I recently started wondering if my El Camino might have fuel injectors that were too small. One of the main reasons is that with the 350, the idle had never been stable, tending to hunt badly, and lately cold starts were getting to be more and more difficult. It would fire after five or six seconds of cranking, fire, then die after 20-30 seconds. I'd have to restart it, sometimes more than once.
With Robert's help, I found that I had a Caprice 9C1 PROM with pickup injectors. Pickups had 55lb./hr. injectors, while the Caprice had 65lb./hr. injectors. So, my injectors were 15% smaller than the PROM was programmed for.
I put the injectors in, but was interrupted in my testing by a battery that abruptly decided to go dead after a cold front blew threw. I put a new battery in last night, warmed up the engine, and set the minimum air adjustment. Then I put up all my tools and went to bed.
Today, after I came home, I put the key in and started it. WOW. That's what I'm talkin' about! It fired after about 2 seconds, jumped up to a stable fast idle at 1400-1500 rpm, then very, very gradually began to slow down after a couple of minutes, settling down at a steady 800 rpm with no hint of hunting, running very smoothly. I didn't drive it, because it's clean and it's going to rain at any time, but it was very even and sounded great, and didn't smell rich.
So the moral of the story is to make absolutely sure you use fuel injectors that match the PROM on any fuel injection project. I can't believe it took me *years* to realize I had a mismatch.
---> Jared Ryan <--- jryan@xxxxxxxxxxxx | http://www.caminofx.org Rules: Please play nicely with others. -List members page (text & pic links): http://www.myelcamino.net/eclist.htm -List members page (all pics): http://www.myelcamino.net/ec_list.htm
