Holley Efi or Gm Performance parts

[snappytravis]

Just curious what you guys are running for engine management, I have 416 ls3 in 69 camaro and will be close to doing some wiring in the next few months I need pretty much everything. Car body, interior, headlights, taillights. I would imagine American Auto Wire. I however am confused on the engine. I see you can purchase the gm setup with pedal, o2 sensors and harness for around 1100.00. It would have to be tuned. I also was looking at the holley setup that is self tuning. What are the pros and cons of these two setups? Thanks :willy:

[gnx7]

My buddy runs the Holley HP EFI on a built n/a 440ci resleeved LS2 with T56. It literally fired right up once you enter in the parameters... and it kept learning/fine tuning the more you drive it.

He has paid a few tuners in our area thousands and thousands of dollars to tune it running HP Tuners and the stock GM PCM/ECU over time with its never ending upgrades.... well it runs the best with the Holley and has made the most power (only a few more HP)... but now it also gets better fuel economy.

No more tuners wanting $400+ to tune your car... or a couple hundred if you make small changes.

I'm putting one on my 5.3 turbo setup.

[snappytravis]

My buddy runs the Holley HP EFI on a built n/a 440ci resleeved LS2 with T56. It literally fired right up once you enter in the parameters... and it kept learning/fine tuning the more you drive it.

He has paid a few tuners in our area thousands and thousands of dollars to tune it running HP Tuners and the stock GM PCM/ECU over time with its never ending upgrades.... well it runs the best with the Holley and has made the most power (only a few more HP)... but now it also gets better fuel economy.

No more tuners wanting $400+ to tune your car... or a couple hundred if you make small changes.

I'm putting one on my 5.3 turbo setup.

Yes, I spoke with one vendor and he was pushing gm, Of course then he can tune it, I live in the middle of no where so if I was to take it to a tuner it would be minimun of 5 hr drive. thanks for the advice

[Vince@Meanstreets]

If you want to learn to tune it yourself its just gonna be time, money and experience. I'd go with the Holley system.

BTW Trav, where is your build thread? I see smigets of project pictures but we wanna see the good stuff man.

[68sixspeed]

mine is running on the GMPP setup, very easy install with that setup and it came with the O2's, pedal, MAF sensor etc. I had a baseline tune done by a pro with EFI Live and then did some followup tweaking myself using HP Tuners. It seems to work pretty good and most tuners are familiar with either HP Tuners or EFI Live and tuning LS motors. What I'm saying is there is a wider support base for the factory based tuning where it might be harder to get help or support using the aftermarket Holley or similar controllers. 5 years from now if my computer dies I can just get another E67 and reflash it. Also any generic code-reader works on it as well as the iphone data logging apps that use the OBD-II port.

[ryeguy2006a]

I have heard good things about Holley EFI. Plus it has a built in wideband, where as if you wanted to utilize the Stock GMPP ecu, you would need to buy a wideband separate.

[gray86hatch]

I have two cars running the holley efi

Dad chevelle is driven daily used the closed loop to handle the fuel map. Gets mid 20's on the highway and 17 in town. spent more time messing with the start up than anything. 6000 miles no issues

My car I put less than 10 miles on the street with 1 pull to 6000 and made my first pass with the car the map was within 2% of commanded afr.
Tuning at the track is very simple car responds is very predictable.

Tech help is only a email away and avalible after hours.
All the guys at Holley put alot of effort into what they are building.

Tim

[gnx7]

V2 of the the Holley EFI is out and you can download the new features on to your older unit as of 11/12/2012.

Some highlights are boost controller and traction control modules! :D

[Sparks67]

Yes, I spoke with one vendor and he was pushing gm, Of course then he can tune it, I live in the middle of no where so if I was to take it to a tuner it would be minimun of 5 hr drive. thanks for the advice

Actually, when my LS3 418 with Harrop TVS 2300 was tuned, Rich Gala came down from Detroit to tune mine. My engine was sitting on the dyno, so Kurt Urban helped me out and gave me a good tuner. Cost was rather inexpensive.

Anyway, the problem with the aftermarket industry is a company can be bought out rather quick, but sticking with stock ECU then you don't have to worry about that as much. On a buy out, then those products could seize to exist.

[PTAddict]

Some observations:

The LSx-compatible Holley kits are the HP and Dominator kits, which are not of the "self-tuning" variety. This is, IMO, probably a good thing. The only self-tuning kits we've used - the FAST EZ-EFI - have yielded lousy results for us, other observations on this forum notwithstanding.

Both the Holley and Factory ECUs support knock sensing/retard, which I consider almost a must-have when tuning LSx motors for max performance - they have such efficient combustion that even a few degrees too much spark can push you well into knock and destroy an engine fairly quickly.

