[SY1]

Anybody using the Holley Commander 950 system? I'm having some troubles making this system work correctly on a 318 V8 Chrysler industrial engine. Runs great at idle, but at WOT it dies, half throttle the response is fine. Also at idle in gear it wants to stall and when it starts to stall it schedules more fuel and surges forward a foot or so. Not a good thing when there's a 47 million dollar aircraft sitting a foot and a half in front of the tow tractor.

Holley's been no help. I know I need to tweak the fuel map, and not being able to make adjustments in real time to me really kills the usefulness of this system. I have to shut off the engine, go into the fuel map and move a single point on the grid a single number one way or the other and then restart the engine to see if it's made a difference. This could take weeks! Holley's tech support line told me and this is a quote "no map for you engine application isn't a problem, horsepower is horsepower and fuel is fuel". Outside of that he offered no advice or help with my problems. I understand and believe what he said, but I was looking for more specific help. Also we've already had one controller fail and had to replace it. I suspect it may have gotten wet (I'm not the one who did the install, but I've been given the job of making it work now). When the old controller failed it would not send any power out to energize the fuel pump relay or to the throttle body.

Just hoping someone out here has played around with this system a bit who could offer some advice. I'm learning this as I go, I'm pretty much old school and carbs, haven't got much experience with fuel injection systems. I'm pretty busy keeping the aircraft going, but if I ever get a spare day I'm going to go back to try to make this system work before we part ways with an otherwise nice tow tractor.

[camcojb]

I thought the 950 Commander was real-time tuning. Is this the old version?

Go here and talk to Doug F, he's the moderator of the EFI section and a Holley EFI engineer. He is a member here also, but spends a lot more time on Chevytalk.

http://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/sh...uel_Injection/

Jody

[JimM]

The c950 is real time tuning. every change is instantly sent to the controller and saved and used.

This didn't used to be true, and "possibly" still isn't unless the controller has version 3 pro firmware. I had an older one years ago which was as you said, you couldn't save a change while running. My new one is real time.

Is your system an MPFI, or 2 or 4 bbl TBI?

[SY1]

Thanks Jody and Jim. It's a 2 bbl TBI. It's about 1 1/2 to 2 years old and ran great except for the stalling at WOT, which we only use idle or slightly off idle usually for towing aircraft. Controller failed about a year ago and it sat until I installed a new controller in January. It runs great again now except for the WOT and the surge in gear at idle, so it has been sitting since January again. I think those should both be fairly easy to adjust out, but the instruction booklet says I need to shut off the engine and store each setting when tweaking the fuel map. So maybe it's the old version? It's not that old though. Company hired a guy to come in and do the modification and he nevere got it all adjusted before the controller failed. Everyone thought the fuel pump had gone bad. I had to prove to them it was the controller that wasn't sending the signal out to the relay to power the pump. So now it's fallen into my lap to finish the project. That's what I get for trying to help! LOL.

The discs that came with it were warped and couldn't be installed, we got a second set of discs, I installed the program on my laptop. I'll check into the software version next week when I get back out to the hangar. Once I've got all my facts straight I'll get back and probably also contact the guy Jody mentioned as well.

[wiskeesour]

Exact System on a mid 70's 318 in a jeep. Near same prob. He had a ground that was bad. His was real time tuning tho...

[SY1]

Thanks Harley, I'll look into the grounds. I guess since I didn't do the original install I need to start by looking at all the work done to date.

This is a rather old V8 also, 1981 is when we bought it. I remember that only because we bought it to tow our first tri-jet we bought that year.

[wiskeesour]

I know the 'Tug' your talking about.....good luck

You know what you can do....see what they did and make sure its right, remember its just electricity....K.I.S.S.

[SY1]

Thanks all for the encouragement, but I've found I can't break away from the aircraft long enough to spend any time tuning this system. We've had a contractor spend a few days with it and are getting no where fast. After speaking to some EFI shops in the Detroit area I've decided it best to ship the vehicle off to a chassis dyno facility and I have a reputable EFI tuner going over to set it up. I think it'll be best since they'll be able to keep it under load at constant speeds versus Holley's recomendation to drive it while someone in the passenger seat try to make adjustments.

I'm going to change to the wide band O2 sensor which everyone says will make a world of difference with this system. I found it interesting that more than one shop said they don't recommend the Commander 950 due to all the problems they've had with them. One actually said it put their reputation in question with so many customers bringing it back to the point they refuse to offer it or install it. I didn't ask what system they recommend, but it seems clear their may be better systems out there? But it sounds like some of the guys here on this site have had good luck with it.

Maybe the second one we convert I'll get a little time to play with. They pick up the vehicle in the morning on a lowboy.

[Doug F.]

Ummm, they have always been real time programmable.

You ain't got a Commander if it isn't real time programmable.

[SY1]

Doug they are both Commander 950, brand new purchases in the last year. They are real time programmable, the information from Holley was in error. It's in the hands of Kinsler Fuel Injection and Jomar Dyno at this time. I'm certain they'll get it set up much better than we would have done. Plus we don't have time, the aircraft are taking up all the time, and overtime, we can stand to work.

[SY1]

Vehicle was delivered back to the hangar yesterday from the dyno shop. Runs great, even with the narrow band O2 sensor they said it wasn't too bad to set up. The narrow band O2 sensor that Holley supplied with the kit was no good, we had to replace it. It was trying to schedule a lot of extra fuel according to the fuel injection shop that rented the dyno time.

Anyway they saved the settings to disc for me so the next one I convert should be a piece of cake. Just wanted to let everyone know that the narrow band sensor wasn't an issue when it was set up using a dyno and a professional FI shop. Total for 15.75 hours of dyno time and the FI tuner labor was just over $3000. Tach on $500 for a lowboy transport both ways and it came to around $4000. A deal I guess since we were never going to get there on our own, no time, no experience. I've been using this vehicle for 25 years and it's never run this well. I see why so many guys are converting over.

[Fred Ficarra]

Wow! I just spent $400 for 2 hours of dyno time for my Camaro. That was six hours ago. My system is the very first Holley ProJection4. Yes, it's never run better. But the dyno also confirmed that the system is way too small. Nine hundred CFM just doesn't cut it.