Aftermarket EFI and single-wire alternators

kaiser715

kaiser715

Doing hard time
Joined
Jun 1, 2006
Location
7, Pocket, NC
I'm thinking of doing TBI fuel injection on a 350, and considering building a Megasquirt along with kits from AFI and Howell.

Reading the .pdf of the install instructions for TBI from affordable-fuel-injection.com, I find this:

IMPORTANT NOTE: Older style single wire Delco alternators do not work well with fuel injection systems. We do not recommend or provide support for vehicles equipped with single wire alternators such as described above. Many people like to use single wire GM Delco alternators. These alternators need to see elevated engine RPMs before they begin to charge. If you are using this type of single wire alternator, beware that you may not have the proper voltage provided to your system on initial start-up. Simply blipping the throttle will bring you up to proper voltage. We do not recommend these types of single wire alternators for fuel injection applications.
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Comments? Anybody seen this restriction with Howell or other TBI/EFI kits? What's the best workaround? I'm running a 140 amp single-wire GM alt.
 
Propane!
 
1stgenxxx said:
Propane!
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I'm running propane on this truck and my CJ -- and love it. I use the truck more on the road, and refueling the propane is proving to be a pain when on the road. I got a 30 gallon ASME tank, and two mounted forklift tanks, but it's too much trouble getting fuel when travelling.

I'm planning on selling the 'pane setup and going FI on this one.
 
I see your point
 
My single wire would start charging at 1100 engine RPM's.. the initial startup revs on most EFI rigs I've driven is higher than that, so I think you'd be good.
 
kaiser715 said:
THANK YOU for that link! I have a much better understanding of what I have, and what I might want to do to my electrical system.... That article 'splains it very well. Really don't need their kit...but the info is great.
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Yeah, I met this guy several years ago....most of what he sells is meh-tastic, though he used to have some good pricing on marine grade connectors....but he has some nice tech articles on his site...
 
I'm with Tom & Rich... appears to be some overly cautious CYA from AFI.

OTOH, I'm running a homegrown TBI with a 3wire without any issues. Because of the way it's wired (always "excited"?) it seems to take some RPMs to start charging, but the Voltage Compensation table in the ECM seems to do just fine until the alt catches up...
 
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