Factory ECU uses a MAF, which is an extra consideration when designing air intake. Factory ECU requires either HP Tuners or EFI Live software/interface to tune, which is quite expensive to acquire if you want to do your own tuning. Also, Factory ECU tuning is significantly more complicated in some areas than the aftermarket systems. But they are pretty much "plug and play" to get up and going.

The Holley systems offer more configuration flexibility, and more control inputs and advanced options as noted above, but there is a little more initial setup required as a result. They use wide band closed loop instead of MAF to control WOT fueling, a more expensive but more precise strategy. The tuning software and parameters are simpler to learn and use.

It seems like either of these can work just fine for your application, but either absolutely must be tuned in order to work well with your custom application. So the choice might come down to which system you feel more comfortable getting installed and tuned, either by you or by your chosen expert.

[gnx7]

PTAddict.... you are wrong about the Holley not being a self learning system.

I just put the Holley HP on my built LS7 427 and once the coolant temps are above 120* the WBO2 sensor starts to optimize the tune. Cold start tune needs to setup.... and mine is currently a bit rich.... but once the temp comes up the WB02 takes over and continually improves the tune and base fuel table.
You drive the car around.... upload the new improved tune after driving around to the base map by clicking on the proper software window. Keep driving it around more and then update the current tune by saving it.

A decent thread on it:
http://ls1tech.com/forums/pcm-diagnostics-tuning/1491885-holley-hp-efi-short-install-little-how.html

Here is a video example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qwkqjotkDJQ

[gnx7]

Been running the Holley HP for about 1,000 miles now in my LS7 FD RX-7 and super happy with it. Starts up with no gas pedal help and turn of the key only, even with my big cam (242/256 .650" lift) it establishes a level idle within a few seconds, and driveability is good. A large cam will never drive as nice as a small baby one.... but it does drive well. Running the v2 upgraded software.

Only real tuning needed was cleaning up the cold start and hot start settings which took some fiddling. Lean cruise for better fuel economy, and then simply running it and then updating the file as the computer makes changes the more you drive it and different loads you put on it. I did a track day at Laguna Seca the weekend before.... couldn't push it hard as I had no oil cooler and temps were skyrocketing. Did get lots of data and my computer made some minor edits from its original tune.

Attended the Shift-Sector 1/2 mile shootout in Coalinga, CA in April and on my 1st pass went 153mph with 91 octane in the tank and 315's up front/335's out back. Then added some e85 to the tank for an approx e35 blend ratio (limited by my ZR1 injectors) and added timing up top by 3* (28* up top). Went a best of 162.8mph. Borrowed my buddies 275mm tires up front and went 164.3mph due to less wind resistance. I'm guessing I'm making around 575rwhp+ as I was beating 650-700hp (flywheel) supercharged e90/e92 M3's on the top end by a couple car lengths. Their DCT (auto trans) shifted way quicker than my T56 Magnum and at every shift they would gain. Finally at the top end aero took over and I walked away. I have yet to be on a dyno with the car.
http://shift-s3ctor.com/

So I now have 2 tunes. 1 for 91 octane and then a more aggressive one for the e35 blend. I could've added more e85 to up the ratio.... as my injectors still had 10% left in them before being maxed out. The Holley tells you that your injectors are nearly at their limit. This would have been very very expensive to do with a stock LS PCM.... and it wouldn't make changes on the fly like the Holley does.

I have about 1.5hrs of total tune time on my engine. It absolutely rips.

Drove there and back from the even to the Bay Area. Did about 500 miles in 2 days with no hiccups. My buddy had his LS9 turbo FD RX-7 there and beat up a 1180rwhp Ford GT supercar. 191.5mph vs 188mph. The GT owner wasn't happy and made up plenty of excuses why he lost. ha ha ha
Aerodynamics FTW!

Getting my front fenders painted this week. Drag racing soon to see what MPH it will run.

[Flash68]

^^ Nice feedback. A couple things for ya..

HP says that EFI is good up to 600hp so you were/not concerned about that as your LS7 seems to be putting out quite a bit more than that. And I would think your turbo motor coming up in your Chevelle will put out over 600 too?

Also, I am interested in doing on of those half mile or mile events once my car is finished and I also will be running 315 front tires. Other than more front drag with the larger tires how did you find it tracked at high speeds with the 315?

Thanks

[The WidowMaker]

ive seen their tbi hp systems rated to 600, but ive never seen a limit on their injector versions. maybe im missing something though.

[supremeefi]

ive seen their tbi hp systems rated to 600, but ive never seen a limit on their injector versions. maybe im missing something though.

The TBI systems only hold 4 injectors. That, along with the fact that once you go too big on an injector in a TB they puddle even worse than normal.

Remember, any TBI is only as good as the manifold it's mounted on. It's subject to the same inherent distribution etc issues that a carb would be.