FAST includes a large two-inch grommet to seal and protect all harness wiring passing between the engine bay and interior. The ECU was mounted on the aluminum dash to allow the driver to easily view the LED indicators on the front face. These can be used to monitor its operation and signal any on-board diagnostic problems.
Once the fuel system is all plumbed up, the last step is to install a boost reference vacuum hose between the throttle body and the regulator. When the engine is idling, and for example, pulling ten inches of vacuum, it will actually pull ten pounds of fuel pressure off the regulator because it doesn’t really need that pressure at idle.
Four inputs will feed information to the FAST ECU for a racing application. These sensors are no more complicated to install than the sensors based on your typical dashboard gauge set. They include a coolant temperature sensor, crank trigger or distributor signal hookup, the fuel pressure sensor, the O2 sensor, RPM (tach) input, and the general throttle body hookup. The single throttle body pigtail not only feeds all the needed manifold pressure readings to the ECU, but also sends the firing signal to the injectors.
By answering basic questions on your control panel, such as fuel type and engine -- fuel delivery parameters, the ECU will then have the basics necessary to start the engine and learn from the sensors the fine tuning parameters needed. Once in run mode, the control panel becomes a display screen showing a basic temperature, pressures, and tachometer readout.
The wiring harness is well-labeled and easy to match following the FAST installation instructions. With this guidance, this becomes essentially a plug-and-play system. Extra wires are included for any added functionality you might choose. The EZ-EFI can turn on one or two electric fans, it can operate an air conditioning idle up solenoid, and there’s a wire that senses if your nitrous is activated so you can go into the timing retard setting.
The hand-held controller simply plugs into the main harness and FAST’s setup wizard is very easy to use, as well. You need to give the computer some information, and then go through some calibrations. It asks for engine cubic inches and the type of engine. It will need to know your idle rpm, and you can also set a rev limiter. On startup, the controller asks you some simple questions like fuel type, fuel delivery system type, and how you’re adjusting your timing based on the ignition system you’re using. In our next issue, we will be mating the FAST racing ignition system to our EFI and bringing our entire fuel and spark system to life.