Buick Straight 8

[matty b]

Hey guys, Ive been given an interesting project. A customer of mine expressed interest in fuel injecting his 1951 Buick Special Deluxe. The car is stock appearing although Ive installed air conditioning, HEI distributor and other things here and there. Living in Sacramento, he wants to be able to drive into the mountains without a hiccup, start it in the morning easily and get better efficency out of the motor.

I plan to keep the install of the EFI looking very period correct by even using the cloth covered GXL wire thats available nowdays. The plan would be to make it look like Buick did it back in the day (well almost).

Now to my question of how I should go about doing this. The big issue is that the cylinder head has siamesed intake ports for 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8. Firing order is 1-6-2-5-8-3-7-4. The engine is set up like an even firing 4 cylinder in the middle 4 and another even firing 4 cylinder in the outer 2 on either side.

This arrangement makes for a unique situation as to what the best way to do this is. Im not quite sure what the best arangementI I should go with. Im hoping that maybe someone can give me a suggestion as to how I should set this up. I know TBI would be the best in this situation but if it comes to that I dont wnat to do it. I know this would be possible with a seqential box and diodes but dunno how to do it with a batchfire method.

Hope you guys can help or refer me to the best sub forum for this.

[Matt Cramer]

How far away from the intake ports can you get the injectors? I've heard from others with siamesed ports that locating the injectors around 6" or more from the split can avoid charge robbing issues.

[fury fan]

From my perspective, using TBI on that engine is a better choice. Simpler, and much easier to return to stock if needed. For port EFI you’ll need to modify the intake manifold, and that’s non-reversible.

I can appreciate your desire to make everything look as if it has factory appearance, however adding a fuel rail and injectors, plus all the other sensors/wiring that are required, will make EFI easy to notice. A TBI can hide more easily.

I know TBI would be the best in this situation but if it comes to that I dont wnat to do it

TBI is light-years superior to a 1951 carb, so I don't understand why the 'port-EFI or nothing' stance?