Modern EFI (Holley Terminator) installation made simple-ish
Posted: December 24th, 2023, 2:21 pm
I started this project about 6 years ago with a serious case of pissed off. While on trip to Moab in 2017, i had a few issues with my rig...
The trip started out with a Broken rear locker (easy fix, but still very annoying) on day 1. On day 2 my Jeep backfired and stalled on Hells Revenge, and would not start. Thank goodness it was up on top a falt section of slab near Mickeys, or it would have been far more annoying to diagnose. Diagnosis - Bad Crank Sensor. Installed spare. She started and ran, but not good. Day 5, went out to start the old girl after breakfast... she sputtered to life slowly, then stalled at Campsite. Would not restart. Trip over. Missed out on the plast 3 days of wheeling.
Prognosis after diagnosis at home, a bad ICM. I waited 3 weeks for one to arrive at the local Napa. If that had happened day one, I would have been out the entire trip.
I have since fought slow start/long cranking, and cannot for the life of me get it running well, or starting as quickly as is did before. Yes, i did run through ALL of the applicable items in "Crusier54 True Tales from the Book" for the renix system. I even built an entirely new wiring harness, then replaced all the sensors with known working units... no change. Fuel Pressure = GOOD, all injectors were swapped one at a time. no change. It still runs, but feel way down on power, and is not as lively as it once was. I yanked the now over 20 year old stroker out and found NOTHING wrong internally. It was clean and just a loose as i built her back in the early 2000's.
It sucks to have old techonoly that had less than a 1% saturation rate for use in vehicles 30 years ago. Parts are getting harder to find, and are very expensive when you do find them. It also sucks to have EFI you cannot fine tune to your particular engine. It sucks to not have the diagnostics as easily as the OBD2 vehicles (yep, my stroker ran the Renix), that can readily tell you where to look for the root of the issue at hand.
These challenges are what pushed me down the road I am on now; Installing modern and readily available sesnors/parts, and a largely supported aftermarket ECU into my Stroker. I used the following questions to guide my search...
- What are the most common engines in North America? The LS of course, if not on top of this group, its right up there.
- What engine family is the undisputed engine swap king of the world? The LS
- What engine has the most aftermarket support? The LS
- Who has one of the most user friendly and easily confugurable EFI systems out there? Holley.
- What EFI system has the largest user base? Holley
(You all seeing a pattern here)
So that began this project, use as many OEM/OEM replacement LS family sensors as possible, and tie that to the Holley Terminator X series EFI systems.
The trip started out with a Broken rear locker (easy fix, but still very annoying) on day 1. On day 2 my Jeep backfired and stalled on Hells Revenge, and would not start. Thank goodness it was up on top a falt section of slab near Mickeys, or it would have been far more annoying to diagnose. Diagnosis - Bad Crank Sensor. Installed spare. She started and ran, but not good. Day 5, went out to start the old girl after breakfast... she sputtered to life slowly, then stalled at Campsite. Would not restart. Trip over. Missed out on the plast 3 days of wheeling.
Prognosis after diagnosis at home, a bad ICM. I waited 3 weeks for one to arrive at the local Napa. If that had happened day one, I would have been out the entire trip.
I have since fought slow start/long cranking, and cannot for the life of me get it running well, or starting as quickly as is did before. Yes, i did run through ALL of the applicable items in "Crusier54 True Tales from the Book" for the renix system. I even built an entirely new wiring harness, then replaced all the sensors with known working units... no change. Fuel Pressure = GOOD, all injectors were swapped one at a time. no change. It still runs, but feel way down on power, and is not as lively as it once was. I yanked the now over 20 year old stroker out and found NOTHING wrong internally. It was clean and just a loose as i built her back in the early 2000's.
It sucks to have old techonoly that had less than a 1% saturation rate for use in vehicles 30 years ago. Parts are getting harder to find, and are very expensive when you do find them. It also sucks to have EFI you cannot fine tune to your particular engine. It sucks to not have the diagnostics as easily as the OBD2 vehicles (yep, my stroker ran the Renix), that can readily tell you where to look for the root of the issue at hand.
These challenges are what pushed me down the road I am on now; Installing modern and readily available sesnors/parts, and a largely supported aftermarket ECU into my Stroker. I used the following questions to guide my search...
- What are the most common engines in North America? The LS of course, if not on top of this group, its right up there.
- What engine family is the undisputed engine swap king of the world? The LS
- What engine has the most aftermarket support? The LS
- Who has one of the most user friendly and easily confugurable EFI systems out there? Holley.
- What EFI system has the largest user base? Holley
(You all seeing a pattern here)
So that began this project, use as many OEM/OEM replacement LS family sensors as possible, and tie that to the Holley Terminator X series EFI systems.