Are there any Ram Jet fuel injection people...

[73z-6sp]

who have successfully installed their own RJ engine? I am having a heck of a time with mine and I am quite honestly ready to take a hammer to it before throwing it in the trash! I have done all the things I can think of short of transporting it to Az speed and marine. Fuel in tank, fuel pressure correct, timing correct, grounds correct and I even separated them. Added more ground straps from engine to body to frame to engine. Checked connections, bought software, read manual, done tests. It just will not stop running rich and backfiring. Sometimes it will refuse to start. And yes...I have checked my firing order many times thinking maybe I have it wrong but it isnt. I have pretty much had it with this thing. Anyone want to buy a slightly dented RJ fuel injection unit? ;)

[Dust87ss]

I know you said you checked the firing order, but maybe it's out 180*?

[73z-6sp]

Nope, I've checked that three times hoping I was wrong. It is right where it is supposed to be.

[Dust87ss]

How did you check it? Timing light?

[73z-6sp]

I removed the valve cover, rotated the engine to TDC, checked distributer and checked wires. I can assure you it isnt that. I wish it was. That would make my life a whole heck of a lot easier! I've made that mistake on early projects in my life. I've learned enough to know when that is wrong.

[Damn True]

Sounds like something the engine in my Jeep once did. It started acting up all at once with no warning. I dunno if your particular engine has one, but it could be a bad CPS?

[73z-6sp]

Dare I ask what a CPS is? Is it me?
;)
I think it needs more cowbell!

What an awesome skit! One of the best on SNL.

[Elusive R]

Do you have any way to check the sensors? Bad O2? Also, you didn't say if you checked the timing with a light or not. My Accel unit acted in a similar way - although sounds like mine was running better (sorry) - when the timing was way off. Also, how's the ignition module? Does the RJ control timing? I went through 3 modules before I got a good one with mine.

Ryan

[Damn True]

Dare I ask what a CPS is? Is it me?
;)
I think it needs more cowbell!

What an awesome skit! One of the best on SNL.

Crankshaft position sensor.

The engine in my Jeep (an AMC I-6) was running fine one day. The next day I started it to go to work and it behaved exactly the way you are describing. I replaced the CPS and it ran perfect.

I don't know if your particular engine even has one. But I know many EFI systems use them.

[73z-6sp]

OH!!...Duh. Sorry. The computer has provisions to use the CPS but that is in the marine version from what I can tell. It isnt used for the land version. So unfortunately I dont think that is the problem.

The software gives the readings from all the sensors. They all seem to be within accepted range. And yes the RJ does control timing. You have to set base timing but then it takes over from there.

Thanks for the posts. Have a great weekend!

[73z-6sp]

Im still trying to figure this out. I checked timing again (yes, with a timing light) I even thought that maybe I had misread the timing marks on the balancer and tried readjusting the timing to where I thought was correct...it runs worse now and will not start back up unless I move the distributor back to where it was! Im no engine guy by any means. I just want to figure this out. I am seriously considering taking out the engine in exchange for a carbed engine.

[tbair]

What is your fuel pressure? Are you running a in tank pump? We have installed 2 of the ramjets with no problems.

[73z-6sp]

I have tried running fuel pressure from 37 to 55 psi when running. I cannot get it to make a difference. It is harder to start if the pressure is on the low side but it doesnt effect the smoking or the backfiring. I am going to take it to AZ speed and Marine as I cannot keep screwing around with this thing. The way I feel now is I wish I had never gone with this engine. Hopefully I will change my mind.
FWIW, I have the PA-4 in tank fuel pump set up from tanks inc. It is a 250lph Walbro pump.

[tbair]

Sounds like youve got everything you need,I would be willing to bet its the ECU.

[hotrod]

I installed one of these in a camaro about 4 years ago and it has performed flawlessly for me. It's a great motor. Since then I have rebuilt a '94 LT1 motor for another project and that one has cost me more than the RJ (still haven't fired it up yet either). Take it to your shop and have them look it over.

[dendrizzi]

any news on the motor?

[73z-6sp]

No, I had intended to take it to AZ speed and marine Monday. I spent all weekend trying to get my electric fan working properly. The DC controller wasnt working properly. I used another controller but it keeps blowing the fuse so i think the fan may be shorted? At anyrate, I wasnt able to take it up Monday. I called to tell them and they were supposed to call me back to set up another day but have not called yet. Which is fine as I still dont have a functioning fan and I am too frustrated to work on the car right now. I need to walk away for a while and come back later. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for asking!

