Valcook is a pseudomyn mainly because my top interests at the moment at cooking and ... my Valiant! The Val was in very poor condition when I got it. Spent a fortune on it and now it's a daily driver, quite comfortable and has central locking and a car alarm, which I fitted. Someone else fitted the extractors, which massively increased the efficiency - much better power and fuel economy.
This space will include things I have done to my car and things I intend to do, as they happen.
At the moment I'm a bit obsessed with efficiency and the carburettor doesn't work very well. On LPG it takes a full ten seconds to start the engine! Once started it will run brilliantly on LPG, but it uses almost twice the fuel it did when running well on petrol. What could I possibly do? Well, tried putting a kit through the carby but this did nothing more than cost me money. The fact is that it is almost certainly wear in the throttle body causing the drama. Haven't mentioned the drama? Sorry...
The drama: It doesn't start at all on petrol usually. If it does, it runs like crap until warm, then still exhibits a massive flat spot at the start of acceleration. So, there's a pretty major problem running either fuel, AND I don't know how efficiently the thing is running.
The Solution: So how about EFI? I've been doing a bit (a lot) of reading about it and it seems that the whole thing can be accomplished using an old Ford EEC-IV coupled to an Aussiespeed four barrel EFI slant six manifold (don't laugh, they really exist). I'll have to at least heavily modify the fuel rail or even make a new one. I get the manifold ($435 from a 1987 ZL Fairlane) tomorrow and the rest on Sat morning from a wrecker (he said $250 for the whole lot). So, is it worth $685? We will see. I'll take a lot of photos and put them up as the project goes. Also decided to have a go at putting an oxygen sensor into the exhaust to help tune it. These sound like a fantastic diagnostic tool and I happen to have one sitting in the shed. Advantages of EFI I'm keen on are:
1. Easier to start the car
2. Tunable fuel system
3. Better Fuel economy (it's a 3.7L slant six).
4. More power
5. Less pollution. OK, I don't care much about this, but it is a side-effect nonetheless.
Reliability was going to be in there too, but I can't imagine the Val being more reliable than it is.
More after I get the manifold.