Most of us with early Camaros strive to upgrade our rides for the street. We ditch drum brakes for disks, bolt in overdrive transmissions, add better air conditioning, and perform a plethora of other upgrades with one goal in mind: better street manners. We've gotten used to modern cars, and while we still dig the timeless lines and "soul" of our older Camaros, we also appreciate the technological advances of the last forty years. One of the biggest advances, in terms of drivability, is electronic fuel injection, more commonly referred to as EFI.
Until recently, the only downside to slapping an EFI system into a classic Chevy was complexity, and to some degree, cost. Typically, the intake manifold had to be modified to accept fuel injectors, or outright replaced. The tuning systems were complicated, and either required a laptop or one-size-fits-most programming. FAST saw an opening in the market for a simple-to-install kit, and developed their EZ-EFI system. Unlike their more robust systems, like their XFI line, the EZ-EFI is geared towards the average Joe who is more concerned with making his ride nicer to drive on the street and fun to cruise down the highway, than building a race car.
To get the price and complexity down, the EZ-EFI system was designed to use an existing 4150-style intake manifold. The four fuel injectors are integrated into the throttle body so there's no need to buy a new intake or modify an existing one. In fact, you can even use your current carb-style air cleaner. The downside to this is that, with only four fuel injectors, the EZ-EFI isn't really suited for engines that put out much over 550 hp. Then again, contrary to what you may read in magazines, the vast majority of cars out there make under 500 ponies.
There are several features built into the EZ-EFI system to improve drivability. The key one is what FAST calls Adaptive Learning. This in essence, lets the system tune itself, and anyone who's messed with a more complicated EFI system can certainly see the benefits. The system also has a "pre-squirt" feature that helps starting by injecting a small amount of fuel into the manifold at key-on. We found the result of this to be that our big-block fired up at the push of a button, just like a modern LS engine.
So what this new system is all about is drivability and ease of installation. To put the EZ-EFI to the test, we found a carbureted engine to see just how easy it was to put on the FAST system and get it running properly. Doing this on an engine dyno would give us better control and allow us see what the real world results would be. After all, the "butt-o-meter" is only so accurate.
Here's our baseline engine,...
Here's our baseline engine, a 454ci big-block with RHS heads and a middle-of-the-road camshaft. It's one of Westech Performance's test mules, so it was perfect for this exercise. Normally it makes less than 550 hp-well under the EZ-EFI's performance ceiling.
Here's the main player in...
Here's the main player in the FAST EZ-EFI kit: the throttle body. One key to it carrying the "EZ" moniker is that the four fuel injectors, and most of the sensors are all integrated into the throttle body. It's also compatible with any standard carb-style air cleaner, so you can keep that old-school look.
On the back of the throttle...
On the back of the throttle body is the Idle Air Control motor along with two of the fuel injectors. The base of the throttle body also houses three manifold vacuum ports, and there's one ported vacuum port on the body near the air temperature sensor. FAST really worked hard to make the unit as compact and unobtrusive as possible.