EI, EFI, ECU’S AND ALL THAT!

Development work on the electronic systems disclosed in the first Mini Tech News has been progressing, albeit slowly. Unfortunately we have stumbled on a price problem. Having originally been quoted one price at our original discussions about total market price of the package, we had one test unit produced. Then on asking for price confirmation prior to production we get a MASSIVELY increased price quote! So the heavy discussions begin! We’re still arguing!

Still, in the meantime the prototype was fitted to my road car. My partner in crime on this project and I were gob-smacked when it all worked perfectly first hit of the button. We drove up and down with the lap top plugged in and fiddled with the amount of advance and curve – which was an interesting experience. It was actually possible to tell the performance changes when adding and subtracting degrees of advance. I then drove it around for a few weeks to put some weather miles on it and it performed faultlessly. The engine ran noticeably smoother, pulled cleaner under all situations and returned better mpg. All this on a Metro Turbo engine without the Turbo that has done something like 80,000 miles, accruing these at a rate of 800 – 1000 miles per week.

The next step is to apply this to the 8 port dyno engine that has the fabricated prototype of our fuel injection system fitted. All we then need is the new ECU to run the ignition and the injection and we’ll be testing it out on a dyno. This, however, has been slowed up by our price dispute with the manufacturers! Hopefully a full test report will appear in the next Mini Tech News issue.