Subject: Re: [6pack] 6pack Digest, Vol 5, Issue 3

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:31:47 -0500 (EST)

Hi,
 
I have a good friend of 30 years, from whom I learned a lot about  cars, 
especialy LBC's.  We met because my new to me, but 11 years  old and well 
thrashed, 1971 TR6 had stumped me.
 
He had recently gone out on his own.  This was early 1980's, and he  worked 
mostly on LBC's, but also on other cars from across the pond.  He  did a 
fair amount of business with BMW 2002 tii owners.  They  had, if I remember 
rightly, Bosch mechanical injection. He was, and is, an  unusually talented 
mechanic ( we campaigned everything from a BMW 325is to an  IROC Camaro in 
the, sadly long since gone, IMSA show room stock endurance  series).
 
Anyway, he was one of a very few guys in the NYC area who could tame the  
Bosch mechanical injection without extensive factory training (he had none) 
and  so got a lot of business on that score.  He was also adept at fixing the 
 infamous, rotting BMW 2002 rear shock towers.
 
Maybe the Brits were right to be skeptical about the willingness of US  
dealers/mechanics to deal with Bosch mechanical injection.  I know  Corvettes 
had mechanical injection from way back, but were their injection  systems 
Bosch?   I'm thinking that back in the 50's and early 60's  everything from 
overseas was pretty suspect, at least re service, so either GM  had their own 
injection system, or it was licensed from Bosch or another  overseas company 
but the source was never mentioned out loud. Not a Corvette  guy, so just 
speculating about that.
 
Jim Knight
71 TR6

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From: Michael Porter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2013 07:05:54 -0700

> but the source was never mentioned out loud. Not a Corvette  guy, so just

Jim, I tend to think the business about unwillingness to learn fuel 
injection is more apocryphal than substantive.  The technology was 
changing in a lot of ways by then (note that 4As had had, for example, 
several years of IRS suspension by the time PI showed up), and the 
savvier mechanics would have been eager to keep up.  The factory may 
have been reluctant to provide training because of the cost, but my 
experience in dealerships is that there were always a few people who 
wanted to stay current, and the truth is, one didn't have to have a shop 
full of mechanics capable of fuel injection work--one just needed at 
least one guy who could do it.

As for Corvettes, IIRC, fuel injection was a special option in the year 
of introduction in 1957, and there were about a thousand made that 
year.  It was a Rochester system first developed by, in part, Zora 
Arkus-Duntov, but the development was initially begun for Pontiac, I 
think, because Pontiac's sales were flagging and GM was beginning a 
program (run by John Delorean) to attract younger buyers to Pontiacs . A 
slightly different system (better fuel metering in cold weather) was 
actually installed on the new 1957 model, the Bonneville, on 600 units, 
one for each dealer.

Unlike either Lucas or Bosch at the time, the Rochester system was 
continuous injection, with the injector nozzle positioned very near the 
intake valve, and fuel metering done by vacuum signals from the air 
metering unit to several diaphragms operating levers controlling the 
fuel valves.  Compared with the Lucas PI system, it was actually a lot 
more fidgety and fiddly, with lots more moving parts and multiple vacuum 
signals.

Cheers.

-- 

Michael Porter
Roswell, NM

Never let anyone drive you crazy when you know it's within walking distance....

[email-masked]

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From: "Greg Lemon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:04:25 -0600

Michael, Jim, all, the idea that the fuel injection would be too fiddly for 
US dealers is attributed to Bruce McWilliams, who was one of Triumph's 
marketing/distributor guys back in the 60s, and presumably would know.  I 
just happened to be reading the "Triumph TR250/TR6 Companion" this week  and 
that is what it says, adding that their "moral was low at that time" and 
they didn't  need another issue to deal with, but in other sections it talks 
about the cost it would add to the car, and also I believe does make some 
mention of  bigger climate differences in the States being a potential 
issue.  It does state that the system could have been made to meet US 
emissions with only a  modest loss in power.  My theory is that the 
cumulative effect of the all the various things, additional cost both in 
development, and to the car, the time that development would take, plus the 
additional burden on the dealer and or potential hit in reputation if 
dealers didn't keep them running well, that contributed to the decision to 
offer the TR250 with  Strombergs in the US.  Maybe the dealer issue was the 
last one that was brought to the table and therefore broke the camel's back, 
but that is pure speculation on my part.

 If it would not have been that hard to meet emissions with the fuel 
injection it is too bad they didn't offer it along with the carburated car, 
kind of like they did with the  BMW 2002 and 2002tii,
I think they could have shifted a few more units and helped the reputation 
of the British sports car in the US (all the contemporary road test reports 
were talking about the dated designs  of the MGs and Triumphs and low 
specific output, dated designs, and not so stellar straight line performance 
by then).  When introduced the TR2 could outdrag any American car to 60 mph 
according to one magazine.  Of course the American horsepower race a started 
shortly thereafter and Triumphs and MGs were left in the dust for straight 
line performance soon thereafter, but the fuel injected TR could have at 
least kept performance up in the same ballpark as the early Porsche 911s and 
the soon to be introduced Z car.

Greg Lemon

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