Just started on a FAST XFI install in my car and figured I would try to post some pics of it as I go along. I decided to put it up in the dash close to the stock ECU to keep it off the floor and avoid long wire runs.

When you order it they have you order three harnessess with it. A main harness, an ignition harness and a injector harness. The HEI ignition harness is the wrong one for a 1987 vette, so wouldn't hook up even if I was going to use it. Turns out the main harness is a complete stand alone harness, like I guess if you had a race car or street rod with nothing in it, their main harness would do it all. It's a very very nice looking piece. Problem is of course for a car that already has a complete fuel injection setup it's 95% redundant and would require chopping up the cars wiring and the car itself to put in. The only new components are the wideband O2 and MAP sensor. Easy enough to add to the existing harness.

I am using a Fast Track Performance integration harness and it's going to yield a much cleaner install, just splicing into the stock harness under the dash so that all the existing connectors and harness are left in place and untouched. Of course that leaves me with a brand new FAST main harness I have no use for. I could use it for dyno runs but since I have never done one and don't see doing one in the near future I am just going to try to return it and the HEI one that is incorrect. I will just have to see if my dealer will take it back, called FAST and they said if its never been used it's fine with them.

As to the pictures, the first is where I started, with the whole dash stock and dissassembled. By the way, when you get your interior this far apart and you all the sudden notice just how many pieces and screws you have sitting around, panic is a totally normal response, just take a deep breath until it passes. The second picture I have the area I want to mount the box cleared out. I had to remove some bracing but the backing plate for the XFI should bring back the strength when it's bolted in. The wires are going straight down and to the factory ECU that is right down there, a very short wire run. I had to move the VATS box and the Security Controller box but that wasn't too much of an issue.

The third picture is with a beauty plate on there. This plate velcro's on and off so is easy to remove to be able to actually work on the unit. Because the XFI sits vertically and the beauty plate is at an angle the XFI sticks out at the top and is sunk in at the bottom like 2 inches. This looks kinda cool but I need to come up with a way to cover the gap at the bottom so all the wiring that is back there is completely hidden. Still trying to figure out how to do that.

You will notice the holes are there for the loaf of bread dash pad. I have it set up so that it will snap right back into place over the beauty plate making the dash look completely stock again and hiding the XFI. There are obviously times and places you do not want it showing and the stock look is desireable. Only takes five second to take the Loaf on and off so I can go stealth pretty fast if I feel like carrying it with me.

It still looks pretty raw without the dash top and the the center instrument panel and side panel but I will post finished pics once all the wiring is actually done and it's running. I don't want to button it all back up until I know it's working right. Now if I don't screw up the picture posting they will follow this.

Starting point:


Prepped spot:


Beauty plate:


Would also like some type of vent grate I could just plug into the gaping vent tube there when the loaf is off so it looks better. Guess I will have to measure and start looking at stock cars that have round grates that would fit.

Oh, and I just started unlooming the injector harness in the engine compartment to put in the new one so I can go sequential. Does anyone know what tape that is the factory uses that doesn't leave sticky adhesive goo on everything when you remove it like electrical tape does? I have tried that fusion tape but its like 13 bucks a roll so kinda expensive to use lots of. I think the factory stuff is non adhesive except to itself or something. Any help would be cool, thanks.

 

I have the fasttrack harness bridging the stock ecm to my speedpro box sitting in the compartment behind the drivers seat (1989 Callaway Twin Turbo) controlling the engine now

looks like a clean install from what I see...

 

PM sent on the tape.

 

Well, continuing on with the install. The HEI harness they sell to go with it is for external coils and does not fit an 1987 vette with coil in cap, also the injector harness they sent was for an LTI car and not L98, so the wiring on it is completely wrong. Very happy I was using the integration harness so was double checking all the wiring. If I had just plugged that injector harness into the Main Harness they had provided it would have gotten ugly. It is not wired even close to the L98 car. It's also a bit small small since the LT1 can have a tighter harness because of routing but it stretched a bit to fit. Since I caught it it's no big deal, just have to change the pins in the connector to the right ones. Will try to take pics and keep it up to date as I can.

 

Jaxian,
I did my FAST install ~3 yrs ago on my '87. I mounted in the same location, but without the cover plate. All of the wiring is very neat and sanitary.

However, I did pull the complete factory harness and strip out all of the old wiring and completely integrate the FAST harness with the factory harness. There are no extra wires running in the engine bay. I did switch from the HEI to the IP distributor. This was a problem that I had chased for far too long.

Best of luck in your install. You should be very happy with your choice of engine manegement.

Aaron

 

I just installed Accell DFI on my 85. I removed all the existing engine wiring and went with their harness. The wires and connectors were 20yrs old and showed it. Like AKS, no extra wires in the engine bay. Iran the harness through the same hole as the original harness. Tis may be easier on an 85, the ECM is completely stand alone save for maybe 2 or 3 wires which become unnecessary anyway.