[Firehawkslp]

who have successfully installed their own RJ engine? I am having a heck of a time with mine and I am quite honestly ready to take a hammer to it before throwing it in the trash! I have done all the things I can think of short of transporting it to Az speed and marine. Fuel in tank, fuel pressure correct, timing correct, grounds correct and I even separated them. Added more ground straps from engine to body to frame to engine. Checked connections, bought software, read manual, done tests. It just will not stop running rich and backfiring. Sometimes it will refuse to start. And yes...I have checked my firing order many times thinking maybe I have it wrong but it isnt. I have pretty much had it with this thing. Anyone want to buy a slightly dented RJ fuel injection unit? ;)

1st a few questions. Have you been able to drive the car? If so what are the conditions under which it back fires, on first fire up, does it do it only once or on accelleration, ect? Does it stay rich even after warm up, does it back fire out thru the exh. or spit back thru the intake,? Does it have the nonadjustable sealed controller.
Can you send the controller back to be tested. There's an old saying the parts bus. "Just cause it's new, don't mean it ant broke."
Is this a complete eng. or just the F.I.:banghead:

[73z-6sp]

Have I been able to drive the car: Just down the street and back and on and off the trailer.

It back fires when you are driving it. I did not give it much throttle at all...just enough to make it go down the road and go into second gear. It sounds like a "bang" or something like that in the exhaust. I assume it is through the exhaust. It doesnt do it when idling but a few times the engine has died and seems to spit back through the air cleaner....there is sometimes smoke coming out too. It does it more than once when driving it.

It has the adjustable fuel pressure regulator.

I am still planning to take it to AZ speed and marine in Phoenix. I am just having a tough time finding a trailer to use. I may end up buying one of my own. I just dont have anywhere to store it!

Thanks for the post. Believe me, when I get it back I will definitely post an update! I cant wait!

[Firehawkslp]

The "smoke " when it dies is most likely fuel washing back. I would run the valves making sure there not being held open. Have you pulled all the plugs to see if all the cylinders are rich. One leaky injector could cause the ecm to lean all, yet still smell rich. This would explain the ruff running, the backfiring and the stalling. Also check that the plug wires are well seprated espcially where they run parallel to rule out cross firing, also check pwr to the ignition most modern hei and dis run on a full 12 v . One last thought have you checked for intake leaks ( spray carb cleaner, wd-40, brake cleaner, ect. along the intake matting surfaces) at the heads, throttle body, if the engines running changes, congrates it's a leak.
These are things to check other than the ecm related.:confused: :fingersx:

[73z-6sp]

Thanks for the input and advice! I am happy to say the car is going to AZ speed and marine in the morning. Not sure how long they will have it but if it runs correctly, its worth the wait! I wish I understood engines better than I do. Im definitely not an engine builder or tuner. I can do most everything else but engines I leave to someone who knows what they are doing. There is just too much money there to screw up for me to try my own hand at it!!

Thanks again

[PhillipM]

I am also very interested to find out what the problem is. We have installed two of these motors with out a single problem. It will be worth the wait... Don't worry.

[RatPwrd]

I bought a pair of iron vortech cyl heads and a ramjet manifold to install on my dad's streetrod.We got it all installed and running with a DFI computer and had a little trouble programing it.We had trouble with it back firing every once in a while.Come to find out it was a VERY BAD valve job from the factory.We pulled the motor and freshened the short block and redid the valve job on the heads and ran it on the dyno to program it and it made 340hp and 390 ft lbs it runs great a nice reliable fun to drive 350 for his hot rod truck.The other thing is on his truck with the DFI it is REALLY sensitive to the battery being fully charged up,and we had to put a powermaster 140 amp alternator on it to charge enough at idle or it would really act up .Good luck with your project

[73z-6sp]

Thanks guys. I took it up to Az speed and marine yesterday and dropped it off. Jim was very helpful and I was quite impressed with the shop. They had some cars there that put mine to shame! Id love to work at a place like that not to mention how much I could learn working there. Someday I hope I can build cars of that caliber. Until then I will be happy to get my car running.

RatPwrd, I hope I dont end up having the same problem...my budget is quickly dwindling and that would probably be more than I would want at this point. But then again, I dont have much choice so we'll see. I keep hoping it is something simple that I just wasnt educated enough to notice.

:)

[PhillipM]

I don't know if a 140 amp is needed but I have run one on every ram-jet. AZ S&M does nice work but there are other shops in town that do extremly nice work for around the same shop rate. I don't always trust the boys over at AZ S&M, they wired up an O2 sensor kit on my first ram-jet for me and it was scary. I do have them tune things for me every once in a while though. Phillip

[PhillipM]

Any news from AS&M????

[73z-6sp]

YEAA!! I am picking it up tomorrow. (Friday) The thing they found wrong was a cylinder had very low compression so after some digging, they found that a nut on one of the roller rockers was backing off and the pushrod was not even on the lifter! Thankfully no damage. Im assuming that was the main reason I could not seem to get it to run correctly regardless of what i tried. Hey! I said I was not an engine guy. I guess someone who knew engines might have picked up on that right away. The better news is that they squeezed 20 more hp out of it by re-programming the computer. It was a short conversation but he said he will give me dyno printouts when I pick it up. I cant wait. I really hope it runs awesome! I'll let you know.

