Fuel Injection

[peterjfox69]

I was up at EJ Ward’s open day at the weekend looking at their new fuel injection system they are developing.
Went for a drive and found it surprisingly good.
Has anyone got any experience of other systems and costs etc.
Is it worth it?

[Philip Wardle]

Hi Peter, were you able to form a view of their progress so far and future plans?

[Lingen]

To what purpose on a 1970s Classic car? Why not fit ABS, electric power steering, adjustable suspension, digital dashboard with head up display, airbags, etc.as well?
Does't that defeat the whole object of owning and experiencing a bit of motoring history?

[Philip Wardle]

I guess they think there's a market for it, or it's an experiment? Some of the conversions I've seen on the 70's American classics are very well engineered and appparently achieve a worthwhile reduction in consumption - but I suppose that's not hard when your baseline is 8 - 12 mpg with some of them !

[richardthestag]

Like Lingen I do kind of understand the "aint broke, dont fix it" but then I also see that Triumph did the square root of bugger development during production. Mercedes with SL developed a number of fuel injection systems that kept their product several miles ahead. Just imagine a world where the Ewings of Dallas were smoking around in Triumph big saloons and Stags

So whilst part of me takes great pleasuring in getting what was originally supplied to work as best as is possible, there is another part that is interested in development of a decent "off the shelf" EFI solution.

I can take the hotwire EFI setup complete from a 1990s Rover v8 and fit it to a much earlier engine in a completely different vehicle. Currently working with a customer to get a full Lucas efi solution up and running on his 1976 Range Rover. Improved cold starting and running, improved fuel efficiency and a little more power are things that both of us are interested in. So his car moves from 13mpg round town and 17mpg at best to something that round town could be 16-17mpg and on a run 24-25mpg

[DJT]

The original brief for the Stag TV8 was 2.5 litre with PI, but as they couldn't get it to meet US emissions, it was increased to 3 litres and Strombergs fitted. The rest is history.

I believe Dave Jell has been trying to build a 2.5PI for several years, but don't know how far he has got.

There are several Stags running with fuel injected TV8 engines.

[peterjfox69]

Thanks for your answers.
I think they are at the rolling road stage at the moment getting performance figures etc together. Once they’re happy with all that I presume they’ll move into the production stage.
I think the reason behind the development is eventually emission regulations etc etc may well start to come into effect.
I agree the original set up works perfectly but we live in a world that’s changing, nothing we can do about that.
I know they’ve been working on it for the last year or so. Mick likes to constantly improve and develop the car out of an interest in engineering plus he runs a business so is constantly evolving. I know he’d like to try and work on developing head production although it sounds like a load of cash was spent over the years with not a lot of success.
Being a younger member of the Stag community, I’d like to be able to drive my car for another 30 years so these developments may well allow that to happen.

[Philip Wardle]

My friend Eddie Miller Jr (no longer with us) worked on big Healey prototypes, he told me that they experimented withTecalemit fuel injection. There was a lot of interest back then.

This is an interesting thread from another forum - https://forums.autosport.com/topic/2...on-system-mk2/

According to this thread, Bosch were infringing many of patents taken out by a British company, Petrol Injection Ltd, during the 1960s and settled out of court in the early 1970's for a very large sum of money. The company took the money... said thank you very much and then closed its doors. The rest is history - like D-Jetronic in Jaguar V12s from 1975

[flying farmer]

Thanks for your answers.
I think they are at the rolling road stage at the moment getting performance figures etc together. Once they’re happy with all that I presume they’ll move into the production stage.
I think the reason behind the development is eventually emission regulations etc etc may well start to come into effect.
I agree the original set up works perfectly but we live in a world that’s changing, nothing we can do about that.
I know they’ve been working on it for the last year or so. Mick likes to constantly improve and develop the car out of an interest in engineering plus he runs a business so is constantly evolving. I know he’d like to try and work on developing head production although it sounds like a load of cash was spent over the years with not a lot of success.
Being a younger member of the Stag community, I’d like to be able to drive my car for another 30 years so these developments may well allow that to happen.

I was having a look at it as well.
Talking to one of the guys there, ( I think it was actually the guy that does the bodywork), and he said it was based on my early experiments with fuel injection and they were hoping to come up with a kit they can market.
It has taken a while as they found the engine it was fitted to was in need of a full rebuild. They are working on a second design to make fitting easier, some of the parts were on the table next to the car with it fitted.