I wanted to ask how you are going to sequential. I used Accell/Mallory Dual-Sync distributor with an f-body coil. The dist. has the crank and cam sensor built in.

How does FAST pick up the cam/crank positions?

I had to use an MSD box as well, does FAST require the same/similar?

Good Luck on the install

 

The XFI has the extra wire inputs for a crank trigger system, but I think for now I am going to just go to the Accel distributor to trigger it. I was hoping to use the stock distributor just long enough to get it smogged because I don't think the Accel has a CARB-EO number and it looks much different than the stocker since it has the external coil and all. I will have to check and see if the XFI will allow me to do that just for the smog or whether I will have to come up with some type of work around. Really don't want to tear everything apart to put in a crank trigger and the output from it doesnt work with the tach in the digital dash I hear. Different waveform outputs or some such.

As to the stock wiring I am leaving the stock ECU in there to run all the stock smog equipment and digital dash and all, but since the XFI is going to splice right into the factory harness and use its wiring I will only be pulling out stuff I know is no longer going to be used, like the stock injector harness. Clipped that off and bagged and tagged it earlier. After reading the fine print in the FAST install manual I am a little worried about them sending the LT1 injector harness now. It says they put the connector from the injector harness to the main harness on the opposite side from the ignition to minimize interference. Well the opti is on the front and the connector for the harness they sent me is of course in the back...right near the distributor on the L98. I have moved it as far away as I can get it and hopefully I won't have any issues.

My car has alway been a california car and I am the second owner and never drive in the rain and keep it garaged so its in very good shape as far as wiring condition goes, other than connectors I broke fiddling with them. So I expect that to all work as normal.

Next I have to install the O2 sensor down in the header collector. I thought it went in the Y pipe so didn't do it before the engine was installed. Laying on my back trying to cut a hole and weld that in 6 inches from my chest is going to be very exciting.

Picture of the connector from the driver side. You can see where I removed the wiper motor to get down far into the stock harness to find the stock driver side injector harness splice so I would only have to cut one wire. Taking that off with the Super Ram runners was not fun.


This one is the passenger side closer up. You can see I tried to tuck it in behind the large stock harness there. Hopefully that's not too noticeable and is also far enough away from the distributor. No clue where I am going to put the coil when I go to the external coil distributor, I dont even know what it looks like. Not much room there for anything no matter what the size. I made the wiring hole right next to the stock harness spot and will be grommetizing it and sealing it for safty when I am done.

 

 

I think I may have a higher probability of appearing somewhat stock (if the car is not running). You will note that the MSD is painted a nice shade of black along with the external coil.



I hope this gives you some more ideas. I just wish I knew how to insert the pics directly into the post vs the link.

Aaron

 

I was looking through the instructions again on the XFI and it does look like it needs a Cam Position Sensor to be able to run in sequential mode. Something about it needing to know where cylinder number 1 is. So does anyone know if the stock HEI can do this or am I going to have to switch to an aftermarket distributor just to get it running? If that's the case and distributors available are non CARB EO then my car just became an expensive end table because if it won't pass smog I can't register it or drive it anymore.

I don't know enough about exactly what type of signal it's looking for so not sure how to fake it or whether it has to be aftermarket. I was looking at the Billetech from Accel although I think MSD has a comparable unit also, though I think it was like 299 vs 239 from summit. Summits part number was ACC-60109. They actually have a 59109 that looks like a direct replacement, wiring and all but it doesnt have the billet housing and ball bearings and hardened steel shaft and all. So what distributors did you guys run on your setups?

EDIT: Just checked Summit for the MSD one, part number was MSD-8366 for $299. This says its 50 state legal, assuming it has a coil to go with that is too this might work if it will trigger the thing the XFI needs to run sequential. Is that what you ran TJ?

 

Well I found out that MSD distributor won't work. Apparently it has to have two triggers inside it. One for the actual triggering of ignition events and one to mark the cam position in relation to cylinder number 1. That one doesn't do it. MSD wise it looks like I need the Dual Pickup Distributor pn 8356, the 8226 2 connection blaster coil and a MSD 6A box to power it since the distributor has no module inside it. Ouch.

Then as I was talking to Mac at Fast Track he pointed out that the signal from this ignition was completetly wrong for the stock ECU, dash, tach etc. He had a work around of just mounting the little module from inside the HEI to a aluminum plate as a heatsink and then connecting one side to the MSD to give it a signal then the other side would connect to the stock factory ECU and other components. That way all the stock stuff would be happy and functional and I would still have the correct ignition stuff to run sequential. Which I really need to do with injectors as large as I have and hope to still pass smog. On the plus side the coil and ignition box from MSD are both CARB EO numbered and I think the distributor has members of its family that are also so might be able to skate by on that. I can only hope.

