Lowbugget Fitech Install

[JayTeeVW]

I actually put the Holley sniper on my 1776 with a RADesigns intake. It's a good system as well. Like you the install took so long because life gets in the way. Love your write up. Check out my install if you'd like.

https://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopi ... 5&t=151506

Awesome write up, the throttle cable has been the biggest bitch so far for me too but I'm getting close:) how are you liking it so far?

The throttle cable took some doing for me too but decided to run a brake line down the side of the tunnel and I used the throttle cable that came with my kit then just cut it to length. I like the system but it still needed hands on tuning so I ordered laptop cable and used the tuning software offered from Holley to work out a few tuning issues. Mainly fuel pressure and warm/hot starts. But the throttle response is great and I’ve noticed too that at cruise I’m at maybe 10% throttle if that cruising at 70 mph. My next step maybe pulling the engine and trying a 1.8 G60 motor with the Holley sniper since I have just the engine but no harness or ecu. Then shove it back in the bug and hooking up a supercharger.

[V8Nate]

I actually put the Holley sniper on my 1776 with a RADesigns intake. It's a good system as well. Like you the install took so long because life gets in the way. Love your write up. Check out my install if you'd like.

https://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopi ... 5&t=151506

Awesome write up, the throttle cable has been the biggest bitch so far for me too but I'm getting close:) how are you liking it so far?

The throttle cable took some doing for me too but decided to run a brake line down the side of the tunnel and I used the throttle cable that came with my kit then just cut it to length. I like the system but it still needed hands on tuning so I ordered laptop cable and used the tuning software offered from Holley to work out a few tuning issues. Mainly fuel pressure and warm/hot starts. But the throttle response is great and I’ve noticed too that at cruise I’m at maybe 10% throttle if that cruising at 70 mph. My next step maybe pulling the engine and trying a 1.8 G60 motor with the Holley sniper since I have just the engine but no harness or ecu. Then shove it back in the bug and hooking up a supercharger.

Sounds like a fun project:)

[V8Nate]

Update: Its a runner!

On New year's eve I was working on it finishing up a few odds and ends on the car, cycled a few gallons of gas thru the lines to flush it out and wired everything up per the instructions that came with the unit( they were modified by Aj ill include a picture).

So now on the 1st im double checking everything and have it all ready to fire, crank crank crank nothing... then it would fire then die. So I started thinking and watching the handheld it showed no rpm signal but my tach was bouncing so I looked at the wiring schematic. The tach wire was hooked up per instructions to a tach wire for a cdi box off the fitech, so I said heck with it and clipped that wire and hooked it up to the -coil points wire and bam we have fire!

So I messed with it some and it was running pig rich belching smoke then figured let's try getting it on the road maybe it needs some driving to tune itself. It was a rough go I put 2 miles on it that night and messed with the iac a little then parked it.

On to the 2nd I figured ok let's try something new, I have actually acquired a second lowbugget kit and this one was setup for a 2110 vs a 1835 that the first kit was designed for so I uploaded the 2110 tune to the handheld and sent that to the ecu. Starting fresh I fired it up and it was still throwing out black soot but I reved it up to clear it out and backed it out of the garage and let it run at about 1800 rpm. I would occasionally rev it and I would barely back the idle screw out every couple minutes giving it some time to kinda learn a few lower rpm idle parameters until I got to 1000 rpm for a total run time of 1 hour and 15 minutes. So at this time I have not messed with Aj's pre set afr settings but it wasn't to happy to run at this point below 1000 rpm so that is the idle speed for now. I then shut the car off and hooked up the diesel heater since its cold and wet here in the PNW, setup a gopro and went for the first drive. It went pretty well it does learn pretty fast quite amazing actually but it still has alot to go. Low rpm high load is the worst it will fall on its face pretty hard, and it has some pretty rich dips getting into the throttle but thats why I need to drive it more and let it learn.

I put 50 miles on it yesterday and ran it for over 3 hours, and I'd say so far its pretty bitchin even though its far from perfect. One thing I'm going to try and fix for my situation is since I have done a trans raise on my car nothing fits.lol with the air cleaner on the decklid won't close and with the air cleaner off the fuel line is up against the sheet metal and I even have the little riser for the latch. I don't have standoffs and I really don't want to run them honestly so I can make a 1 inch extension for the decklid latch riser to clear the fuel line then ill have to mess with figuring out an air cleaner. Im going to see if I can make an offset base to push it closer to the fan shroud, or use a turbo hat and put a cone filter on it, of see if someone makes a cone filter for a 4bbl application.

And honestly it is not a hard install and should definitely not take 3 months to do id say the hardest part of the install for me was making everything for the throttle cable, I wanted it to look nice but be visually appealing as well and be as far away from the belt as possible and making a bell crank just wasn't happening.

[Clonebug]

Could you adapt a banjo style fitting to the carb inlet for a little more clearance????

Maybe this ???

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Russell-640233 ... 3351969748

[panel]

Wonder if there is room to turn the whole thing 90° . Might hit the fan shroud though or make it worse.

[V8Nate]

Thanks clone ill look into one of those I still have a few feet of line to make a different return line. Panel that would be nice if a intake were available(maybe a modified center idf) or a home made unit. Im actually surprised on how this intake isn't really icing over, its sweating thats for sure(no exhaust preheat tubes btw) and I'm not running a decklid at the moment in 45 degree weather. I think a decklid will help keep some heat in.

