Too much YouTube? I'm about to order a Holley Sniper EFI system

Nothing is simple on these cars! What carb you use depends on how hard you intend to drive. A 780 (or a 750) Holley will add power and reduce fuel mileage to maybe 12 mpg. The nearly ideal size is a Holley 700 or a tuner-altered 650 with a dozen changes. Set up properly, expect 18-20 mpg from a tuner carb. Maybe. EFI can deliver 22-25+ mpg with the same performance.

Is your car a '71-'72? Because another way out for EFI without having a vulnerable christmas tree of fittings hanging down from the tank is to pull the left rear quarter glass, then reach in and remove the long fuel tank sender thru the window opening. The bolt-in '73-up sender has a built-in fuel-out line, making the welded fuel-out port on the early tank ideal for an EFI return. The unservice-able OEM internal line often rusts thru inside, allowing you to only utilize fuel down to the first rust pit- about half a tank. As a fuel return, even a rust pitted line works fine.

Early tanks also had an equally unservice-able nylon fuel filter on the end of the welded line, that builds up varnish & restricts fuel flow. Some fell apart over 50 years; if its still in there, we recommend reaching inside the tank thru one of the large openings and tearing the nylon off with a long rod, then fishing the pieces out. Be VERY careful working around a nearly-empty gas tank!

You may get lucky, but the fuel tank drain plug is normally stuck solid. The lightweight steel tank is made of such thin sheet that excess pressure on the tank plug will cause the sheet metal to buckle into frightening waves. It may actually tear! Some shops have had success using a large air hammer set at a lower pressure, which reportedly loosens the plug after a few minutes of unbelievable noise. Others drill it out and tap the straight thread M22 hole for a SAE pipe thread. If you do this, do not use an electric drill; when the drill bit first breaks thru, residual gasoline will run down over the electric drill motor and life can quickly become "expensive & exciting".....

Thanks Boss!
Mine's a '73.

Appreciate the warnings. It looks so easy, just unscrew this plug.

Hey- try it.  You might get lucky. To save reposts, I try to present some of the pitfalls lurking out there. Remember that straight metric thread, though. You may want to change the tank to a SAE pipe thread just for convenience. If not, <www.Pegasus-racing.com> in the midwest U.S carries all kinds of valuable adapters and they're a dependable source.

Lots of speed shops list pipe-to-AN fittings in all sorts of sizes. The tank plug is straight thread Metric which only adds to the complexity of hooking things up. So I suggest it may be simpler to tap the tank to SAE pipe. And as I said, a dangly christmas tree of fittings hanging down towards the road and the thin-ness of the tank bottom causes me some longevity concerns. Even simpler, one owner drilled a hole in the bolt-on filler elbow (below the gas cap) on top of the tank and added his return EFI fuel line to that easily removable part, rather than dealing with running an extra line directly into the actual fuel tank.

Don't remember if you said what your future intentions were with the Pantera, but your '73 fuel sending unit line ID can only suck enough gasoline for about 450 bhp. I and others have cut the fuel feed line off a new '73 fuel sending unit and replaced it with the next size larger line, without much problem. That size will flow about 600 bhp worth of fuel.  Both numbers are assuming suction feed to a carb. But a 50 psi EFI pump inside the stock fuel tank will flow lots more fuel thru stock sized lines than 450 bhp worth. How fast d'you wanna go?

One more thought: the Pantera is a SMALL 2-seat car with a BIG engine and a robust 5-speed tranny shoehorned into it. The 'little' 2 seat Pontiac Fiero is an inch wider, an inch longer and an inch taller than a Pantera, and weighs close to the same. Yet people often think of the Pantera as a 'big' sports car. Park yours next to a late model Ford GT sometime, and you'll  see what I mean. Good luck.

Yep. Almost tiny.

Thanks guys.
I've dug up most of the info I need.
Looks like an in-tank pump is the way to go.

I've removed the tank bottom bungs without incident from two different cars, one had been sitting with stale gas in it for 18 or 19 years.

Siphon out every drop of fuel you can first, and be sure the car is high enough to get a decent sized bucket underneath the tank quickly, and have another one ready. The leftover gas comes out fast.

An in-tank pump will fit in an unmodified tank. What's needed is to shorten the  steel fuel feed line inside by about the length of the pump and clamp the coupling lines tightly. Tie-wraps can help. If you use plastic lines, today's fuels will soon cause them to harden up, better supporting the pump weight so no metal pump bracket needed. Then you add a spade lug through-connector to the outside of the sender & seal it for a 12+ source to the pump.  Ground the other wire to the sender inside somewhere. You can cannibalize a sender off a Fiat- similar to the Pantera but a foot shorter. Ford pumps are not marked by output so a TBI pump that gives about 10-12 psi looks exactly like an EFI pump that gives 45-55 psi....

