Starting EEC from Scratch

So you want that new fangled EFI thingy huh? EEC-IV might not be what you want; EEC-IV is the best “Factory” option we have but there are many different Fuel Injection systems out there. If you want to retain your cars every day streetabilty there are limiting factors that you will run into. Having a Mass Air Flow sensor is important for an every day streetcar. As you push more power into your engine you will find that it will be harder and harder to retain good streetabilty. Larger injectors, big cams, high octane, stand-alone computers, and race transmissions will all be in the cards down the road for racecar power. Big power engines are easier to control with Speed Density, and for those interested Ford made a few EEC’s SEFI and Speed Density. Remember compromise, write out a list of your goals, and see what it takes to achieve them.

Stock Engine	EEC-IV
Stock Engine w/ Mild changes	EEC-IV MAF
Stock Engine w/ Mild changes and Electronic Transmission	EEC-IV MAF that has trans control ability *
Engine with · Stroker kit · Nitrous · Blower · Other High Power Adders	EEC-IV w/ Chip
Engine with · Stroker kit · Nitrous · Blower · Other High Power Adders And Electronic Transmission	EEC-IV w/ chip And a separate trans controller *
Engine w/ Big mods and you plan to add power builders monthly	Aftermarket Computer
Stock Modular Engine Electronic Trans and other current features	EEC-V
Modular Engine w/ mild mods Electronic Trans and other current features	EEC-V w/ Chip
* There are currently 3 choices for trans controlling · Run a stock engine and trans with EEC-IV · Run the engine off one computer and the trans off a second EEC-IV · Use a TCS controller for complete control of trans operation

In my opinion you have two options. Stock engine and matched EEC-IV, or plan the engine you really want and have your EEC customized to it. But there is always other ways to do it and be successful. The very first thing to do is get a lot of information about your vehicle, was there ever an EEC-IV offered? That’s the best EFI swap for you. If EFI was never offered, snap a picture of your engine bay and take notes your engine size, location, and possible interference. Take that picture and look on-line, in magazines, and in junkyards for parts that will fit into your engine bay. Try to find a setup that was offered on your engine. The easiest way is to find a donor vehicle for the parts or complete engine if you dare. If you can get the EEC to match the displacement of the engine you’re building, I can guide you to wiring the injectors to match the firing order. If you want to go with high performance aftermarket parts, read this page then go into modifying EEC-IV for better parts. This is a small list of donor vehicles:

· 5.0L Speed Density 1985 to 1988 Mustang

· 5.0L Mass Air 1989 to 1993 Mustang

· 5.0L Speed Density 1987 to1990 Crown Victoria

· 5.8L Speed Density 1987 to1990 Crown Victoria

· 5.8L 1987 to1993 E or F truck or van

· 5.0L 1987 to1993 E or F truck or van

· 7.5L 1987 to1993 E or F truck or van

· 4.9L 1987 to 1993 F truck

Above is a picture of what you will need out of the donor vehicle, you can also get these items used off the internet, from swap meets, or give us an e-mail for help, just look for a good deal. This is a list of what you will need to do the conversion, try to get as much of it from the donor vehicle as possible even if you’re going to replace it. If you are upgrading don’t re-buy brackets you already have unless you are adding high performance aftermarket chrome stuff.

· Upper and lower intake manifolds. Ensure they are complete but I recommend replacing everything but the fuel rails and throttle body.

· O2 sensor harness, you can buy new bungs to be added to your exhaust

· Main wiring harness, this can be scary, look at the HARNESS PAGE

· Distributor for new TFI and an E-Coil

· EEC-IV Computer

§ If you have found an EEC and are unsure of its application. Look at this small list of different EEC Calibration Codes and the vehicle it was originally used on

§ If you are wandering the junkyard for EEC’s and want to know where Ford hid them in a car, look at the EEC Locations page.