As it was fitted to a completely standard engine I reckon it will come out somewhere around 175bhp, peak torque will be similar to standard, most of the gains will be above 3500rpm.

I have now moved on to using longer inlet runners, much greater gains in torque and no losses in power.

For comparison I have attached a graph showing the figures for my Stag engined Estate and Steve Hills conversion, a developement of which I am using on my MK1 Stag. Although the Estate used a Rover V8 plenum top, the inlet port lengths and diameters are similar to the Wards set up and it is this that dictates the power and torque characteristics

From what I remember, Steves Mk2 Stag was internally standard but had tubular manifolds and a noisy exhaust. My Estate was very low compression (8.5 : 1) due to mk1 pistons and Mk2 heads, but the heads did have some mild porting work and it was also fitted with tubular manifolds. The graph came from the run with my Estate, but it was not a mapped system, just a Rover SD1 flapper type injection system and original stag distributor.

I subsequently fitted a Megasquirt ECU which performed far better at low to mid rpm but wouldn't have gained much at the top end. I ended up selling the car before I ever got it on the rolling road.

What can be seen is the longer inlet runners on Steves Stag gave a much better mid range torque. Torque fell off a cliff above 5000rpm, that is probably due to the standard heads, but there was very little difference between the two at the top end. I reckon if Steves inlet manifold had been fitted to the estate it would probably have peaked at about 195bhp

The two pictures are of my Mk1 Stag, top picture is the early design which would be very similar to Wards in performance and similar to my Estate on a standard engine. Second picture is the current inlet manifold which is a modified version of Steve Hills manifold.
DSCF0488.jpg Stag engine bay.jpg
stagdad comparison.jpg

[jbuckl]

Lawerence Woodward is trying to develop a kit I think

https://invisiblefuelinjection.co.uk/triumph-stag-efi

and also Chris Spain.

Neil and stag-dads - Steve hill’s injection system seems the best completed so far….

just needs ‘Triumph’ on the plenums!

Steves car sold recently though…. Good bargain for the next owner

[KOY 23]

Mike, I converted mine to multipoint fuel injection some 12years ago, using manifolds and plenum made by Tony Hart and Keith Barnicle but controlled by a Megasquirt ECU mainly in attempt to future proof against tighter emission standards. It starts and runs very cleanly, no sooty marks on garage wall, no flat spots, noticeably more powerful and no adjusting of distributor points.

[torque2me]

The original brief for the Stag TV8 was 2.5 litre with PI, but as they couldn't get it to meet US emissions, it was increased to 3 litres and Strombergs fitted. The rest is history.
snip

That's correct but also a bit mystifying as the Stag v8 was considered a very "clean" engine for its time. I guess they kept to the "successful" Lucas mechanical system first and Lucas was unable to develop a better "electronic" system and thus the project was "canned". Triumph division was starved of development money compared to Rover Buick v8 development and overall development against the likes of the loss makers at Cowley and above all Austin. BL had a fixation of mass volume production at facilities that refused to mass produce. The rest of the BL was sports cars and niche markets.
Kev

[torque2me]

Like Lingen I do kind of understand the "aint broke, dont fix it" but then I also see that Triumph did the square root of bugger development during production. Mercedes with SL developed a number of fuel injection systems that kept their product several miles ahead. Just imagine a world where the Ewings of Dallas were smoking around in Triumph big saloons and Stags

Agreed but you have to remember how sprawling the BL empire was from basic vehicles to heavy commercials at plants with spare capacity and very poor industrial relations. It was beyond management/government of the time to sort it all out into logical units and requirements. Mercedes did not have that issue and was better supported (financial loans/"investment") than BL. Also as another poster has pointed out Bosch infringed patents to help produce their injection systems. Once they bought out the patents they became the holder and thus proceed with developments.
snip

Kev

[APS]

If Triumph adopted a Bosch system, just as Mercedes, Porsche, VW and Audi did, then they might of got somewhere. Or were Bosch only content supplying German auto makers back then ?

[mole42]

If Triumph adopted a Bosch system, just as Mercedes, Porsche, VW and Audi did, then they might of got somewhere. Or were Bosch only content supplying German auto makers back then ?

Triumph had a huge history with the Lucas mechanical PI system so corporate inertia would possibly preclude using another manufacturer’s equipment.