The price to create something thats effective is more than is fair to the Pinz enthusiast. I am only delivering these 16 kits to fulfill my obligations to those who believed in what we wanted to create for the Pinz-

Keep in mind that we have found 4 or more different camshaft profiles from Pinz engines, so there are variables in the engines over time that are not well known due to the vast lack of precision when the engines are generally rebuilt. These cams will create tuning variances and I am sure that I will have to work through some of these as we support our systems in the near future.

The fuel changes will also impact the Pinz- no matter what anyone says. I have data that shows what occurred with my Pinz when we changed from our Winter Blend of fuel to the Summer Blend and I have this over a span of two seasons of driving.
Plenum shape has minimal effect on pinz performance as long as you do not have unequal airflow. What matters is the volume. The pinz is not a high volume, high rpm engine where intake runner/plenum dynamics come into play. The valve & intake port are really the constraining factors.
I could not disagree more with this statement. Plenum size, volume and shape made the biggest impacts to the Pinz engine that we saw- period.

I'll close by saying that my current schedule and priorities for my company don't allow me time to directly work with any future Pinz EFI projects, but I'd be willing to assist Alan and Herbert in any way possible with their efforts. Herbert is a good friend and neighbor to us and has helped me out of "trouble" with my Pinz in the past. I have capabilities here that others don't have as well as experience with the Pinz that neither Herbert or Alan have experienced yet and the best way to develop things is with a team effort. I learned that long ago. My lab just expanded to include a chassis dyno as well as two engine dynos and I just reconfigured my data logger to 32 channels.

I'd like to advance the Pinz as much as possible, but I just don't have the time to do more than "assist" others with their efforts these days as my Company is exploding, even with the current Economic crap going on.
Jake Raby
Owner, Raby's Aircooled Technology
www.aircooledtechnology.com
gunnar
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Post by gunnar »

my conclusion so far is that I will wait for pinztreks system as the statements he makes sound very reasonable to me. If I could get Jims system as a
complete set with all the needed parts I would get one to bridge the time gap
but at the end I would get pinztreks system although I haven`t seen it jet
as long as It doesn`t exceed my financial possibilities. It is very interresting to follow this discussion but sad that some cannot differ between comments made on a thing and critics on the person. If my english was better I would
write more and clearer statements....

greetings from
Austria

gunnar
Erik712m
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Post by Erik712m »

Gunner, your written english is better than mine. :shock: :lol:


I'm not sure how you made since out of any of it, with three opposing views on one engine.

From what I have read so far. Alan has been very gracious with sharing what they are working on. But with no one else to give any real world experience I can only remain a sceptic. As a member of the pinz community I have seen other eloquently written pinz upgrades. That sadly did not preform as described.

I have driven In Jim's truck, and fill it preformed very well in every thing he put it through, on the day we went out. That being said what he is offering would be something that I would be incapable of installing. As it is not bolt on ready to go.

By the way I am an owner of Jakes kit and look forward to having it installed as I hate my carbs. I'll post once I get it installed, whenever that year is.

Is there more forum members west of the Mississippi than east?
Last edited by Erik712m on Tue Dec 02, 2008 1:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
andy
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Post by andy »

Erik712m wrote:Gunner, your written english is better than mine. :shock: :lol:
Reread your post...you have just removed any doubt that might have remained about your written English. :lol: :lol: :roll:

Andy
A bar F
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pinztrek
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Post by pinztrek »

russ wrote: I haven't seen any EFI units. ...... My only concern with EFI is waterproofing it!
Hello Russ,

It's been a while!

Yes waterproofing is a primary concern for some of us.

I'll be posting a video of water being sprayed on the EFI controller in my truck while driving. Submersion testing would be unlikely extreme, but the controller & connectors are all gasketed (including ignition).

Herbert & I are hoping to make one of the upcoming FL meets, there is one military one coming up which looks promising. I'm also considering trying another president's day or MLK weekend Ocala meet. Anyone game?

We want to torture test the trucks on the jungle cruise we found at the inaugural FL Treffen. :-)

Have fun,

Alan
pinztrek
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EFI Talk: Throttle Body sizing for EFI systems (long)

Post by pinztrek »

Several of you have indicated you'd like to learn more about EFI on the pinz. Since throttle body size came up recently, it's worth discussing.

Lot's of misunderstanding in the EFI world about throttle bodies. Which is a shame, as they are one of the best understood areas of engine dynamics. And a very simple device, not much different in operation than your water faucet.

And lot's of folks get excited about "oversized" throttle bodies, it's a very easy mod on factory vehicles where HP has been increased by changing cam, boost, etc. But that is not the case for pinz EFI for some very specific reasons:


EFI Tech talk follows..... skip if not interested!

Throttle bodies need to be sized to the airflow of the engine. Too small, and they create a restriction and rob HP. Too large and they decrease throttle control as they reach full flow at only partial throttle. (and along the way give the perception of improved acceleration)

On a your average toyota tuned for economy, then add a cam, increase boost, etc, there is indeed a benefit from going to a larger diameter throttle body. But it's because you have made changes that flow (and demand) more CFM of air. And make significantly more HP.

