Installing a Holley Sniper on a 3.5 v8

JimC

Super Moderator
Staff member
This will be a work in progress and I’m just going to report as I go along. I’m fed up with a friend of mine’s carbed v8 and we’ve made the choice to just convert it to Holley EFI as some others have successfully done. I have all the bits to put 14CUX on it but those bits are all 25 years old and some of them are in unknown condition and cost $$$ to replace. we figured the smart money was just to start with new parts instead of chasing unknown issues and potentially throwing money at them.

The parts have yet to arrive but I’ve gotten started the tear down. The best part of this truck is that it was the roadside assistance vehicle for a Swiss garage. It’s ugly but in amazing condition, all the bolts come out on the first time on this truck.

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KGH

Well-known member
And to think 6 days ago Van and I pushed that thing onto a trailer in Indy! Jim is spot on about this truck, super clean chassis, very nice truck overall.

Will be following this mod, and maybe even talk to you about acquiring your older system.

I do think your idea of sanding back thru the primered exterior to bring out a rough Trident Green is a low cost good idea, maybe follow with a matte clear. Either way, this will be a tidy driver.
 

Uncle Douglas

Well-known member
Callsign: delete
Recently removed a 3.5 with the FItech system on it. Truck started and ran like a watch. Customer had acquired the truck for $90k before sending it to us for more umphhh.
 

JimC

Super Moderator
Staff member
Next will be removing the god-awful air injection system. I’m guessing the threads are NPT or something and it will be as simple as inserting a bunch of blanking plugs.
 

JimC

Super Moderator
Staff member
I do think your idea of sanding back thru the primered exterior to bring out a rough Trident Green is a low cost good idea, maybe follow with a matte clear. Either way, this will be a tidy driver.

I’m tempted to take paint stripper to the primer, I’ve found that the original old LR paint is quite hard and durable. This stool was made out of old doors that had been rattle-canned green over the top of the blue. I removed it and the original paint buffed up quite nicely.

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JimC

Super Moderator
Staff member
The stool was made by a couple awesome German dudes, one is a paleontologist and the other is a builder, but they are friends and metal working hobbyists. I obtained some old doors and removed the skins, they cut them up and fabbed the stool. www.aero-1946.com
 

samer0214

Well-known member
Subscribed. Watching with interest. I have the exact same engine sitting in my garage from back in the day, when I swapped it for a NAS 3.9L in my back then 1986 D110.

I've been wanting to rebuild this engine and update it with a new camshaft and Holley intake and carb, but now that I see this, EFI seems like the way to go.

What kind of HP are you expecting when all said and done?
 

JimC

Super Moderator
Staff member
What kind of HP are you expecting when all said and done?

I‘m just expecting some horsepower, I’ve got no illusions about a motor that was only rated for like 120 hp from the outset. If this conversion succeeds in producing reliability and driveability, then it will be a success.
 

JimC

Super Moderator
Staff member
So the first hurdle seems to be getting the proper blanking plugs to eliminate the air injection, “detox” in some terms or “pulsar” as River called it. The ones Kip mentioned above are also available in the US from The Wedge Shop:


...but I’m pretty sure these are not correct. They appear to be for engines that have four air pipes per manifold, but this engine has three. Plus Famous Four wanted 26 UKP shipping for their plugs. I think this application may require the ETC6474 but these UK suppliers aren’t really good on this small onesie-twosie stuff.

Maybe a hydraulic shop will have something or worst case, I’ll pull the fittings and have them capped off. If I find a cheap set of newer manifolds I might just swap them even though it sucks to remove old manifolds.

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Uncle Douglas

Well-known member
Callsign: delete
The stool was made by a couple awesome German dudes, one is a paleontologist and the other is a builder, but they are friends and metal working hobbyists. I obtained some old doors and removed the skins, they cut them up and fabbed the stool. www.aero-1946.com
Thought that looked familiar. They have a thread on Garage Journal making stuff out of aircraft alum.
The stool design part of the thread was incredible.
 

samer0214

Well-known member
I‘m just expecting some horsepower, I’ve got no illusions about a motor that was only rated for like 120 hp from the outset. If this conversion succeeds in producing reliability and driveability, then it will be a success.

This is one page of a website I had saved a while back in which the writer claims we can get that 3.5L to output as much as 200HP with some mods: http://mez.co.uk/page94.html Maybe worth a reading, and digging deeper into his site.
 

samer0214

Well-known member
The site is a little "behind the times" as it doesn't have any hyperlinks. You need to go to http://mez.co.uk/, and click on "Engines", then "Tuning the Rover V8", then navigate the pages individually. It's a little hokey, but has a lot of info.
 

JimC

Super Moderator
Staff member
Coolant line routing is something that needs to be figured each time for these conversions. Different motors have different configurations and parts get replaced over the years so you might not even be looking at stock parts depending on what sort of life your truck led.

This vehicle had the heater return tube running under the manifold and the feed from the pump going directly into a hose fitting by the thermostat housing/water neck. This fitting is not present on Edelbrock manifolds but the thermostat housing has a blanked off section that covers a hole in the new manifold. My first inclination is to have that section drilled out to install a hose fitting.

The coolant pipe fits under the manifold just fine, but drilling and tapping to create mounting locations is not an option since there is no metal where the mounting tabs are. I’m mullong a couple different options.

The coolant temp sensor and vacuum fitting transferred right over, but as others have noted the threads in the manifold need dressing up, they are rough with excess swarf.
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Maine57S1

Well-known member
What is this fitting from or do you know the size? In the middle of an edelbrock intake install and need a barbed fitting as well.
 

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JimC

Super Moderator
Staff member
Unless I’m mixed up, that fitting connected to the brake booster and I removed it from the original manifold, but I looks like the exact same one from my 3.9. I can measure it for you.
 
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