Hello, I am a 15 year old kid who is building a 1969 Camaro with my dad, that will be daily driven to high school. My dad is very old school and stubborn and is reluctant to anything electrical or modern, but I want the reliability and performance of EFI. We are currently building a 327 SBC, so a ls is already out of the picture. Can anyone help me find a kit that is easy to install and reliable? I have already looked at the Holley Sniper kit, and over all it seems like it would fit my application. Thanks.

 

There is also the Fast EZ kit that was at one point better then the Holley system but now I think they are comparable.

Now if you want to save a lot of money there is the Mega Squirt system and build your system from used EFI parts from a junk yard. Back when I was playing with it it was fully DIY, you even made the boards and you could get everything you needed for $150 but you needed to not only fully understand how EFI worked you also needed to know how to tune a car. I think now you can by turnkey systems that other people/companies will build for you of course the price goes up. Back in the early 2000s getting into mega squirt was a hobby in it self with 100s of hours of research.

 

Another cheap route is visit savage yard and get an '88 to '95 GM OBD1 TBI - injector, pump, knock sensor, ECM, distributor, intake manifold, and install an O2 sensor and a return line.
If taken from a 350 CID, the ECM will learn in operating the engine. New fuel filter, of course.

 

First off that is awesome you and your dad are doing this. Keep it civil ok LOL.

With that out of the way there are alot of ways you can do this. At the end of the day it boils down to how much money you want to put into it. Junk yard setups can be done pretty cheap as Everett eluded. EFI brings in other considerations such as:

1. Fuel pressure. Most carb systems operate at 5-7 psi. Most fuel injection systems operate in the 50-60 range.
2. Fuel pump. You can setup an external pump but those are super noisy and quite frankly have a diminished life vs in tank pumps. Yep, it's probably gonna need to be electric. Honestly the best setup for a street car is in the tank as much as we curse them.
3. Fuel lines. OEM lines will not work with the typical fuel pressures you see on most fuel injection systems. Even a Sniper Stealth requires 50ish psi of fuel pressure. You'll have to figure that issue out.
4. Wiring. There will be wires do not kid yourself. In order to do it correctly regardless of the system you will want to integrate the distributor, weld O2 bungs into the headers, engine temperature leads etc. How are you going to fuse/overload protect this stuff? Custom fuse panel?
5. Electrical draw. Albeit we aren't talking alot but if the charging system of the 69 is original I'm gonna ask is it going to be up to the task to run an electric fuel pump along with the ECM properly when the headlights are on and the car is at idle etc.

My 2 cents as a dad.

I'm an old electronics tech from the Army that used to repair radios, and I work in IT now so I'm a tech guy. I did a LS1 swap on my old 2000 S10 pickup back in 2004 before anybody had kits to swap LS into anything and I figured out all the wiring and such to do it on my own. So with that said I'm not scared of anything electronic/techy and have some experience working on one off stuff like this.

With that said I side with your dad on this one. If you want to drive it daily then build it as close to what it should have been from the factory and drive it. Is it being carbed make it any less cool? You're driving a ride (not to mention a 50+ year old classic) you and your dad worked on, that's pretty cool as it. Having been there and done that I love to tinker but when you have a one off mutant beast you run into one off mutant beast problems. If you have something else as a daily and you are just "tinkering" that's one thing. I vaguely remember what it was like when I was a youngster all those years ago and I'm now going through it with my kids. I wish my kids showed half the interest in this stuff that you do. That alone is awesome....

 

Kossoth brings out a good suggestion.
Any EFI system will need an electronic regulated alternator - don't need any spikes in the supply wire as they do happen with a mechanical regulator.
Amazon is cheapest.