| Author | Message | ||
     Jonas TRACHSEL Experienced User Username: jonas_trachsel Post Number: 27 Registered: 2-2005 |
In the books you can read that a few of the last Shadows (1980 model year) were fuel injected for the Californian market. How many of these were produced? Are these beasts Shadows with a Spur engine so-to-speak? After all it was still a couple of years away before FI was standard for all markets. Or are these engines a species of their own? Jonas | ||
| Paul Yorke Grand Master Username: paul_yorke Post Number: 518 Registered: 6-2006 |
Jonas, It's a very early, but quite simple FI system. They did also use it on the early Spirits/Spurs. Personally, I'd stick to a carb car for simplicity, unless you need Cats etc. (Harder to access anything on the engine.) Although, carburettor cars with re-circ are almost as fiddly! | ||
| Jan Forrest Prolific User Username: got_one Post Number: 115 Registered: 1-2008 |
Can I assume that the system was essentially a Bosch K-Jetronic? If so it was also used on the early Jaguar XJS V12. In German the 'K' stood for "konstant" and meant that each injector sprayed fuel onto the back of its inlet valve at every injection pulse. This meant that there were 6 pulses of fuel for each rotation of the engine (that would be 4 in a Shadow). Little wonder that they were poor on fuel consumption! | ||
| Paul Yorke Grand Master Username: paul_yorke Post Number: 523 Registered: 6-2006 |
Jan, With K & KE Jetronic I think it was even more constant that that!, no pulsing, just a varying flow of fuel depending mainly on air flow volume. | ||
| StevenBrown Frequent User Username: stevenbrown Post Number: 69 Registered: 10-2008 |
Not sure of the actual production numbers. Lots purchased their cars in California from neighboring states. I've read and herd that it was CA and a few other states. A neighboring state might not have had a dealer, so the buyer went to CA. Sometimes smaller cities dealers carry sparse inventory. So the potential customer goes elsewhere or that dealer buys from another dealer--usually CA if its America! Think they have four main dealers to chose plus a larger used market as well. Rare but fairly easy if you look when in America and even Canada. I'm looking into starting a wedding car service and a Shadow II is on the list of must haves anyway. I'm looking at them semi seriously. Since I'm in America and Canada, most are emission controlled, recirc and cats, etcetera. As mentioned by Mr. Yorke the carb cars can be fiddly. Personal opinion injected are a little better when emission controls involved. Bonus most CA cars are in nice desert low rust problems area's. So its fairly easy to find a good condition injected Shadow II in Can/US. For wedding service I'm leaning towards injected for slightly better reliability wise in my market. Also a resale value added being considered rare and desirable in this market as well, higher resale value potential. | ||
| James Feller Prolific User Username: james_feller Post Number: 137 Registered: 5-2008 |
As nice as the carbs are, fuel injection transforms the V8 engine in my opinion. I have an Australian 86 FI Spirit ( old style KJettron system ) and when I compare it to a mates 85 Spirit (carb car) mine is much quieter, is rock steady on idle, starts instantly, uses noticibaly less fuel and is a good deal more powerful. I admit the FI system needs to be set-up and checked for correct operation on occasion but really its a very robust system and while the carbs are great to look at the FI simply makes a good set up much much better. J |