· High Pressure fuel pump

· High pressure fuel line and filter

Preparation

Get all this home and clean it. Use scrubbers, sandblasters, parts washers, hot tanks, and don’t be afraid to trash stuff that seems beyond repair. You and I both want this set-up to last you another 20 years with only small maintenance issues. Now get your vehicle somewhere safe, dry, and warm, take off everything prior to the cylinder heads. We’re talking from the intake to the air cleaner, remove the fuel pump and under hood fuel lines. Find a place to mount the EEC-IV, I hope you found a place inside the vehicle. Some think it is ok to mount it under the hood, but this is my web site and we talk about the best way to do things here. I’ll let you ride 3 blocks in my engine compartment and ask how you liked it! Your engine has coolant, an air filter, and rubber engine mounts, little EEC doesn’t have any of that. Shouldn’t that EEC be mounted in a safe place, like in the same place you’re riding?

Install the injectors, fuel rail, and sensors prior to installing the lower intake manifold on the engine. Decide on location for the solenoids that control EGR and smog pump systems. Also find a place for the fuel pump, EEC, and A/C relays and the fuses to power them. This is when you need to plan the routing of the harness. You don’t have to worry about the harness construction yet, but you’ll know what to buy, order, or build when you know where all the stuff is and where you can route the harness. I’m not going to go into all the little stuff here, after your read all the pages I’ve written, you’ll know what each component is, what it does, and whether you want to use it on your vehicle.

Fuel System

Now we have to get fuel to this monster. If you had a carb your current fuel system is low pressure 5-10psi. EFI requires approximately 40psi across the injectors so we need to make some modifications. Your low pressure system must go; low pressure rubber fuel lines will fail and cause a fire hazard, so they must be replaced with high pressure fuel injection hose with high pressure clamps. The high-pressure fuel line clamps don’t have the slots for the worm in the hose band and can be tightened further than normal hose clamps. There are a few ways to supply fuel. You can use a single in tank high-pressure pump. You can use an in tank low-pressure pump and an inline high-pressure pump. You can add an accumulator tank just before the high-pressure pump to ensure that you don't run out of fuel going up hill. I do not recommend a single inline high-pressure pump; these aren’t meant to “pull” fuel out of the tank. The stock Ford low-pressure pump has a capacity of 110 liters/hr and the inline high-pressure pump has a capacity of approximately 88 liters/HR. For volume numbers you’ll need to be flowing over 17ml/sec for stock engines. What ever you do, you need to supply more fuel than the engine can ever use, and at least 10psi more than the regulator is set at. Built into the fuel rail is a fuel pressure regulator, this sets the fuel to a set pressure under certain loads and returns the rest of the fuel to the tank. This means you need to have a return line to the tank if you didn’t have one before. The return line diameter needs to be at least 80% of the supply line diameter. Doing the math means a 1/2" inside diameter fuel supply hose matched with a 2/5" inside diameter return hose. You need to get a gas tank with holes for supply, return, vent, filler, and any electrical connections for pumps and gauge senders. I really can’t give you any specific directions for this, each tank is different. Again I recommend finding a tank and pump from a fuel injection vehicle, or have yours upgraded by a professional. If you decide to drill your tank in the garage on a Saturday, it’s not my fault if you burn off your eyebrows. You’ll want to have a screen over the pick up tube in the tank to keep debris from harming the fuel pumps. Make sure you have a good filter rated for higher fuel pressures that has a fine filtration placed after the pumps. Placing the main filter after the fuel pumps helps the pumps from drawing fuel out a tank with resistance, which will lower pressure and pump life expectancy. The filter after the pumps is also for safety incase of catastrophic pump failure. A pump bearing failing would be a long weekend repair if pump particles got stuck in the injectors. The last thing I will say about fuel supply is this. The more fuel you get to the engine the less you’ll worry about it. The more short cuts you make and less fuel you flow to the injectors the greater the chance of ending up fuel starved later.

