Step by Step; 1700 carb to EFI (future to 2054)

[larsje]

Love this build, even though i have nothing really to add.

Been contemplating converting my L-Jet bus to something modern,
So am following along with much interest.

My build would have to visually appear as stock for smog reasons.
Hoping they might not notice the crank trigger hidden behind the fan,
or that the AFM was just a gutted shell..

Seems that things like fuel tank and rails, etc. would make the conversion much easier vs. carbs no doubt.
Might be a shortcut to find a factory FI tank somewhere?
Have heard that suction/discharge, and well as venting, can be a challenge,
And VW solved these things well with the factory fuel tanks.
FWIW.

Thanks for taking the time to write this all up.

Check my answer to GuruX point number 2.
This way you should be able to use exactly original (looking) parts. Even connectors are the same.

You can hide a Speeduino / Megasquirt into the original ECU housing easily, if you wire that up to the orinigal connectors you are set. The rest of the differences will be so marginal that it would require a VW expert to notice it (running a vac. line to the ECU, air temp. sensor you can put into the AFM housing, only need to run a cable, but could even use the original connector for that)

Be sure to document it here Stealth is always cool.

[GuruX]

Hi GuruX, nice build you have yourself! Going a lot quicker than I am.
I will follow you on youtube/facebook to see your progress!

...

I'm skipping the long quote here.
I started off with buying a set of intake runners and plenum that turned out to be from a Type 3 vehicle. These have been exchanged during the build. I think current plenum and intake runners are from a 2.0 bus. But I'm not completely sure. Here's a picture of the plenum, just after I added the IAT sensor. My main reason for exchanging the stuff was that the throttle body that belonged to the old plenum had the throttle cable coming in from the rear.

DSC_0412.JPG

On the Speeduino. I must say that I love the Speeduino community. People have been very helpful. Building an engine and a custom system is all new to me. I have gotten a lot of good tips from people with more experience. But I do at the same time see your point with getting support from a real company.

My fuel rail was taken from an Opel/Vauxhall petrol engine. Can't remember the model. I was running around the scrapyard with a set of calipers and eventually found the right one. Spacing is almost correct. It's off my half a millimeter or something like that. Good enough. I got two of them and used one half for each side. Silver soldered on connections for my AN6 fuel lines (I'm afraid of engine fires). A nice bonus is that I got schrader valves on both sides so I can verify fuel pressure if I need.

2018-03-15 21.31.12 (Custom) (Small).jpg

You do have a point about the seal of the EV6 injectors on the intake runners. I recently got access to quite a nice machine shop. So I might do what you have done a drill some new holes that fit the EV6 injectors properly. The offset can easily be corrected with new adapters that are a little bit thicker. The fuel rail and it's mounting is probably the sketchiest part if my build right now.

E85 has great availability here in Sweden. I'm trying to make my bus as environmental friendly as possible. That's why I'm going with E85 compatibility. Right now I'm hunting for a Continental flexifuel sensor. They are easy to buy new, but as as the Ecobus project is a lot about reusing stuff, I'll hunt for a bit longer, before I order brand new parts.

I got my trigger wheel from The Dub Shop kind of sponsored, I payed, but not full price for it. It was an older unbalanced wheel that Mario (the owner) had laying around. I built the bracket myself and the sensor is one from the scrapyard. Seems to work good. His setup if you buy the whole package seems very nice.

I decided to get a surge tank or swirl put after recommendations on the Speeduino forum. One experience guy told me that he would hear me scream while tuning, if I didn't get a surge tank. He lives in America, I live in Sweden It wasn't that hard to pull off. It's not located below the bus and the two pumps are both inline fuel pumps. A small lift pump gets the fuel to the surge tank and it has a return line to the tank in the top. From the surge tank I've got gravity feed to the main injection pump. This part of the system is returnless, the pump is controlled via PWM and a sensor in the fuel rail. I also had the thought that this isn't needed since it's a slow bus. But parts were quite cheap and I decided to listen to someone with experience.

Here's a post from instagram with the location of the surge tank.


Have you found some photos of the throttle cable routing from a FI bus? I found one, but I don't want to post someone elses pictures here publicly. Perhaps we could share some pictures on Facebook messenger if needed?

The parts for my adapter is printed in two different materials. The top part is solid and printed in PETG. It's quite sturdy and easy to print. Think of it as in between ABS and PLA. The bottom part is printed in soft TPE (same thing as ninjaflex) to have a little give in the mounting. It's a little softer than solid rubber would be. Softness can be adjusted with the amount of infill in the part. When I'm happy the fuel rail, I might get someone to make these parts in metal, and just add a slice of TPE in between to keep the flex.

[larsje]

I'm skipping the long quote

Check this for the plenum/runners;
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=147383&p=1225291

Fuel rail is cool! Can you make a bracket that you clamp to the original studs, where the injector clamps are mounted to? Or maybe weld a strut between the 2 clamps and mount the rail to that...

Remember when you will machine the manifold for the radial sealing o-rings, you will (90% certain) need bushings. Also your clamping will not work anymore (the fuel pressure will push your injector down, possibly too far). In your case i would first look into modifying the injectors for the original seal (unless you are going to turbo it).

If some guys can use a simle T connector for FI conversion, the way i am doing it will be ok.
http://thedubshop.com/billet-vw-fuel-tank-tee/

Cable routing i am going to have a look at a buddy with an originally fuel injected bus (he is converting it to carbs )

[GuruX]

Thats a nice post!
The stuff that I discarded was the Porsche 1.7 intake plenum and bus 2.0 intake runners, I can tell from the post.
The stuff that's mounted on the engine now is the VW bus 2.0 plenum with Porsche 1.7/1.8 intake runners. Maybe I should have stayed with the 2.0 intake runners. They were too long for the 2.0 plenum and since a friend had shorter ones that looked nice, I just swapped with him.

If I machine the manifold, I won't machine them straight through. I'll just drill a couple of millimeters down to make a new seat (with a reamer) for the EV6 injectors. That way I'll have both radial and axial pressure on the seal. That is, if I redesign my top piece of the adapter and add the same distance as I drill.

Here's another instragram post of what my injector adapters look like. Video and image.



I don't have a good picture of the fuel rail mount right now. It's pretty much held in place with screws and the part that's on the image below. It doesn't look very good, but it does the job and is sturdy.

ladda ned.jpeg