Hillborn injection

[jeepinjakear15]

Anybody know much about these? Anyone have a hillborn setup on their datto? They will build to suite and fuel injection seems like a marvelous idea.

[datsunaholic]

Unless you're drag racing, no.

 

It's not electronic fuel injection. It's barely even metered fuel injection. It's designed for WOT operation, like drag racing.

 

 

Well, the do have an EFI variant which is streetable, and I know nothing about those. The above is for the classic Hillborne mechanical systems.

[Z-train]

Hillborn's don't have a accellerator pump/circuit.Bitchin' wow factor but on the street-not a chance.

[Master-O-Turbonics]

hilhborn injection is like a fuel injector that stays on 100% of the time, and has one per cylinder. At low speeds the fuel pools and causes sucky driveability. The Hillborn system really comes to life when an engine sees 4000-8000+ RPMs(race motor only, please!).

[pocket rocket]

the only issue with using a hilbourne constant flow injection system, for anything other than racing, is due to the inaccuracy of fuel metering.

 

Although the injector is constantly open, the fuel is metered via the "scroll" (barrel valve), so it doesn't recieve full fuel delivery constantly. However, when a combination of slow & high speed (open & closed throttle) is used constantly, the inacuracy of fuel metering is noticable.

 

They are, however, able to be modified into an efi system with some work, which can then be used on the street

[josh817]

I have a Hillborn manifold for my Z... got put to the side until I can get the 521 running and driving. Everything the previous people said is correct. For the price of mechanical components you might as well go EFI.

 

Two ways of doing it, you can weld on bungs or if you don't want to do that I decided I will have top feed injection. Basically leaves me with making a bracket to mount the fuel rail to the manifold so it sits in front of the air horns with injectors spraying into them. Helps a little with cooling the intake charge and with atomization.

 

Then again I'm not driving the Z on the road too much anymore either...

[RoadRace]

well, i have built, driven and sorted hilborn and enderle mechanical injection systems, and like anything in this world, if you want to know how to make it work for the application, then you can make it work, don't believe all that is written. i drove mine on the street and drag raced it. no problems. setting up the bleed down on the spool, idle mixture and configuring the low speed bypass goes a long way to making the system drivable - spend the time setting it up for where you spend the most time. Going back to my favorite book, The Unfair Advantage by Mark Donohue, he explains in detail how after he first drove Porsche's Can-Am car how hard it was to drive on the track, how the motor had no power below 5000rpm, the Porsche engineers simply stated that its like that because its a race engine and its supposed to stay above 5000 rpm. Mark had a hard time convincing them, but he took the mechanical injection system down to its nuts and bolts and configured it to idle properly, have excellent low speed characteristics and Porsche went on to win 3 Can Am series championships in a row.

[josh817]

For what it's worth, BMW's and Porsche's, like you said, ran mechanical injection... and it wasn't strictly race applications either. The difference in theirs was that it had a distribution block kinda like a distributor, so it squirted each cylinder at a timed moment..... like EFI rather than having all 6 nozzles spraying at the same time. At least it's like that for a BMW, I can say for a Porsche. :rolleyes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vjf9zURWdU&feature=related

 

 

I now use the injector ports for vacuum ports instead. I plan on doing something like this with mine but without the second set of injectors spraying into the ports. You can see it's basically the same concept; injector before the throttle plate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwG7ppkvyIA

 

 

Anyway just my two cents. Hopefully going to have the Z back on the road by this winter.

[pocket rocket]

talk to Kinsler, Hilbourne or Enderle. They know more about this stuff than anyone. Even they will tell you its not a patch on efi for the street. They even make efi versions.

 

 

If mechanical injection was so good for the street, all the modern cars would still be using it - they don't, which pretty much tells you something

 

 

FWIW, BMW, Ferrari, Porsche and many others all ran mechanical injection back in the 70's, on their production street cars. But they were Lucas or Bosch systems which are different again to the Hilbourne style.

[josh817]

No one is saying it's great for the street. RoadRace was simply saying that it's definitely a streetable setup if you know how to properly tune the thing. The same concept with Weber DCOE's, they're a pain in the ass to set up properly but when they are set up they worked perfectly fine.

 

All it takes is one stunod not knowing what they're doing and then they go around saying it's a piece of shit.

 

Cars not using mechanical injection anymore because it "doesn't work" isn't a valid argument because we all know emissions started playing a role in the 70's.

 

"I can't get my carbs tuned good enough for street driving and obviously since carbs aren't around on production cars anymore this must mean that they're completely unstreetable"

 

Irrational and lacking logic.