Im at 110 miles as of last night, I definitely need to change the oil it smells pretty gassy. Driving with the decklid off the "coolant" temp only gets up to 130-140(sensor is mounted in a fuel pump block off plate) and the only thing I have done to combat the lower temp is I adjusted the add fuel percentage around that temp to zero which helped

[panel]

Wonder if one of these in the #3 location (in pic) would be better.

http://thedubshop.com/modified-coolant-temp-sensor/

clt.JPG

Driving with the decklid off the "coolant" temp only gets up to 130-140(sensor is mounted in a fuel pump block off plate) and the only thing I have done to combat the lower temp is I adjusted the add fuel percentage around that temp to zero which helped

[V8Nate]

Panel I bet it would good idea

[V8Nate]

Here's part 2 of my little video


https://youtu.be/dP9uX-6Hnwc

[V8Nate]

A little update

Haven't driven it much lately I have close to 300 miles on it as of a couple weeks ago. One main problem I am getting close to fixing is engine bay temps, I was using the decklid from my supercharged engine temporarily and it was just too cold out. The intake was icing which I'm sure is causing fuel to fall out of suspension, and the temp sensor for the fitech was only getting up to 125f.

So I ended up finding a fiberglass decklid with a scoop on it that reminds me of the scoop on a c2 vette:) the scoop section clears the throttle linkage and the fuel line but it still wouldn't clear the small air cleaner I was using. That's where a new toy comes into play that a friend of mine gave me that I'm pretty excited about, he gave me a 3d printer with some filament too:) I downloaded the free fusion 360 software and started messing with it and came up with a carb hat that should work nicely when boost comes into play and allows me to use a clamp on filter:) This is probably the coolest little gadget I've played with in a long time!

I still have some fiberglass work to do but I have re contoured the top of the decklid, now I need to pull the sides down closer to the body then I can get the latch made. This will hopefully hold some heat in the engine compartment and if I'm still not getting enough heat to the cts I'll try moving it down by the bottom side of the jugs on the 3/4 side, if that doesn't work I'll hit up Mario for one of those trick cts that go on the head tin screw

[V8Nate]

Up to 304 miles on it now, put about 30 miles on it today and what a difference! I took a hood latch off of a late 70's early 80's BMW 518 and made it work for my setup. I was going to French in the license plate but it looked ugly so I made a bumper bracket instead.

With the decklid on there was no icing on the manifold and the lowest temp on the cts was 165 and the highest was 187 which helped out tremendously. The handheld says it has taken out an overall percentage of 35.5% out of the fuel table just today!

I do think the carb hat restricts my top end but boy is it a torque monster. Below 1200rpm it's still a little choppy but I can't complain for the mileage that's on it.


I'll continue with updates as I go along but I think it's time to just put some mileage on it:) thanks for following along

[V8Nate]

https://youtu.be/bKE6v2RNIQE

[V8Nate]

Hello everyone, just hit 2250 miles on my stroker and 1000 on the fitech. I parked my bug April 3rd and started driving it again June 28th, I've been working on my wife's bug and didn't want to distract myself.lol I ended up making a bell crank linkage setup for it, the cable in my opinion was just too long with too many bends which caused some stiffness i didnt like. This is pretty smooth, I might remake the pivot 90 to make it slightly smoother right off idle but that will be saved for another day.

So I've only had it leave me stranded 1 time, which I've come to the conclusion was my own fault. I was trying to get the below 1k rpm to respond better and in the software you can adjust low rpm(stock 1100) mid rpm(stock 3000) and high rpm(stock 6000) and I changed them to 500,2000,5000. It would run for a while and then just die and after that it would only show a max of 323 rpm. That happened to me twice so I left that setting alone and each time that happened I would have to re load the tune/lowbugget base tune and start the learning over again.

The second issue I was having was it would be running great self tuning away getting better and better until randomly at startup it would go so rich it would barely run and the learn percentage (which shows if its adding or removing fuel) would be stuck at zero. It happened about 3 times in the morning when it was cold then 1 time when it was hot, this usually happened after 5 or 6 different drives. The fix again was re loading the tune and starting over. So I called up fitech and they said the fuel pump pwm was set way too low(29.6 and they recommended 70) 70 made the pump to noisy so I ended up with 45. That kept my idle fuel pressure at 42psi vs the 20 at idle that it was before(70 pwm was also at 42psi)

So far it hasn't done it again (been about 3 weeks) knock on wood!

I just took it on a 250 mile round trip on Saturday and it ran well, the way there I cruised at 68-70 the whole way even up over the pass without skipping a beat, I was mostly keeping an eye on the oil temps(75-80 degrees out with the decklid on) the oil temps run at 225-240 when its closer to 70, hotter than 75 I pull the decklid off otherwise they climb pretty fast. The way home I had the decklid off and was cruising it at 75-100 mph the whole way back, a good solid 3 miles at 90-95 with the oil temp staying at 230. Cruising at 85 the oil temp stays at 225 where at 75 its at 235-240(might be my tire size and .84 4th turning the fan faster who knows)

I want to mess with the "accelerator pump" settings but the same flip of the coin I just want to put more miles on it. It does great when your driving and punch it, it doesn't swing rich but if it's at idle and I try a 2 pump rev it will load up on the second rev and spit and sputter. One quick 4k rev it will drop below my set rpm on its way down and slightly stumble from over richness until it burns it then smoothes out.

I would definitely say for me carbs are easier to mess with in some ways but I've messed with them my whole life so there is definitely a learning curve but it's fun to challenge the mind and learn new things:)

I haven't tested the mpg's driving like a normal person or the speed limit but driving it around town and beating on it gets an average of 18 mpg and cruising it at 68-70 (with a few wot to 90) and going over the pass with a 2058cc it averaged 23.56 mpg, I'd call that a win in my book:)

Thanks for following along

https://youtube.com/shorts/zuFGRLjNtdo? ... c73ad3.jpg[/IMG]

[V8Nate]

https://youtu.be/lpoLU34PSdo

[[email protected]]

dude love your throttle cable setup ! is there any way you can get me the dimensions and the parts you used?! thst be amazing my friend