Newbie from Canada

[biturbo]

Hello everyone. I am Dom and am a newbie to the forum and seek to learn and understand about engine management systems. My goal is to add an engine management system to my 1978 Fiat x1/9 and 1973 Fiat 128SL. I have been a lurking and watching the diy efi initiative for a long time and have decided it is time to get off my bum and get active. Thank you for allowing me to join.

[Sledhead2]

Welcome, I don't see why you couldn't take say a 95 or so S10 4 banger set up and adapt it to a Fiat X19. I only say S10 is because of TBI size and Injector sizes. Plus there were a lot of 4 speed S10's and I am guessing your X19 is as well.

[biturbo]

Thanks for the suggestion. I had considered the S10 and Fiero due to the 4 spd and tbi 4 cyl. The Fiat is 1.3L so would need to understand how to adapt the fuel and airflow. But I need to also consider that these engines rev to 8000rpm, So how does one keep it drivable at low rpm while having optimal mix at high rpm. But this is obviously a discussion for elsewhere in the forum. I am planning to do some searching first and may post some questions elsewhere if I cannot find what I am looking for. Feel free to point me to any projects you feel are of interest to my project. And if anyone in Edmonton, Alberta Canada...or nearby feel free to reach out. I would love to see how others have developed their projects. Thanks again.

[dave w]

There is the option of Dynamic EFI for one injector:

https://www.dynamicefi.com/EBL_P4_Flash.php

19584

[steveo]

8000 rpm and 1.4l?

that's almost a motorcycle.

if i was serious (and crazy) i'd use motorcycle individual throttle bodies with a small injector per cylinder, sequential, and tune it that way. velocity stacks. the benefits would be huge

[biturbo]

I had been considering motorcycle itb efi. There are many examples of hillclimb x1/9s with motorcycle engines but I like the idea of keeping as much original Fiat as possible. Call me a glutton for punishment. Yes, I am aware that the later x1/9s came with efi from within the Fiat family and truthfully this would probably be the way to go...if my car was stock. But I inherited both cars from an uncle who was a mechanic/racer who made me aware of some of the "elaborazione" he made to the engine. Apparently he apprenticed in Italy in the 60's where he learned some performance improvment tricks. Unfortunately he died a few years ago, before I could document more of his secrets. The 128sl has been documented to rev to 8800 rpm in 1981. It has magnificent webber 48s, cam, head porting, timing, compression, and who knows what else. But at very high rpm those beautiful mechanical components encounter physics limitations. Mechanical gauges can only tell me so much and I do hope to preserve the drivetrain by using an ems to datalog and analyse. I would be nice to do some detective work to understand some of the "improvements" he made. I have a stock engine, the x1/9 "mildly" improved engine, and the 128sl "elabroazione" engine. I plan to setup an ems/efi for the stock engine, and then attempt to apply this ems on the other engines so I can compare airflow, fuel flow, ignition timing, temperatures, pressures, etc. So with a fairly well defined end goal I hope to learn as much as I can. If you can point me to a motorcycle/car engine project I would definitely appreciate it.