I don't know about you, but I've never been able to pass by a street rod, or any performance vehicle for that matter, that sports a gaggle of injector stacks poking up from the intake valley of a V-8. There's just something inherently exciting about the sight of an engine equipped with an old school-style Hilborn injection system. You'll note I said old-school "style" because in this day and age we now have the opportunity to enjoy the performance and killer looks of early-style Hilborn injection that is really and truly streetable. You got it-the street-friendly, head-turning looks of mechanical injection with electronic performance you can enjoy without the constant tuning and tinkering!
My lifelong love affair with the looks of Hilborn injection was rekindled at a recent event when I spied from quite a distance a set of radical stacks poking skyward. Of course, I immediately headed over to take a closer look at what I assumed was a vintage drag car of one sort or another that someone had trailered to the event. The closer I got, though, the more I realized that this car was a street-driven vehicle rather than the race car I'd assumed it to be. Boy, I thought to myself, mechanical injection on a street car? How cool is that? Unfortunately it must really suck around town and in traffic. But, hey, that's the price you pay for a heavy dose of wow factor-full-throttle performance and little else. And though I may be a day late and a dollar short when it comes to modern injection technology, was I in for a pleasant surprise (one that has me seriously thinking about fulfilling my dreams of owning a Hilborn-injected hot rod). After corralling the car's owner and getting the lowdown on both the system and his enthusiasm for it, I realized the full-throttle-only barrier that for years had precluded said dream had been toppled by the availability of EFI in wolf's clothing-Hilborn EFI, right from the source, not via a third-party conversion!
With this newly kindled enthusiasm foremost in my mind, I decided to check out this exciting possibility as soon as I got back home from the event. For me, checking things out would entail a heck of a lot more than shaking the piggy bank and deciding what style of ram tubes would look the most evil; to be totally honest, I know next to nothing about EFI. I am, and always have been, much more at home with a pile of steel and a MIG welder than with laptops and power curves. Heck, I'm so technologically challenged that my wife has to reset the clock in my truck for daylight saving time for me every year. So it was with this in mind that I surfed on over to the Hilborn Web site to start my education. Of course I loved what I saw, but I really needed to get some type of guidance before I made the decision to proceed. Luckily I was pointed in the direction of Hilborn's EFI specialist, Andrew Star, who did his absolute best to shed some light on the subject for me. The following (much of the technical info supplied verbatim from Star) will hopefully be of interest to those out there who share both my love for the look of Hilborn fuel injection and my lack of full understanding of the subject. So read on; you may just end up sporting a gaggle of stacks sticking out of your hood and holding court with the throngs of admirers you find congregating around your engine bay from that point on.
Hilborn EFI kits include an ECU that allows you to tune your engine simply and accurately without a laptop computer. The fuel-injector manifold features a split-throttle shaft design for smooth performance with gasoline setups, and offers a cool-looking, great-performing alternative to standard carburetion.
In The BeginningPerformance fuel injection owes its success and popularity to a gent by the name of Stuart Hilborn. Hilborn was first exposed to racing in the late 1930s when a friend took him to Muroc Dry Lake to take in some racing action. Needless to say, he was hooked right off the bat. Not long after, he built and raced an A-V8 Ford and also began constructing a streamliner that was unfortunately sidelined by the onset of WWII; Hilborn took a break from racing and joined the Air Force. It was during his stint in the service that he began to draw up plans for his first mechanical fuel injector. His construction began in earnest after the war ended, when he developed a completely new and unknown principle now known as "constant flow" fuel injection. Despite skepticism from many so-called experts regarding its success, Hilborn began racing with his fuel injector in 1947, and the success of his technological breakthrough earned him the reputation as the "father of fuel injection."
A lot of rodders were skeptical, yet the next year Howie Wilson piloted the then-completed Hilborn streamliner beyond the 150-mph barrier, thus effectively silencing his critics. While the car broke all records, the streamliner's design was appreciated as a piece of art as well. In April of that year, it appeared on the cover of Hot Rod magazine and continued to campaign at the lake. Unfortunately, the car flipped several times while on another speed run not long after, putting both Hilborn in the hospital and the streamliner out of action. After Hilborn healed up, he took his injectors to Indy where they became an instant success. Bill Vokovich drove the Fuel Injection Special, and, though he crashed while leading after the 190th lap, Hilborn injection still got a First Place with a Troy Ruttman win. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, there were more than 34 wins at the Indy 500 using Hilborn's fuel injector. Today it is used on many types of engines and all types of racers, including Sprint Cars, dragsters, Super Modifieds, off-road vehicles, and motorcycles.