 

 

I will say however that if someone is genuinly interested in at least the manifold, to have someone tig weld injector bungs onto it, Kinsler has one for a Z for sale. Typically the entire setup is over $1000 but since this is just the manifold and it's in the/was in the "garage sale" section, the price was $250 or something like that. It's an angled manifold so the air horns don't come straight out like my Hilborn. This could cause problems if you run a 12" air horn but there is no reason to run one that long because the manifold runners are already pretty long themselves. My manifold came with 12" tubes and the runners were another 6".

 

Although it's a Z manifold, all you have to do is cut the center two runners out and you're ready to bolt on.

http://www.kinsler.com/page--Garage-Sale--29.html

http://www.hilborninjection.com/product.asp?Id=432&CatId=252

[pocket rocket]

No one is saying it's great for the street. RoadRace was simply saying that it's definitely a streetable setup if you know how to properly tune the thing. The same concept with Weber DCOE's, they're a pain in the ass to set up properly but when they are set up they worked perfectly fine.

 

All it takes is one stunod not knowing what they're doing and then they go around saying it's a piece of shit.

 

Cars not using mechanical injection anymore because it "doesn't work" isn't a valid argument because we all know emissions started playing a role in the 70's.

 

"I can't get my carbs tuned good enough for street driving and obviously since carbs aren't around on production cars anymore this must mean that they're completely unstreetable"

 

Irrational and lacking logic.

 

 

I will say however that if someone is genuinly interested in at least the manifold, to have someone tig weld injector bungs onto it, Kinsler has one for a Z for sale. Typically the entire setup is over $1000 but since this is just the manifold and it's in the/was in the "garage sale" section, the price was $250 or something like that. It's an angled manifold so the air horns don't come straight out like my Hilborn. This could cause problems if you run a 12" air horn but there is no reason to run one that long because the manifold runners are already pretty long themselves. My manifold came with 12" tubes and the runners were another 6".

 

Although it's a Z manifold, all you have to do is cut the center two runners out and you're ready to bolt on.

http://www.kinsler.c...e-Sale--29.html

http://www.hilbornin...d=432&CatId=252

 

 

 

I didn't say it couldn't or wouldn't work. The engine will run & will be able to be driven & will make good power

 

 

But I will say it will be far from ideal, guaranteed.

 

Plenty of people have tried before & no doubt plenty will continue to try

[RoadRace]

"I didn't say it couldn't or wouldn't work. The engine will run & will be able to be driven & will make good power

 

 

But I will say it will be far from ideal, guaranteed.

 

Plenty of people have tried before & no doubt plenty will continue to try"

 

 

1) please define 'ideal'

 

2) you also said "However, when a combination of slow & high speed (open & closed throttle) is used constantly, the inacuracy of fuel metering is noticable."

 

did you notice this with your mech FI set up? i honestly don't know of anyone that does this 'high speed to low speed' driving constantly. i mean if this is the only way you have been able to detect inaccuracy of fuel metering, well, i think their might be other problems you should be focusing on.

 

thanks.

[datsunaholic]

Hillborne itself states that their system is not designed for the street due to the inaccuacy of the fuel metering. The fuel metering is solely based on throttle pedal- no metering based on air flow or RPM or Load is done at all. So at low engine speeds, the system is extremely rich at anything but closed throttle. You can adjust it to find the perfect setting for a particular condition, and sometimes a combination of settings, but since RPM and Throttle are not directly correlated the metering is primitive at best. You would have more control using a combination of throttle plate and mix adjustments, but eventually you run out of hands to steer. Most setups find that happy place where it runs at the best fuel mixture at the most common running point- on drag racers, that's WOT at a certain RPM. It will be VERY rich until the engine gets to a high RPM, hence the necessity of winding it up before dumping the clutch. Otherwise you'd just kill it. In race boats, they run a lot like a dragster, WOT most of the time. You see the mix go way rich coming out of corners because the engine slowed down, and they're a bear to start, usually needing a "primer bottle" to light off.

 

Now, I realize those are both specialized race applications of Hillborns They work very well in those applications too because both are running roots-type blowers. But look at the Naturally Aspirated side, they use a carb or EFI.

 

On the street, the "happy place" metering becames a problem. If you want it lean enough to not foul the plugs at every stoplight without redlining the engine on go, you'll be way lean in the middle when you need moderate/low throttle but midrange RPMs. If you make the midrange the best tune, the top suffers, the bottom goes too lean and you burn out the plugs. Those sort of handicaps are OK for a trailer queen/sunny day weekend cruiser, but not for a daily driver.