A word of caution, I had nothing but problems with my Holley EFI.  It made starting my car a breeze, but once the car reached 180*F, it would shut down and leave me in some rather dangerous situations.   Several mechanics were unable to diagnose or fix the issue, and Holley technical support is not answering their phones.  I removed it, and it's sitting in a box in my garage.

That's disappointing to hear.  Seems like either 1 or 5 star reviews for the thing and maybe a bit of a crap shoot.

@tberg posted:

A word of caution, I had nothing but problems with my Holley EFI.  It made starting my car a breeze, but once the car reached 180*F, it would shut down and leave me in some rather dangerous situations.   Several mechanics were unable to diagnose or fix the issue, and Holley technical support is not answering their phones.  I removed it, and it's sitting in a box in my garage.

Who did you buy your Sniper from? Why weren’t they helping you?

The guy who did most of the restoration work purchased it for me, and he couldn't solve the issue.  Took it to my normal mechanic who works on all of my cars for 20 years, and he couldn't solve it, and both of us called Holley numerous times including one day where I stayed on hold for more than 6 hours with no answer.  Replaced it with an Edelbrock carb and have had no issues including today driving in 110*F heat in the San Fernando Valley. 

I'm a bit late to the party on this, but I did actually try a Holley Sniper EFI on my Pantera at one point when I still had the old engine in it and it was problematic due to a number of reasons. Holley, and probably all of the other vendors selling similar systems, loves to bill them as a simple drop-in conversion that you can install on any car by basically throwing the box at the car right off the UPS truck. There is a lot more to the installation, however, and a lot more you have to take into consideration.

First, you must be absolutely sure of the state of your engine before you put the EFI system on the car.  Any issues you may have with your car now are not going to magically go away with the Sniper system. In fact, it will likely make them worse. Part of my problem with the old engine in my Pantera was a bad build from the early 2000's done by a prior owner. Undersized pistons for the engine resulted in slap-happy movement within the cylinders and ultimately led to bad compression on cylinders 5, 6, and 8 with the other cylinders being perilously close to bad compression. Not knowing what camshaft was in the car was another issue, as the build invoice from 2001 showed some generic cam being used, so we had no idea what lift and duration was. Long story short, you will want to do all you can to ensure your engine is in good working order with the setup you have now.

I actually went with the full Holley Sniper EFI system at the time, including their HyperSpark distributor, control box, and coil so that their EFI computer controlled the engine timing as well as setting redline. If you go for the whole system like this, you'll need an MSD tach adapter to convert the signal from the Holley system to something your tach will understand, and you'll also want to make sure you use the same type of distributor gear on the Hyperspark distributor as is on your current distributor. Irrespective of what you plan on doing regarding ignition timing, you will absolutely need to ensure that your coil is located as far away as possible from the actual Sniper unit. The Sniper ECM is located on the throttle body and is subject to RF interference generated by your coil and you can expect some problematic behavior when the two are in close proximity to each other. If I were to do another EFI system on my car, I'd actually go with something where the ECM was a separate unit that could be located somewhere more sane. Also, a slightly irrelevant sidenote is that the Sniper has a noticeable intake hiss during more "spirited" driving.

Apologies for the wall of text, but that's effectively my experience with the Sniper EFI system on a Pantera. My case was a series of bad circumstances that ultimately led me to a year long overhaul of the whole car and a brand new engine. I'm sure the Sniper EFI system works great when all of the other variables you have to consider are good and I can't really say it's an overly bad system.

Much appreciated. In doing some more research these are pretty hit and miss.
I'll get mine running well with a carb as step 1 and go from there.

I'm probably not alone in saying this, but if you talk to any serious engine builder they'll likely tell you the only way to do EFI on a classic V8 is to do a multiport or Hilborn 8 stack style EFI setup with a fully programmable ECU and have the car tuned by a knowledgeable tuner on a dyno. That way the tune fits your exact car with your exact powertrain. While my experience with these "self tuning" systems was affected by admittedly crappy engine build issues, I still kinda got the feeling that it spent more time learning than it actually did running.

I did keep the 383 that came out of the Pantera, and I've been toying around with the idea of finding something else to destroy my bank account on. I may revisit the EFI question when I figure out what that may be.

@Ceseuron posted:

I'm probably not alone in saying this, but if you talk to any serious engine builder they'll likely tell you the only way to do EFI on a classic V8 is to do a multiport or Hilborn 8 stack style EFI setup with a fully programmable ECU and have the car tuned by a knowledgeable tuner on a dyno. That way the tune fits your exact car with your exact powertrain. While my experience with these "self tuning" systems was affected by admittedly crappy engine build issues, I still kinda got the feeling that it spent more time learning than it actually did running.

