Fuel and Ignition

Well, all of this started when I went to Super Shops during their "going out of business sale" back in 1997/8 (?) I had heard that they were blowing out stuff at up to 80% off retail. Here in Sacramento, there were 2 stores close to us. We went, it was a total madhouse, open boxes everywhere, it looked like some sort of crazy garage sale. I bought all the spark plugs they had for the 440 (NGK's) 16 or 18 plugs for under $28 and the 275/40ZR17 tire that is my spare for $80. Once I saw the prices I started calling all my friends to see if they could use anything, since the people working there said they weren't even being paid and they may not come back tomorrow. In fact, the other local store that we tried to go to the next day, did not open at all, there were people waiting around and the store still had a lot of merchandise inside. So we decided to go to Reno, Nevada (2 1/2 hours away) because that store was still open and also had served as Super Shops' warehouse. When we finally arrived, it was a madhouse also, didn't see anything I could live without,

until I saw this Accel 300+ multi step retard box. I had wanted one of these because I know I am going to put nitrous on the car in the future. There were no instructions and it looked like someone had gone through the package. I reluctantly asked how much, after some computation, the guy says $32 (!) I don't care if it has instructions or not, that is a lot cheaper than $170 from Jegs!!!! So that made the trip worthwhile. Now All I needed was the ignition to go along with it. I finally ordered the 300+ ignition box and it was on backorder for 3-5 months, so I waited. Then when it finally arrives, I just put the two components in the top of my toolbox and forgot about them.

It took a while to decide where I wanted to put the ignition and retard box.

The ignition box fit behind the passenger kick panel. I was happy to remove the Orange ignition ECU and it's ballast resistors from the engine compartment.

It was kinda ugly

This also allowed me to eliminate about 3 or 4 extra wires in the engine harness as well.

The retard box was a much tougher decision. It needed to be close enough to the ignition so the harness would reach, but also be accessible for tuning purposes.

I finally decided to install it in the glove compartment since the glove box is two halves, I cut a square section out of each to fit the box and the harness, then installed it so the mounting flange is on the backside of the box. This makes for a cleaner install. Plus, when bolted in, the box helps to restore the structure of the glove compartment 

I bent up some 3/8 steel line for the pressure and return to the regulator. I used the stock vent return line back to the vapor separator (my car has the California ECS system), I figured this would be the easiest way to get fuel back into the tank. So anyway, I get everything hooked up, turn the pump on, and I can't get the fuel pressure below 12 psi. GREAT!!!! so after checking the adjuster on top of the regulator, the diaphragm and make sure that I had bled all the air out of the fuel pressure gauge isolator. The only thing left was that there had to be a restriction on the return side. I pulled the vent line at the separator, and had Mark turn the pump on....out comes some nasty, rusty gas...ok, the separator is plugged. So I pulled the vapor separator out of the trunk and blew through it with compressed air. The vapor return line into the separator seemed like it was plugged. I have another one lying around and it seemed like it was the same way. Maybe there is a restrictor in the vapor return tube, I am not sure. So, I put the old separator back in, hooked the vapor line to one of the tank outlet nipples and the hose from the tank to the vapor inlet nipple. That solved the problem, now I could adjust the fuel pressure down to 6.5 or so.