Hi all, I am new here hoping to find some assistance. I have been turnin wrenches for 20 years now, both professional and now hobby. I have restored many cars, and made a few hot rods. I must say I am a Ford man, but have the oppurtunity to work on a chevy for a friend. Typically Chevy's don't like me, and self destruct when I get behind the wheel.
OK, A friend of mine is a body man. This guy can do miricles with sheet metal but knows nothing of engines. He recently purchased an 83 Camaro Z28, crossfire enjection. The VIN code shows a 305 w/crossfire injection. Problem I am seeing is the car has a 350 with what appears to be the crossfire setup. Engine is still in the car, and I have only looked at it once so I don't know a lot of condition yet.
My friend wants to build the engine so it runs a little harder. I want to know, I have seen a lot on camaro Z28's with TBI, but none with this setup. I have seen a lot of 83's talking of carbuerators. Is this crossfire a rare find? What kind of mods should I look at? I am thinking of building him a 383 Stroker, lightweight connecting rods, lightweight pistons(havn't decided which ones yet), cam, roller rockers, the works. What do I need to do with the Fuel portion of this thing?
Sorry for long post and thanks in advance for any help.

 

this was my journey. see sig. car runs better than ever. i have an xram manifold conversion kit for sale if you are interested. you need to determine what injectors are in there currently and see if chip is stock or aftermarket. check FP as well.

 

Unfortunately I do not have much info on car yet. Engine is still in, I haven't had time to look it over much.
You said see what chip it has, how do I do this? I looked into burning chips, but only find stuff for 1986 and newer, I have not found anyone that talks at all about the 1983.
I will check with owner and see what he wants to do under the hood, and tell him about your manifold. If interested I will give you my E-Mail.

 

http://www.crossfire.webhop.net/

this site has every thing you will need to know about the crossfire system.

If you are looking to have a good daily driver with some pep the crossfire will work fine.

This last summer I put 15,000 miles on a crossfire 383 stroker that can now do a 14 sec 1/4 mile.

But I must admit I am waiting for Ronny and others to report back on any improvement by switch to more modern TBI system.

 

i have driven the car about 8 times now. weather permitting. the xram is a warm weather setup. fuel distribution issues when cold. the hollley projection TBI manifold should be much better. all i can say is my WB with xram on cold day ranged from 14.7/1 to 16.7/1 on cruise level road cold day from second to second. when we pulled plenum the corner(rectangle) had raw gas laying in it. the WB now is rock steady 14.5/1 to 14.7/1. the cam i added wont allow a WOT comparison as of yet. i have not done any WOT loggings as uncertain of fueling being lean. xram showed 12.8/1 WOT/PE xram and i have seen 13/1 when in PE a few times with new set up. blms all lean and will burn 3rd chip to enrichen. but cold weather here now. i just question if prior owner had a modded chip installed. seems likely.

 

Thanks for the help so far. the problem is the car was wrecked when we got it. The hood, fender and radiator along with radiator support were damaged. We were able to take the fan off to run it long enough to load on trailer, so I have not had a chance to drive it and see how it performs. The car used to belong to my neice so I have driven it, but that was a long time ago. Could notr run it long enough to get any kind of idea what it has in it.
Hoping to get the engine out this weekend so maybe will have a better idea by then of what I have to work with.

 

Just my two cents...

If a rocker is what he wants he may want to think about switching to a 4bbl w/ vacuum advance. That way you can make all the engine mods you want and not have to burn a chip.
Also the crossfire system was a Corvette thing. It made it as a b@st@rd child on F-Body's. The problem about chip burning is that the older computers do not have alot of self tuning built into
them to accept many mods. Kinda odd it would have the 350. Some one may have put a vette ecm in it or burned a chip. You
can cross reference the ecm at Advance Autoparts to make sure it is right for the car. Again, you could make better gains with 4bbl and vacuum advance. Just my opinion

 

Sounds like he definately wants to go with the stroker, and an all out 1/4 mile runner. Good news is in my state there are no emission laws, so can run anything so as soon as he gives the green light I will have some fun with HIS money!

So what if anything would I need to do with the ECM with a 4bbl? With the exception of timing there shouldn't be anything left for it to control that I can think of. Switching to aftermarket distributor should eliminate that too.

All other suggestions welcome. Have some great info so far, thanks all.

 

If you change to a 4bbl and put vacuum advance on it you won't need the ECM anymore; just take it, the wiring, and all the emissions crap and put it a dry area; he could probably sell it on ebay or something to us people the tree huggers have instituted laws on. It will make the engine bay alot less cluttered and
visually appealing. Plus a 4bbl will wake the motor up alot more that a TBI. Not to say TBI's are not good, a 4bbl just has more options for flowing air and fuel. You will need to look at possible changes inside the fuel tank as the TBI has an in tank pump. It may/or may not restrict fuel flow when you put a mechanical pump on the block. It is really a test it and see thing. Also fuel injected cars have a fuel filter in-line in front of the left rear wheel.
Other than putting on a new one this shouldn't hamper anything.
Again a test it and see thing. Hope that helps.

 

Thanks a lot, that helps a lot.
I talked with the owner last night. Here is what I came up with for him.
The floor pans are rusted, so we are cutting them out. Going to replace them with aluminum, fiberglass front fenders and hood, possibly a lexan rear window. That should cut some pounds out.
Take the 350 and stroke it using all lightweight internals. heard about a new piston with only 2 ring grooves and a short skirt. Less weight and less friction. Going to try to find a set and test them out. Cam to be decided later. Aluminum intake with duel 4's, aluminum trick flow or equivilant heads w/oversize valves, roller rockers to reduce friction.
Tranny to be decided later.
Ford 9 inch cut down, porbably 373 or 410.
3 inch straight pipes with 1 crossover, depending on cam overlap.

Will definately need to do something about fuel delivery with duel 4bbl carbs. But that won't be too hard to figure out. Like you said trial and error and a good fuel pressure guage.

Only thing I can't quite wrap my mind around now is how to wire it past the ECM to get spark. Should be easy but it has been long enough I just can't get a mental picture. Will work out OK though, kind of like riding a bike. Some things just never leave.

See if that runs and go from there.

Again thanks for the help with learning about the cfi.

 

No problem. I did something like this to a Z while back. I traded it for this Formula that is taking a giant crap on me right now. As far as spark you don't need the ECM either; the only thing it controls is advance. As long as you go vacuum advance you can still use HEI. It gets power from a pink wire that snaps into the driver side of the coil (Assuming you stick to the in-cap coil). The other connector is the for tach. Good luck, wish I had rich friends!!

Note: I saw that you hadn't decided on a tranny; if you use a 700R4 you will need to get a lock up switch controlled by vacuum. You can order them from Summit for around $150. They are really easy to install. My bad I almost forgot that.

 

One other thing regarding fuel; If you wanted to, you could put a TPI fuel pump in the tank; they usually run around 45psi. You would need to hook it to a toggle as the ecm generally tells it to turn on and off. Just a thought if he didn't want to get one of those $200-400 externals.