Holley Hyperspark added to my Sniper EFI

RockinRiviDad · September 29, 2020

I was hesitant to try this upgrade on my car. I was even more hesitant to post it due to my lack of knowledge/understanding of these electrical components. The vendor who I bought from offered Tech Support so I pulled the trigger. Luckily for me, a local Hot Rodder buddy of mine was going in the same direction with his 63 Falcon. He is very knowledgeable in this field, very meticulous about his automotive wiring & he agreed to help me with my install...woo whoo!!

The first step was to determine where to mount the CDI box, power distribution block & relay. Years ago I ripped out all my AC/heater components & never installed a new unit. Someday, I hope to install a Vintage Air type unit. Until then I have tons of room under my dash now. So what the heck, thats where I chose.

I made a mounting plate out of 16ga sheet metal, drilled/cut slots in it, put a nice bend in it & sandwiched the plate under the radio & existing center console cross bracket. My placement worked out great for my buddy to work his wiring magic.

Once wired & installed I fired her up & followed the instructions for setting initial & WOT timing (10-14 & 30 per The Martins) on the Sniper handheld. Then I confirmed my setting with a timing light. After a couple of adjustments my Sniper EFI is now able to communicate with my Hyperspark distributor & adjust timing as needed.

Initially, I ran into some RFI/EMI (Radio Freq/Electro Magnetic Interference) issues. Again, I am new to all this & not familiar with this terminology. So, I found myself using the Tech Support offered by the vendor & also combed thru the forums looking for solutions. I found that these electronic components can be sensitive to RFI. In most cases it is something super simple and/or user error. In my case, I had to add a ground strap to the base of my air cleaner. My air cleaner was acting like an antenna & causing my system to “reset” which kept shutting down my engine. Funny detail: the troubleshooting technique I was given to try & isolate my original RFI problem was to wrap my distributor with tin foil haha...it worked to find the problem, the ground strap fixed the problem

Low story short, she runs great. It might be psychological, but she drives so much nicer now.

Word of advise, if u buy an EFI system of any kind, buy from a trusted authorized dealer versus straight from the big name company’s (i.e. Holley). I had much better luck talking to the vendor about my RFI issues than compared to trying to call Holley. Everyone online who tried calling Holley said they were on hold for hours. That makes sense, everyone was home on lockdown & found time to play with their cars.