But if the engine HP and airflow remained largely unchanged, the only impact would be your reach WOT (wide open throttle) with less pedal input. And in doing so lose control of the throttle modulation.

WOT is pretty much defined as when the air pressure on the engine side (normally under vacuum) becomes very close to the pressure on the air filter side. Which should be close to atmospheric for non-turbo vehicles.

We measure that as MAP (Manifold Absolute Pressure), also known as vacuum. And compare it to atmospheric pressure.

Once you reach WOT, there is no advantage in HP or response in making the opening larger. Think of the engine as a pump which has a certain flow. For a box stock factory pinz, that is roughly 123 cfm or so (+-) at sea level. The engine cannot pump more air without changing the cam, valves, compression or bore.

If the throttle body bore is too small, even at WOT (minimum restriction), you cannot achieve full flow. But in an oversized TB, once the valve is open enough to reach 123 CFM, opening it further has no effect as it's no longer the restriction.

Bodies have measured loss at specific flows which translate to reduced horsepower. So you want to find the throttle body that allows full flow at slightly less than full deflection (full pedal). Any larger and you just lose throttle range. And smaller and you are losing HP.

For a factory pinz airflow/hp, that range is in the 47-55mm range of throttle bodies. Moving from 50 to 55mm, or 55mm to 60mm only result in restriction reduction that would theoretically result in a .1 HP improvement each step. But the cost is reduced throttle range.

Moving the other way, 50 down to a 45mm results in .2 HP reduction, and from 45 down to 35 a full 1 HP reduction. So you are clearly into restrictive range.

All of these numbers are relative and representative only. An individual system may see a slight difference in optimal size.

There are several factors to keep in mind:

1) CFM of a throttle body increases exponentially with bore. It's a function of area, and that is Pi * radius squared. Increase the bore, area goes up and so does CFM for a given restriction. Likewise, airflow increases exponentially as the throttle is cracked.

Another way to look at it is that the restriction and thus HP loss increases exponentially with bore reduction. So it's important to find the right size.

2) The price of an over sized TB is reduced throttle range. With a 60mm TB on my 2.5l EFI pinz I see effective WOT at 1/3 pedal travel at 3000 rpm. From 1/3 to full, the intake is close to atmospheric. No difference. So I lost quite a bit of control in fine throttle modulation. Coming off idle, the impact is much larger.

In automotive terms this is called "tip in" response. Feels like you are accelerating faster, but it's just the equivalent of pressing more pedal.

Downside: much harder to get small throttle increases, jitter at speed due to small pedal movements making big airflow changes, etc.

Because of this, we have moved to a smaller throttle body for 2.5l. For 2.7l the 60mm is less problematic, but you still see WOT at half pedal. So we've lost some control and will try smaller.

3) Engine peak CFM is largely fixed for a given cam, compression, bore, and exhaust backpressure. IE: It's a mechanical constraint, as the engine is a pump. Adding fuel or subtracting it does not change that.

4) CFM is directly related to HP for a given engine mechanical config & mixture. (really, HP is dependent on CFM, but you know what I mean) Adding more air just makes you run lean with reduced HP & higher temperatures. which leads to:

5) Most throttle bodies are rated by CFM at a given flow restriction, which is translated to a rough HP range. So size N would be good up to 100 HP, Size Q 200, etc. This allows you to apply some common sense in selecting throttle bodies. look for similar HP engines of similar displacement. Unless you are making 200 HP in your pinz, then you probably are not going to be happy with a TB sized for a 200 HP engine. You will never use it's full flow.

6) Intake dynamics in a plenum based system don't interact much with the throttle body size outside of what I described above. . The tbi size and position does have a very large impact on intake tuning in Independent throttle body systems, but that does not apply to pinz EFI offerings so far.

We really need to have a discussion of VE (Volumetric efficiency) to go further. The pinz engine is not a high VE config, for some specific design reasons. So it's maximum theoretical CFM would be 198 CFM, but a box stock factory pinz is pumps only 70% of that at peak HP, and less anywhere else. Peak VE is usually at peak torque, but the pinz torque peak is so low it still has modest CFM requirements. So all things being equal, we'd probably want a throttle body from an engine making 100'ish HP at 125-150 CFM. Turns out there are some that do exactly that! :-)

So what does all this mean for EFI on the Pinz? It's Goldilocks syndrome. There is a right TB size for a given engine configuration. With plenum differences you may see a few percentage variance in "optimum" size.

Too big or too small, there are huge differences. Get in the right range, and you have full throttle response with no restriction. And more importantly, very smooth control coming off idle.

This is a well understood engine dynamics, not just a personal theory. Much of it's just pure math... Ex: A 2.5l engine making 92 HP at 4k rpm at sea level at 21c degrees has a VE of .7 (70%) at that RPM.

Your average toyota has a VE in the 87%+ range. A non-turbo race car can approach 100, and some achieve 110% using tuned port dynamics, etc. But very expensive & exotic. The pinz was intentionally designed with a lower VE but a very broad torque band. Almost diesel like. It's a different beast ideally suited to it's role.

