does anyone know about this thing.. I have a complete setup in my possesion Intake,fuel rail,runners and plenum.. How much is it worth and did they work well... Looks good but I am thinking about swapping it on to 89 GTA... I see the TPS will not hook up...improper mounting holes..If anyone knows about this thing please respond..I do not wanna purchase it if it is garbage from the mid 80's..

Thanks

 

I saw one of these at a swap meet a few years ago, and tried searching for some info on the net, but couldn't find much. The company has been out of business for a long time, and the only real thing I could find was on this guys site:

http://home.att.net/~ncarboni/NCtpi.html

You might try e-mailing him, but he went from TBI to TPI, so he might not be of too much help. I remember noticing that the runners were huge on that setup though. How much is the guy asking for it?

 

Reading that site gives me the impression that the F.I.R.S.T. TPI system has larger equipment (plenum and runners). I'd love to see some comparison shots of the factory and the FIRST version. I the FIRST tpi is the step between TPI and SuperRam

 

the guy want $1200 CDN for it... I think it would be a world of trouble!

 

It's been a long time since I've seen one. It was made by Air Sensors. FYI - It was sold as a stand alone unit and they came with their own ECM that did not control the ignition curve. However, the ECM was pretty user friendly in that you had a number of parameters to tune with. I know it was an idle setting, cold start setting, initial load percentage, and a percentage under load setting,, and a few others that slip the mind after 15 years or so.

The 3" mono-blade T/B (that can be side mounted) and the 4" MAF that came with them sure could deliver a lot more air than the stock TPI. Also the intake base was HUGE compared to the stock unit and replacement units available back then. The runners are a lot larger diamter wise and are not interchangable with a stock base - there are 4 pairs of runners. The length was/is similar to the stock TPI and the unit gives good power down low and didn't seem to have "the wall" associated with other LTR set ups. It was not very popular "back when" due to it's $2500 price tag,, and you could not get just the base, runner, and plenum back then - I tried.

The intake, runners, and plenum are the same as the old Electromotive units,, if that means anything to you. However, I belive the Electromotive units used a speed density sytem with O2 sensor and that ECM controlled a distributorless ignition.

As for as power, they usually produced similar,, but slightly better curves than the SuperRam intakes - better low end and similar (usually better) high end. I'd buy it if the price was right (say $500 US) and work around getting the TPS and factory ECM to work with it.

HTH

 

Hey 92Zedder. It's me. $1200 sound like a lot of $$$ Is this just for the intake, wire harness and ecm. Or is this the hole engine? You can find a compete T.P.I engine for that money. Get a Tri-Ad (I-Sell) classified, look in it for some better prices for sure. I will look into a better price for you.

 

Haven't been pricing Minirams and SuperRams lately, hey? $1200 is big coin, but for such a "rare" system that supposidly has better numbers than the superram, I'm not surprised at the price.

 

I visit this board frequently and saw this post. I must admit i thought i was the only person that new about this particular setup. Here we go they are not out of business. They have been bought out so many times it was very hard tracking them down but i found them about 7 months ago. In fact talked with them today. Yes it is a rare system but not for long. When it is back in production it will only require about 1,000 for this particular setup not bad eh? well you are probably wondering what the company is well here you go.
They are called
Autonomics
8819 W. Brown
Peoria Arizona 85345

phone is (623) 979-4262

Gentleman you want to talk to is Bruce Johnson. Tell him Adam sent you be very willing to help you out. Sells and reconditions the units and owns the patent on them so knows all about them. HTH:lala:

 

thanks man...

 

This thing looks very cool...I'd just grind those "FIRST" letters off.

 

Just bought a unit from a fool not knowing what he had for 200 $
it will be here next week !
I´ll take pics and make some cheks on the parts dimensions!

We do have a SR unit here so its easy to compare them with nice pics!

3.1 eye candy is the unit in the pic yours???

 

Look at the 08/02 issue of Hot Rod Magazine. Theres an old car with this setup on it. No mention of where it came from, but the pics definitely show the optional side mounted TB and the block off plate.

 

got the FIRST unit yesterday!
check out pics in my new tpi thread

 

It says "Street & Performance TPI". The plenum doesn't say FIRST, but it doe use that massive 1000cfm TB and large runners. I didn't notice it before, I just thought it was a custom piece.