Thread: Adding diagnostics to an older vehicle

As much as I like the simplicity of the old cars ( I have a 1960 T-Bird ) If you plan to make it a daily driver transplanting a modern EFI system is not a bad idea.

If the engine configuration is similar to one that exists and is EFI already then you have it easier. If you have a flat plane boxer 8 you are going to have to do a lot more work. Your Chevy V8 is common and virtually identical mechanically to modern engines.

If you want to go heavily DIY, go megasquirt.

With my particular knowledge I'd adapt a Ford V8 EEC-V EFI unit to it and run direct spark fuel injection via MAF. You would need to do a bunch of fab work unless you can find an EFI manifold for the engine to fit the injectors and MAF sensors. Adding a crank trigger wheel and cam trigger is relatively easy, a bit of welding and possibly a modified pulley or 2. Adding HEGOs is easy as are the balance of the sensors, IAT, ECT, TPS.

Use a Tweecer or Moates piggyback unit and reprogram the ECU to operate the sensors and outputs you have and you will now have a closed loop, much more efficient and possibly more powerful engine.

If you are brave and smart, add knock sensors in the cam valley and go for dynamic timing, it will tune for the fuel you give it.

Still though, just rewiring it and using modern electronic gauges behind the original cluster faces would be nice...

I'm keeping the 1960 T-Bird original, it only has 62k miles...

Hi Matney,

Sorry for late reply, I did made Digital A/F meter base on microcontroller as in picture.

My car is Honda Accord from 1994 (No OBD)and convert to LPG and I need to monitor the mixture of air and gas and it work for me.

if this is one of what you want to monitor, I will check my hardware and make a schematic that you can follow.

Saran-yim, Could you post the hardware and schematic, this would work great on one of my cars.

@Saran_Yim It wouldn't hurt, and you already have someone else that would really like the schematics.

So the one in picture I made by hand wiring and I didn't remember which pin go to where but I will re-design it this weekend.

So I made it base on PIC16F MCU what you guy need is the flasher for the MCU. I will provide also the HEX file for flash the MCU but only after this weekend :-)

Originally Posted by PhilG

Without great difficultly you should be able to monitor; not diagnose, monitor oil pressure & temp, water temp, voltage and or amperage, vaccum, engine running hours, fuel level, RPM, washer fluid level, int & ext. ambient temp, tire pressures, and maybe a bulb monitor for burned out lights.
Beyond that, adding things like MAF & MAP sensors etc, really don't make sense on an old carb engine. You certainly could add an alarm remote start and maybe tie into that as well.
Everything I have listed above would keep you busy for a while and would actually output useful data to running and maintaining that classic you are so lucky to have your hands on!
Now how about a couple of pics for us??

Sorry for the REALLY late reply... I've gone back to lurking a bit as I worked on other projects that cost far less money (like actually cleaning out the trunk of the beast). I'm still quite a ways off from the restoration, but I'm the kind of guy that asks a lot of questions and figures out how something is going to work before I ever buy the parts to get started.

So... my question now is this: I understand how to monitor most of the stuff you mentioned above, but the washer fluid level has got me stumped... how would you monitor something like that?

The simplest way is to use a floater connected to a pot, and measure its resistance.

Or capacitive as used for some car and all(?) aviation fuel tanks.
Or resistive between 2 probes (but AC signals only - not DC!)


And I that thought the ammeter was the strange one (to want to monitor etc)!

Originally Posted by Saran_yim

Hi Matney,

Sorry for late reply, I did made Digital A/F meter base on microcontroller as in picture.

My car is Honda Accord from 1994 (No OBD)and convert to LPG and I need to monitor the mixture of air and gas and it work for me.

if this is one of what you want to monitor, I will check my hardware and make a schematic that you can follow.

Where did you get the wide band lambda sensor from? Does it sit next to the cars standard one?