[PhillipM]

Sweet! Im glad to hear that no major damage was done. Post a copy of you dyno if you are able :)

[73z-6sp]

Well, I just got the car home from Phoenix. Ouch that hurt! But it does run much better. It has a little hesitation off idle but maybe it is only because it is still cold. (just moving it on/off trailer, etc) I did drive it down the street. It'll pull pretty hard if you get on it a little but just idling around it feels kinda sluggish. Not sure what if anything that means.

They told me they thought it may be slipping in 3rd. We'll see. I hope not. It seems you get one bug fixed and another shows up!

Phillip, I meant to post in your other thread but I will say it here. Your car looks awesome! Wow! I really like that. Do you have a shop or something or just build them at home? Just curious.

As for dyno, well...what he gave me was a little disappointing. Not very thorough if you ask me. He says they only ran it up to 4600 rpm because they thought it was too new. It only shows 231 hp at the wheels. A little disappointing for an engine that is rated at 350hp and he supposedly got another 20hp over the factory settings! I know there is loss through the drivetrain and all but still...230? Oh well. Next time I am going with an LSx. After the costs involved with this engine, I doubt the LSx would have been much more as far as tuning goes and I would have had more hp probably? And a cooler looking engine! ;)

Anyway, Im off to do some more de-bugging! Have a great weekend!

[PhillipM]

231 hp at the wheels is a little weak, my stock RamJet 350 did 275hp/336tq, and my new RamJet 383 did 434hp/503tq. Something is definatly not running right. We have a shop in down town Mesa. The shop we are in now is about 40x40 and our new shop is about 4,000 sq ft. Plenty oh room :) That green LS7 camaro is actually my dads car. Mine is a silver and black 69 camaro. I'll bet that bill was stout for sure, on my 383 it was something like 700 bucks just to tune the darn thing. Next time you need some work done like that give DRT Auto a call. Joe over there is prettty good with that kind of stuff.

[73z-6sp]

Phillip,

Please give me his info. I still have not had a chance to drive my car so I may need more work done.


I was suspecting that 231 was on the weak side. Im not sure what to do about it. I have to trust them when they say it is tuned correctly. I wish I understood this stuff on my own. How does one learn to program and tune these engines anyway. The program AZ speed was showing me looked way over my head!

[PhillipM]

The phone number over there is 480-834-0978. They don't do any FI tuning but they do everything else. As for learning to tune a MEFI4 it is rather difficult. We have one on our LS7 also and we were able to get it just to idle so we could drive it onto the trailer to get it tuned over at ADS in chandler. They have been doing our tuning lately and I have been really happy with those guys.

[Dan Sherwood]

I will second the vote for ADS.

[Shevelle]

When you time the ramjet you need to plug in the code reader and put it in timing mode to lock out advance. Hope it helps.

[73z-6sp]

Well... a little update on my RJ350. Does the question: Anybody wanna buy a barely used RJ fuel injection unit?" tell you anything. I am 95% sure I am ditching this piece of ish and going with a carb. I finally got to drive the car some and it is a dog!! My Tundra is ten times faster! It falls on its face. It still cuts out and runs like complete crap. RJ was the biggest mistake I made building this car. The 700R4 is a close second. I should have gone with the 6 speed like I thought. I just didnt want to cut the tunnel. My 73 was a way better running car and I had much less into it. Man am I disgusted right now. Sorry to vent on you guys but I am just beside myself.

[pushrod243]

Just ****can the mefi4 and add a real tuneable fuel injection computer. I used a FAST xfi on my Ramjet 502 its a whole different car. I picked up a whole second at the dragstrip over the stock injection too.

[73z-6sp]

If I knew how to tune it I might be inclined to try it but I am dependent on others for tuning and I am through dumping money into this setup. It cost me an arm and a leg at Az S&M. No more money from me into this FI.

[Fuelie Nova]

I would probably buy your ramjet components from you if you want to sell.

Tg

[73z-6sp]

Well...I gotta eat some crow so to speak. I was pretty hard on AS&M in my posts. They took my car back a few weeks ago and worked on the programming. As of today, the car is running pretty dang good! I think they got the hesitation fixed. It will still stumble until warmed up but after that it runs strong and no hiccups. The car runs better throughout the driving range and I am surprised at how much better it feels now. I also got the AC charged today and it gets nice and cold!

Oh...and to top it off...AS&M didnt charge me a penny. Not what I was expecting so I was pleasantly surprised. And relieved too because I was at my wits end with spending money on this fuel injection.

The car is actually fun to drive now! Man!...12+ months after firing up the engine I can finally feel a little excitement again! Cant tell you what thats worth!

[pushrod243]

great news glad they took care of you