Again, don't care for the EFI background, then skip. If you want to know more, I can provide some reference links

Have fun,

Alan
Erik712m
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Post by Erik712m »

Alan, Nice... if the throttle body isn't properly size can it be hard to find certain rpm's if no load is applied? What would be a real world occurrence that one could relate. Is there a standard paddle range. You can see from kiss a$$ some of use aren't as smart as other but willing to learn. post some links.

The price of an over sized TB is reduced throttle range. With a 60mm TB on my 2.5l EFI pinz I see effective WOT at 1/3 pedal travel at 3000 rpm. From 1/3 to full, the intake is close to atmospheric. No difference. So I lost quite a bit of control in fine throttle modulation. Coming off idle, the impact is much larger.
Jake, have your changed from a 60mm Throttle Body?
Last edited by Erik712m on Tue Dec 02, 2008 8:45 pm, edited 6 times in total.
Profpinz
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Post by Profpinz »

G'Day Alan, long time no hear/see!
Good to see you back on the forum...Trust all is going well with you.
Sounds like the EFI project has really taken off.
Peter

1974, 712 6X6 Pinzgauer
1983, 710-1.6 4X4 Pinzgauer
1997, 718 6X6 Pinzgauer (in pieces)
1971, 700 Haflinger
1974, 703 LWB Haflinger
2001, Range Rover

http://www.ozpinz.com
pinztrek
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Post by pinztrek »

Erik712m wrote:The price of an over sized TB is reduced throttle range.
What this means is you go from idle to full throttle in less than 1/3 the full pedal travel, for example.

Makes it much harder to have small/slow RPM increases off idle. (big problem for offroad usage) And you can actually be jumping around a bit at cruise due to vibration on rough roads, etc.

Get it sized right, and you reach WOT (full airflow for your engine) just before the pedal hits the floor. Which gives you the most granular control.

There is no exact answer, but there is usually a general range that an specific engine config (displacement, cam, etc) does best with regardless of fueling.

Jenvey http://www.jenvey.co.uk, who is one of the oldest aftermarket throttle body mfg's explains the impact quite well:

"The choice of thottle body size for the typical road car is a compromise between two opposing needs; to allow sufficient air flow for the engine to achieve its full power potential and to keep the butterfly small enough to allow a progressive throttle action at low openings."

and

"It follows that enlarging the original throttle body will only make a useful gain when other aspects of the engine have been changed to substantially increase the power output. The most likely change due to a larger throttle body, if any, on an otherwise standard engine is a car that goes slower round corners due to lack of fine throttle control for the driver"

Jenvey makes throttle bodies with integrated injectors which would be ideal for the pinz if they had the right bore spacing. Alas, both Herbert & I tried separately to get them to make some for the pinz, but their core billet will not work. Same for the 2-3 other companies making similar.

They are widely used as webber, and similar replacements on sports cars.

Also quite pricey, but could have been a bolt on solution for the pinz.

If you want to learn more, this site:http://www.epi-eng.com/piston_engine_te ... ciency.htm has one of the better explanations of VE, it's impact on HP, etc.

The hardest concept for me to grasp early on is that the engine is essentially an air pump, and is constrained by it's capability to pump air. Fuel is totally dependent on the airflow. Adding more fuel without increasing the airflow just make the engine run rich, etc.

The throttle body is the primary input to how fast that pump runs. Everything else keys off of that. Open the throttle, more air moves in. (almost instantaneously) You immediately have to add fuel to keep the mix right, etc. Close it, the opposite occurs. Immediate vacuum increase, less air, your rpm/pressure lookup changes, you reduce fuel.

Have fun,

Alan
pinztrek
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Post by pinztrek »

Profpinz wrote:G'Day Alan, long time no hear/see!
Good to see you back on the forum...Trust all is going well with you.
Sounds like the EFI project has really taken off.
Hello Peter!

Yes, having a bit more time to hit the forum, not traveling as much.

And yes, having lot's of fun with EFI, and lot's of progress since we talked into the night at your place! (when was that...2000? When was the Sidney Olympics?)

I'll try to give you a call or email to catch up! Hope things are doing well for you in Oz.

Have fun, (and please tell inspector Gadget Hi if you see him)

Alan
Jerbearyukon
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Post by Jerbearyukon »

I have been watching this thread and I will say up fron that I don't have the FOGGIEST idea of what you are talking about.

What I am looking for is getting rid of the smell in the cab and having my pinz run smooth PERIOD.

It is running like a 90 year old lady towing a dog sled right now and I have heard many of you talking about how your carbueated ones are running perfectly well.

I need to get mine running so it won't BACKFIRE right now. I have an oil leak down the spark plug side of the engine and it's buring on the manifold.

Now I love the truck don't get me wrong, but I am not a mechanic. It's just hard to get ppl to work on them up here. Seems we are losing the old mechanics and the new ones...well don't even mention a carb to them. If they can't hook a scope up to it...their done.

So the EFI is sounding really good right now. Oil leaks I guess I will have to search the site to see what to do there.

Minus 25 here right now. I just added a magnetic oil pan heater and an Alaskan battery warmer to each battery.

Think sometimes it would be easier to moving somewhere WARM..oops did I actually say that.

Jer Bear :) :)
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