 

Other mechanical injection systems didn't have that handicap because they measured the air and metered the fuel. Not all of them- some used a metering system not unlike the injection pump on a diesel. As far back as the 1930s there was a primitive form of mechanical injection called an Injection (or Pressure) Carbeurator. It looked a lot like a normal carb but it had no floats and no jets. The throttle plates controlled the air just like the throttle body on todays EFI systems, by a series of reeds, pitots, tubes, vanes, etc metered the fuel pressure to one or more spray nozzles, which were essentially a fuel injector. The difference in pressure to the injector changed the amount of fuel delivered, but it wasn't in any way mechanically linked to the throttle. It was determined by those reeds/vanes/tubes which were basically the mechanical version of a MAF/MAS or AFM. Later multi-injector mechanical fuel injection systems used the same sort of mechanical air measureing to determine how MUCH fuel to let in. That's why they were streetable. Hillborn mecanical injection has none of that.

 

Their electronic systems add fuel injectors so that the fuel rate can be controlled (by the duty cycle of the injectors). They have 2 systems- the relatively simple Carabine system that uses a combination of throttle position, RPM, and a preprogrammed fuel curve to make it streetable. Their FAST system adds MAP sensor and O2 sensor, which makes it essentially the same as a modern EFI system. Their mecahnical system meters fuel based solely on throttle position using the barrel valves, so no consideration is made for load or RPM and such the fuel is metered only in the most primitive way.

[pocket rocket]

"I didn't say it couldn't or wouldn't work. The engine will run & will be able to be driven & will make good power

 

 

But I will say it will be far from ideal, guaranteed.

 

Plenty of people have tried before & no doubt plenty will continue to try"

 

 

1) please define 'ideal'

 

2) you also said "However, when a combination of slow & high speed (open & closed throttle) is used constantly, the inacuracy of fuel metering is noticable."

 

did you notice this with your mech FI set up? i honestly don't know of anyone that does this 'high speed to low speed' driving constantly. i mean if this is the only way you have been able to detect inaccuracy of fuel metering, well, i think their might be other problems you should be focusing on.

thanks.

 

 

thanks for giving us a laugh:lol:

 

 

 

send your resume to Enderle, Hilborne or Kinsler - clearly you know more about their systems than they do:rolleyes:

[josh817]

thanks for giving us a laugh:lol:

 

 

 

send your resume to Enderle, Hilborne or Kinsler - clearly you know more about their systems than they do:rolleyes:

I would of said the same to you since you're talking like a big shot. Hurdur you must have forgotten that he already has setups that run just fine for him; but you, sounds like you don't have shit, yet you still want to talk like you know.

 

I think it's time for you to stop trolling and contribute. If you have no experience, if you've never tried, then your lack of knowledge and know-how should be accompanied with modesty for those who have been successful.

 

 

 

Ported head ready to go:

 

Cut the throttle shaft supports off of a 280 intake and having them welded onto the new intake:

 

The ports on the head were 39mm and the intake had 33mm ports so we machined the intake out to 39mm to match. I believe the only size Kinsler or Hilborn make is 1 13/16" or 46mm bore. Don't forget that the bore tapers down to the head though:

 

12" horns on a 6" manifold won't even come close to fitting in a Z so I'm going to get shorter 6" tubes. However, after doing some calculations, if I remember correctly, for the cam/RPM range I'm looking for the tuned length should be 11". I'll have to double check:

 

Conceptual goal, except the bracket will hold the fuel rail not the injector:

[pocket rocket]

So you're in the middle of converting a Contstant Flow Mechanical Fuel Injection manifold into an efi system?:rolleyes: hmm

[josh817]

I have a Hillborn manifold for my Z... got put to the side until I can get the 521 running and driving. Everything the previous people said is correct.

 

For the price of mechanical components you might as well go EFI.

 

I'll admit when I'm wrong when someone says they've done several setups for the street. Don't forget the part about fuel pumps being like $600 for a mechanical system, along with the cog pulleys you have to use. Not to mention I already have crank fire ignition so the ECU is there, might as well do EFI. Oh yah and I got just the manifold for a killer price. :D

[pocket rocket]

Hilborne said the only real time you would choose constant flow mechanical fuel injection over an efi system would be if racing series rules don't permit efi, or, if you don't want/need to run a full electrical system (charging), both reasons are why they are used in outlaw sprintcar racing. This is what I'm heavily involved in (build & maintain engines & cars).

 

otherwise, you will make more power and achieve a better power curve through having more accurate fuel curve (across the entire rpm range & throttle opening) using efi. Can it be used on the street? yes, but why would you want to? a carburetor generally even provides a better fuel curve than constant flow mechanical fuel injection.

 

 

Mechanical fuel injection systems don't have to use a belt driven fuel pump. The pump can (& is commonly) driven directly off of the camshaft.

 

You will be very happy with your efi system