MartyB1

I'm in the planing stages of building yet another hot rod. A heavily chopped 34 Ford coupe with a late 50's early 60's salt flat theme. I figure that the baddest car in the valley would have had a F.I. Corvette engine. I want to stay period correct, no hidden electronics or phony stuff.
My questions for the knowledge Rochester F.I. guys here are, can one of these units be set up to start, run and drive dependably with decent performance and economy? Are there people here that could assemble and sell such a unit? I drive my hot rods cross country and usually put on about 10K miles per year. The exact year and #'s of a unit would not be important to me. Any input on this idea will be appreciated. Thanks in advance. Marty

wmf62

Tom Parsons has one, and has pictures of it on the forum. do a search or maybe Tom will repost them.
Bill

OC-1

these units can be set up to start, run and drive dependably and do, with decent performance and economy north of 20mpg

my testimony pales in comparison with other long time FI owners that populate this board.

Almost humorous to read your question

sub006

Rochester mechanical FI has always been a powerful, reliable and economical induction system IF set up and maintained by a knowlegeable owner or pro specialist. Hundreds of them were tossed over the years by Corvette owners who fiddled with them and made things worse. The original problem then turned out to be something else that installation of a carburetor did not fix!

When used FI's were cheap, they were popular on Nomads and other tri-five Chevys and street rods. I even saw a couple of first-gen Camaros with them, killer cars on slalom courses, as Zora intended.

MrPbody

hard to beat the kool factor of the rottenchester, but no match for modern EFI otherwise. Bill (wmf62) has the ultimate setup, IMHO, with his hybrid.

emccomas

Tom;

I just have one question....which way is that manometer box supposed to be set / stored. You might want to indicate that is some way

Nice work on that burned FI unit.

63split63

You may want to contact Bob Williams , Sidney Ohio .
937 492 1968
He is a real nice guy . No high profile BS

Bill

MikeM

As much as I like the Rochester FI, and in spite of how well an engine performs with one of them mounted, I'd suggest to you to run a 2 X 4 intake on your engine.

It won't run as smooth or as responsive but it'll be a whole lot cheaper and just in case anything should go wrong, you can get parts at your corner drug store to fix it.

Lot's of street rods used to have Rochester FI. That's where a lot of the polished ones came from. I don't really think the "baddest guy in the valley" had one on his engine back in the day.

ohiovet

I second Bob Williams.
He tuned my 4360 early FI unit and I have driven it around 5000 miles with NO problems. It cold starts, hot starts and runs great.
He is good and reasonable, as stated NO BS.

wmf62

Mike
i agree, they are downright expensive nowadays......

and i agree that they aren't the 'baddest in the valley' as they have an Achilles heal, air flow. But, they definitely have a 'cool' factor and other than '***** to the wall' performance, they are better than any carburetor ever made...
Bill

Avispa

Whatever its drawbacks, remember this thing was on the drawing board in 1955 or so. The Rochester mechanical FI unit belongs in the Smithsonian along with contemporary mechanical marvels of the age: Mechanical telephone exchanges, analog ballistic missiles (yeah they had mechanical integrating accelerometers and gyros for guidance), analog gun-tracking radar, the Schlumberger electromechanical film recorder used for oil well surveying and few others if I put some thought to it. We put guys into space with this stuff. Even Charles F. Kettering's self starter and ignition system (with a nod to MikeM ).

Kudos to DZ, the restoration work you did on those FI units is outstanding.

Ironcross

First available in 1956 with the 57 Vette, all that was necessary was to check the FI box on the Chevrolet cars...if you had the money it was available through out the Chevy line and was a option in the Pontiacs too.....Talk about a rare car, a fraternity brother had a 1958 Bonneville convertible that was a FI car...FI was available in almost everything."Dean Chennelworths car........his father had a dealership in Xenia Ohio.......he got killed in the Budwiser unlimited hydro

Possibly in Caddies too

DZAUTO

One Olds.
Five Cadillacs.
Designed for, but not installed on Buicks.
NONE exist.

MikeM

You guys forgot the '58 Rambler and the MoPars which were Bendix units.

midnight02

DZ, those are some amazing looking FI units. You do great work. I feel kinda lucky to have grown up here in Rochester where this was designed. One day I'd like to have an OEM unit built to show off in my house, along with a quadra-jet.

I thought only people that live here in Rochester call it that

jim lockwood

Bits and pieces left over from these other programs surface from time to time.

An FI air meter from the Cadillac development program was on EBay this year. Another Cadillac air meter was on a '57 Chevrolet unit I rebuilt three years ago.

There is even a high volume FI gear pump which some believe is left over from the Buick FI program. The gears are 50% larger than the ones on normal FI pumps. (This pump is on a high performance FI unit I built for my own use; works fine.)

Jim

wmf62

FI
Bill

DZAUTO

Well, actually I didn't.
I had understood the original inquiry to be specifically about the Rochester FI systems used on small block Chevy engines.
But, since you mentioned it, the LAST I HEARD, there was only ONE remaining Mopar with a Bendix FI unit that is still functional (sort of).

jim lockwood

That's my understanding also. Personally, I'd be leery of it.

Rochester FI? I trust it completely. I've driven coast to coast twice with it.

Jim

sub006

I seem to recall the Bendix having some electronic components?