Vacuum System

In the center of the upper intake on V8 engine will have a vacuum tree fitting with many connections. The large fitting normally connects to the power brake booster if you have one. The fuel pressure regulator must have vacuum at the appropriate nipple. The MAP sensor must be connected to the vacuum tree in Speed Density systems. Connect vacuum to the EVP, TAD TAB, and canister purge solenoids, these systems are not related to each other. You can run one, all, or none of these systems depending on your vehicle needs and emissions laws. There are only two ways to do EGR, canister purge, and AIR systems and most people do it incorrectly. Either connect the systems correctly and use them, or leave them on the garage floor. Most people mount the TAB, TAD, and EGR solenoids with no vacuum. This shows the computer they are mounted, but makes them ineffective. The computer doesn’t know that the vacuum is off and calculates engine values with them included. EGR partially operating will run the risk of improper fuel ratios and the computer will not operate in closed loop mode correctly. A non-functional EGR system has a greater chance of becoming damaged, leaking exhaust into the intake at the wrong times. Either make a cover plate to block it off, install a complete gasket (no holes in it) to cover up the EGR ports, or buy an aftermarket EGR delete throttle cable spacer. If you are using a charcoal canister purge valve, then this line needs to have a small vacuum line as well, but prior to or directly to the throttle body. Also add vacuum to your HVAC, Trans, and cruise controls if applicable. I won’t talk about basic engine logistics but the PCV valve needs to be installed to vacuum as well. This can be difficult to install, you will have to get the closest PCV system used with the intake manifold you installed. Remember to seal off any unused vacuum ports; any vacuum leaks are derivability issues later! Below is a schematic of all the possible vacuum connections.

Ignition System

Its time to install the ignition system, not the entire wiring harness, just the basic Ignition system to fire the plugs. The coil is easy, wires and plugs easy; it’s the distributor I’ll cover quickly. Look closely inside the distributor, inside the lower and cap base, you will see the number 1 molded into the cap and base. These obviously indicate the number one piston in the compression cycle. In the second picture you can see how I recommend marking the distributor base. First I highlight the “1,” then after I get the engine timing set perfect I mark the actual setting with a short fat line that lines up with the rotor. Then I add a longer skinny line that shows where the rotor should be pointed before the distributor is dropped into the block. All these marks may seem like overkill, but it is my web site and these are the best ways to do the job.

Before you install the distributor make sure the engine is at TDC for cylinder one, and you have mounted the TFI to the side of the distributor. Drop the distributor so the rotor is aligned with that 1 molded into the cap. Note that the actually positioning of the distributor to the block is not important; we are aligning the rotor inside the distributor with that 1. Make sure there is enough room to rotate the distributor in the block 1/8th turn. You will need to rotate it to set the base timing of 10° before TDC

HOW TO CHECK AND SET TIMING

1. Insure the key is OFF position

2. Place transmission in PARK or NEUTRAL, A/C and heater in OFF position.

3. Connect timing light.

4. Disconnect the single wire in-line SPOUT connector or remove the shorting bar from the double wire SPOUT connector. An example of a SPOUT connector is below:

5. Start the engine. To set timing correctly a remote starter should not be used. Use the ignition key only to start the vehicle. Attaching a remote starter might disable or initiate the start mode timing after the vehicle is started.

6. Read the timing from the engine dampener on the crank.

7. If the timing does not read 10° before TDC continue to step 8, if timing matches 10° before TDC skip to step 10.

8. Shut engine OFF, and loosen distributor enough so you can twist it with your hand. Do not loosen it to the point where the engine rotation moves the distributor.

9. Re-start engine and twist distributor to a point where 10 can be read aligned with the timing pointer.

10. Shut engine OFF, reconnect SPOUT connector, and insure the distributor hold down bolt is tight.

11. Re-start engine.

12. Check timing advance to verify distributor is advancing beyond the initial setting. (This confirms Computer control)

13. Shut off engine and remove test instruments.

Exhaust

Exhaust is only a big problem for some; they get close to finishing their giant EFI project and then run into problems in the very end. Try not to get surprised this late in the game, look at your frame rails, firewall, front drive shaft, and where you want the exhaust to go. Summit, MAC, Ford Racing Performance, FlowMaster, Bassani, Borla, and Dynomax are all companies that sell many different exhaust parts. You can chose to use the cast iron exhaust manifolds that have the O2 sensors mounted in the top of the manifolds. But be careful that they don’t hit the firewall or make it too hard to replace them. You can use the stock manifolds or new headers and weld in O2 sensor “bungs” into the exhaust down pipes. The O2 sensor should be located 3 inches from the collector for optimum exhaust gas reading. These “Bungs” are simply large 18mm x 1.5mm pitch bolts that are easy to weld onto exhaust tubing. Below is a picture of the weld in exhaust bung. The best idea is to copy someone else that has done it, or has similar exhaust routing.

NEED HELP

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