L26 fuel injection conversion

[z or bust]

OK so I have my L26 sittin there with the intake manifold off cause everyone knows those L26 carbs are shite. And I have all the makings for an L28 EFI system so I was wondering if anyone knows if it will bolt on to the L26 block?

I searched the threads and saw that no one has discussed it so I figured I'd throw it out there.

[74Adam]

Someone more knowledgeable than me can go into more detail, but the head won't have the injector notches on the intake ports (unless someone put on a 280 head at some point). Then, of course, you will have the ancillary issues to get it working (i.e., electrical stuff, fuel tank, fuel pump...ect.).

 

Oh, and be prepared for someone to tell you to use the search function:-)

[z or bust]

Yeah I know thats why I said that I had already searched. Yeah I figured I would have to change out the head.

[74Adam]

Oh, guess I need to learn to read. D'oh!

 

Are you in an area where you can get a complete running 280 motor for a reasonable sum? I realize you have the EFI stuff laying around already, but sometimes it's just easier, and maybe cheaper in the long run, to get something that's ready to go.

[z-ya]

It should work, but some tuning will be requried as it is setup for a 2.8L. You can make injector notches in the head with a Dremel tool. Use an L28 head gasket as a template, and have at it. Shove a rag into each port to prevent metal filings from getting into the combustion chamber.

[NCchris]

You might wanna check out how you gonna bolt the FI manifold to the carbed head. Studs/bolts in different locations.

HTH

chris

[z-ya]

I think they are dual drilled, or maybe it is the FI heads that are dual drilled for both manifold types.

[X64v]

The 4 larger bolt holes are only drilled on heads that originally came equipped with EFI; same with the notches.

 

It's not super difficult to modify your existing head while it's still on the car. I did it to my e88 when I switched to megasquirt. The hardest part is the bolt holes. I used an old head I had laying around as a guide for those. It's very important to take off the valve cover and measure how thick the head is at the point where you are going to drill, because the later heads were made thicker where the holes go, but the early heads were not. The two outer ones can be fairly deep, but the two center ones can not be very deep at all (see first picture). I covered all the ports with duct tape to keep shavings out.

 

For the notches, use a cylindrical rotary rasp to carve them out, they work great. I put a nissan gasket up to the head (didn't trust felpro's placing) and colored all of the material that was exposed with a red paint marker. Then I held the drill at about a 45 degree angle and carved the notch out until all the paint was gone. It is important to keep anything that doesn't like aluminum shavings completely covered, as this is very messy. To help minimize the mess, I had a friend hold the vacuum cleaner hose as close to the rasp as possible to suck up most of the shavings as soon as they came off the head. I kept every port covered with duct tape except the port I was working on, which I stuffed tight with 3 or 4 shop towels. I vacuumed all the shavings up before I removed the towels.