Megasquirt ? Omex ? or any other DIY EFI ?

[MrTFWitt]

Now then, if I fancied a challenge, how about adding fuel injection to a car that is old and wobbly ?

My venerable old SD1 has a pair of semi electronic carbs, guess how well these work 25 years on with it having been in storage since 1993…

Yeah, well one of them works and I could investigate by dismantling stuff but with Rover having vanished I dont hold out much hope of finding spares for things like the electric choke circuit.

So after a brief trawl of Ebay I happened to spot these

After a bit of chin stroking I am of the opinion these would perhaps work rather well on a straight six Rover engine with a moderate amount of arseing about.

Heading off at a tangent, many years ago after reading several of David Vizards articles on porting cylinder heads I did just that to my car over a weekend.
I fitted new valves and S rated springs as well
It was very happy to rev afterwards and was faster in top speed, accelleration and eating brake pads.

I since found this tucked away on a website

@"LJK Setright"

LJK Setright’s thorough and incisive analysis of the engine in CAR November 1997 observes the extent to which the engine was de-tuned relative to its power potential: 'There is plenty scope for tuning it for high performance: for production ease, the bore of the inlet manifold is appreciably less than the mating bore in the cylinder head, and the same step-up can be seen on the other face where the exhaust ports lead into the inlet manifold. Cleaning up these passages and blending their junctions would be an easy first step on the road to more power, which could be followed by more conventional tricks such as a better ignition system (an electronic one would be far more welcome than the cheap Kettering distributor that is fitted as standard.) and a more adventurous camshaft than the present one which only gives valve openings of 238 degrees.

‘The fact that the Rover’s performance figures are pro rata less impressive (Compared with the Porsche 928 V8) has nothing to do with its head design, but is due entirely to the obvious and deliberate de-tuning of the engine to modest levels, consistent with a desire to set running economies above other aspects of performance. We have only to see how sharply the BMEP falls off above 5000rpm in the 2600 and above 4000 in the 2600 to see how restrictive the timing and carburation must be.’

As they were developed as one engine, the 2300 and 2600 versions differed only in the crankshaft throws and piston type – even the connecting rods were the same. The 2600 engine used high-duty solid skirted Mahle pistons, while Hepworth and Grandage supplied their W-slot pistons for the 2350cc engine, with an appropriate height set above the gudgeon pin to allow the same 9.2:1 compression ratio as the larger capacity engine.

So I was right to open the inlet ports up albeit with a Black&Decker and some Stella but it was happy to pull 70 in second and would eat my friends Capri 2.0s from a standstill.

So its time for the old bus to ride again and I’m thinking some more modern technology could make it into a lot of fun.

Has anyone here dabbled with building their own EFI system ?

[Droid]

They wouldn’t let me touch stuff like this when I worked in the garage as I tended to cause fires :chuckle: I like to play but have no knowledge I’m afraid.

[Judge]

Motorbike carbs is the key

[MrTFWitt]

Hmmmm, finding out the SD1 has HIF44 carbs is an unexpected bit of news.
With some different seals and blocking off a couple of breather vents they become the same carbs as fitted to the MG metro Turbo.

In fact I could run the breather pipes to a pair of boost gauges instead.
Boost!