 

how did you like the fasttrack harness?

ive been coming across the same issue your having. if you plan on running seq then you should run a dual sync dist. i plan on running a msd billet and run batch fire and either a dfi or bg3. i will probably go with dfi because it is compatable with my innovate wb.

 

I love the Fast Track harness. Since Mac basically buids it exactly for your car after talking to you and custom tailors it it's hard to go wrong. Also his customer service is fantastic. He will actually talk to you on the phone and explain how and why things are put together the way they are. His knowledge has proven to be invaluable to me. I have wired cars before but it was always of the racecar nearly bare of wiring type. Never had to do some thing of this complexity and I had a lot of questions. He was always there to answer them. Also he uses the good connectors and wiring too so I don't have to worry about the thing falling apart on me. I had serious trepidation going into this wiring experience but after getting his harness and having him explain things to me it was more fun than scary. Definite thumbs up.

 

thanks.. i decided to go with him. i am going sequential dfi with w/b and dual sync dist. the only reason i when dfi is that it the only unit that will support an innovate w/b.

 

Never knew that you had a FAST. Mine is also in the same location and works very well and looks completely stock.

 

I must admit other than the practical reasons of short wire runs, and with the snap out panels ease of working on if I want to add stuff and all, there was a certain bling component to the dash mount. I am sure it would work great in the other spots and probably would have been tons easier to install, god knows ripping the whole dash apart wasn't fun. But I figured if you look at the DFI its just a black box that says DFI, and the old FAST box was an ugly gray square they admittedly aren't much to look at. But the new XFI is a beautiful machined billet aluminum case that is anodized red. The text on it seems to be kinda sunk in and looks great. Also the LED's on the outside flash as the engine is firing that cylinder so the effect when the car is running especially at night is sweet. If it had looked like the old FAST it would be under the seat or behind it. I wouldn't have wasted the time on the beauty plate and the dash mount just to show it off, totally would have been waste of time. So I totally understand the other mounting spots, makes total sense.

Btw it looks much better than the first photo when the whole dash is installed and it is lit more normally but I stupidly forgot to take a picture when I was doing the mockup. I will grab another when I button it up and install the spacer to fill that gap.

 

Get an Accel dual sync distributor. Mac can sell it to you. It puts out a square wave crank signal that you can split, feeding directly to your stock ecm on the crank ref input along with the XFI. You don't need to use Mac's HEI module deal if you do this.

Mac's version takes the inductive signal produced by the MSD distributor and uses the HEI module to convert it to a square wave signal that the stock ecm can use.

 

I checked up on those Accel Dual Sync distributors but the one listed for my car on summit racing, ACC-77100 says in the notes for it "Designed to be used with Accel DFI systems only. Dual Sync adapter harness is required and is sold separately."

Since I am running the FAST XFI and not the Accel DFI and this looks like a really specific product I am not sure I wouldn't be opening a whole new can of worms trying to make this work on a ECU other than the one it says it was specifically designed for. It looks really trick but stuff like that auto sync LED and stuff like that that is for the DFI might turn it into a nightmare trying to force it work with a FAST XFI. Beautiful looking piece though.

 

All you need to do is configure the XFI to use a hall effect signal for the cam and crank signals. My personal car uses one with an older FAST box. The XFI box makes it even easier.

 

Ok, been a while but wanted to update it. Ended up using the MSD 2345 distributor. Well I will be when it arrives hopefully friday. Then I will finally have all the pieces in place and can start the actual wiring of all this stuff. I looked where everyone had been mounting their MSD boxes down in the front driver headlight nacelle and decided I didn't want it that far from the distributor and coil and all the wiring that was coming through the firewall at the hole I cut at the pass side firewall.

So I fabricated a mount to put it right above the heater blower motor area. This allowed me to put the MSD and the coil right next to each other and very close to the wiring hole and the distributor saving me a great deal of hassle in extending wires to reach. Also it let me mount the two MAP sensors underneath it. One for gauge and on for the XFI. Took quite a few trial fits to make sure the hood didn't hit them.

The coil is the wrong one as far as max performance, that would be the blue HVC one but I had to go with the basic beer can one for now because both it and the MSD box have CARB EO numbers and will get past the visual smog check. I will switch back to the HVC when it's smogged. I made a template of the HVC and made sure it would fit right in the same spot. As far as the plate I used fiberboard because I didnt want anything that would conduct and made a bracket and a aluminum tube riser that sits on that pipe right there to mount it. Here are some pictures of the setup.

Overhead:


Front:


MAP sensors:


Motor shot, minus distributor so far: