Fuel Injection Vs. Carbureted.

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A customer of ours came in inquiring about having his largely all original summer cruiser only 1964 Ford Falcon converted over to fuel injection so that it would run better. After chatting with him about the car and his goals, we all agreed that giving the carburetor a good going through, and converting the ignition over from points to all electronic ignition would be a more cost effective solution that would meet all of his goals while also keeping the car closer to original. The car barely made it in sputtering and coughing. We replaced the distributor with a Pertronix unit that looks OE but has modern internals, cleaned out the carburetor, replaced the accelerator pump and did plugs and wires on it. The car now runs great, and the owner couldn’t be happier with the performance although his test drive was cut short by Pacific Northwest rainstorms. While converting it over to fuel injection would have been a bigger and more profitable job for us, we just didn’t think it was the answer in this application. Getting what you’ve already got running correctly can make you totally fall in love with a car all over again, and it doesn’t have to empty your pockets. Today’s modern fuels that include ethanol are great for making power, as oxygenated fuel burns better. However, the classics out there running carburetors just aren’t designed for it. Pair that with a car that only sees seasonal use, and the characteristics of modern fuels to absorb and retain ambient moisture and it’s likely your classic will run rough. Locally we are seeing a lot more service stations offering “clear” ethanol free fuels in recent years. This fuel is the right choice for lawn equipment, classic cars, boats, and any internal combustion engine that only sees seasonal use or is going to be stored for an extended length of time.

1964 Ford Falcon
Ford 260 V8 with upgraded Pertronix distributor and carb refresh.

Ford Lightning Tune Up

We had a customer call us with a really cool Lightning pickup that has a 5-speed manual swap. Because the ECU could no longer communicate with the automatic transmission that was no longer there, it was throwing a check engine light. No problem for us to hook up a tuner and let the ECU know not to panic. Upon arrival our Head Tuner and Lighting aficionado Travis started by looking over all of the common failure points for Lightnings including but not limited to the intercooler water pump, fuel pump relays. It turns out that the intercooler water pump had failed, the fuel pump relays were both on their way out and getting hot. When the fuel pumps fail on these trucks, it can cost you an engine if it happens under load. Upon further inspection, it also had aftermarket ignition coils that are known to have issues that cause misses. The customer wanted the truck to be dyno tuned, so knowing what potential issues we would run into we had the customer bring in the stock set of coils just in case we needed them. He had just replaced the spark plugs 1,000 miles ago so they weren’t of too much concern. We replaced the intercooler water pump, fuel pump relays, and fuel filter before pulling it onto the dyno. Once on the dyno and the miss that we were afraid it might have have showed up. Travis replaced the coils, and wisely while he was there, pulled the nearly new spark plugs to check the condition. All 8 of them were in terrible shape due to detonation caused from the intercooler not properly cooling the air and fuel starvation from the fuel pump relays going out. The truck now runs amazing and the customer has reported back that the truck can now break traction in all gears! The Lightning absolutely rips now and our knowledge likely saved the customer from having to replace an engine in the very near future. Photo of one of the spark plugs that only had 1,000 miles on it attached. Crisis Averted.

1,000 mile spark plug

Pacific Northwest Spec Miata Champion

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Congratulations to Fast Specialties customer Thomas Micich on winning the 2023 Pacific Northwest Spec Miata Championship. After 14 rounds of racing, Thomas narrowly beat out another Fast Specialties customer Ken Sutherland by only 2 points. In all, 9 out of the top 10 finishers in the series have had their cars dyno tuned by our head tuner Travis Hall this season! (Photo Credit Martin Burlus)

2023 Pacific NW Spec Miata Tour

We want to wish all of our customers competing in the last stop of the PNW Spec Miata Tour the best of luck this weekend at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA. Through the first 11 stops of the 2023 Tour, of the 68 cars that have participated, every single driver that has stood on the podium has had their car tuned on the dyno at Fast Specialties this year!

2007 Ford Mustang GT supercharger install and tuning

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We have this ’07 Mustang here for a supercharger install and when its completed it will need to be fully retuned. The supercharger looks right at home under there. Check out the series of pictures showing the progress. Will post the final results on our Facebook page when its all done.
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Update: The Mustang is just about all buttoned up and ready to go on the dyno for the tuning portion of its visit.
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Mustang GT with intake upgrades

We have this 2000 Mustang GT here for some tuning after getting an upgrade from the conservative factory setup. The car now sports a TrickFlow throttle body, K&N cold air intake, and is equipped with an SCT tuner to calibrate the car for the new values.

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Transmission tuning with HP tuners and LS engine swaps.

Really nicely built/restored willies with a late model 5.3 swap showed up for some trans tuning. The factory calibrations for these transmissions like to hold off on a downshift alot longer then you really want sometimes, also the shift firmness properties and upshift at wot scheduals really need a little work to make feel right. A little time with HP tuners and we are much happier with how the trans operates. Also this swap used an on off electric fan arangement where the factory fan was a pulse width modulated assembly. So anytime the fan was commended the poor 30 amp relay got a seriouse HZ workout. By modifying the PWM tables to command 100%duty cycle when we wanted the fan on got that problem taken care of and allowed the realy to operate properly.
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Super nice truck

Mustang GT tuning

A freshly rebuilt engine in this Mustang was needing some tuning to compensate for the better flowing heads and intake that the factory ECU just can’t compensate for. We ordered and installed a Megasquirt Plug n Play kit and performed the tuning all in house; making this Mustang ready to ride.
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1990 Mazda MX-5 Spec Miata Racecar

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Spec Miata is a class of racing used in road racing events across the US. The Spec Miata (SM) class is intended to provide the race in low-cost cars with limited modifications; mainly those suitable for racing competition. Regualtions of aftermarket parts and accessories are in place to encourage low cost, production car based competition leveling out the car’s capabilities making it more a test of driver skills.

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Today number 308 is here for a dyno run and tune to find the proper air fuel mixtures from idle to redline for power at any point in the race while being within the guidelines. Check out the pop-off Sparco steering wheel and the required cage.

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