I did keep the 383 that came out of the Pantera, and I've been toying around with the idea of finding something else to destroy my bank account on. I may revisit the EFI question when I figure out what that may be.

I agree with getting a system that is fully tunable. The self tuning features that these systems have is a bit limited. Although the individual stack EFI systems are nice, they are complicated and expensive. I am using a sequential port system with the four barrel style throttle body design and it works great. There are lots of classic muscle cars running around on the street and at race tracks that are using these systems and they seem to work fine. If you get one of these systems, the best place to have it set up and tuned is at a shop that specializes in them. They generally know the software and how to set everything up. They can also put the car on a chassis dyno and get the most out of the tune. No matter how good the mechanic is, if he can't get into computer program and see how the system is set up and know how to make the necessary adjustments, then he is just wasting his time and your money.

I have been following this thread for a few days now and I figure I should now input my two cents.

My 1969 Bronco has the Fitech fuel injection system.  It was easy to install and tune and the self learning feature got me about 75% there.  The biggest problem I had was RFI from the brand new Taylor spark plug wires.  This drove me nuts as it would shut down the engine like turning the key off then on again followed by a big backfire.  One of the reasons I bought this system is that the company is located just a few miles from me.  This turned out to be a huge blessing as they helped me diagnose the RFI problem in person.  They even lent me a set of wires for testing.  I am running an in tank pump and a return line back to the tank.  So far I really like how it runs mostly like a modern car.

I am now considering installing the same system in my pantera.  The thing that is holding me back somewhat is that I would have to run an external pump.  I have read many problems with external pumps so I am a little reluctant to mess up a very reliable car.

Just my 2 Cents

@italford posted:

I have been following this thread for a few days now and I figure I should now input my two cents.

My 1969 Bronco has the Fitech fuel injection system.  It was easy to install and tune and the self learning feature got me about 75% there.  The biggest problem I had was RFI from the brand new Taylor spark plug wires.  This drove me nuts as it would shut down the engine like turning the key off then on again followed by a big backfire.  One of the reasons I bought this system is that the company is located just a few miles from me.  This turned out to be a huge blessing as they helped me diagnose the RFI problem in person.  They even lent me a set of wires for testing.  I am running an in tank pump and a return line back to the tank.  So far I really like how it runs mostly like a modern car.

I am now considering installing the same system in my pantera.  The thing that is holding me back somewhat is that I would have to run an external pump.  I have read many problems with external pumps so I am a little reluctant to mess up a very reliable car.

Just my 2 Cents

I am using an external fuel pump, but I had to drill out the plug in the bottom of my gas tank. It was a bit risky, but it worked out. I am not a fan of in tank fuel pumps only because they are hard to get to if there is a problem. In a Pantera, the pump would be installed or removed from the top of the tank, so it wouldn't require having to drain and remove the gas tank. The external pump does make noise, but other than that, I am satisfied with it and it is quite easy to get to.

I’m using a Bosch 044 external pump that’s connected to a high flow Setrab M22 banjo fitting (from BAT, Inc.), in order to keep the fuel line tucked up as close to the bottom of the tank as possible. I decided to use the Bosch pump because you can buy them at most auto parts stores, they perform very well, are reliable and quiet. If you want a bit of “bling”, there are very nice billet mounting brackets available on eBay.

Just my $0.02; nearing completion on my restoration, and I am going to run a carb to start with, then plan to go EFI.  I made an in-tank fuel pump and return assembly.  It mounts in the stock location, and is removable through the quarter window opening.  Carb will take fuel from the return line while the in tank pump is unused.  Later will re-configure for EFI.  Here is a photo:

Thanks UFO-LOW that is definitely an option for me now.

That’s a great idea to have dual capability for carb or EFI, via the return.

Good thinking!

Rocky

Have you guys seen this stuff?:
https://www.holley.com/product...el_systems/hydramat/

I looked into it several years ago. I believe it does what they say it does. An engineer friend was impressed by its performance. That said, due to the shape of the Pantera gas tank it probably isn’t worth the expense, just my 2 cents. If I remember correctly they do sell small sizes which might help a little. They are probably most beneficial when used in larger flat tanks. I don’t recall its life expectancy but I suggest checking that out before considering using it in a street car, especially a Pantera since replacing it is likely difficult.

Fuel tank foam doesn't work well with swinging arm fluid senders. A deep tank with a long swinging arm makes it even worse 'cause of the large space you need to leave clear.