Fuel Injection upgrade

Dont know how it happened, but I replied to the email chain for my D.U.I. order back on August 20 and never got a reply back on checking for an update if the parts ever came in.  I went to D.U.I's main website and got their main email and asked for an update on this order on September 24th saying to please get back with me because this is starting to get ridiculous for a 6 month wait.

Well, I got my reply today and D.U.I. doesn't know what's going on nor how it happened but apparently my order placed on March 24, 2022, actually shipped out April 12 and not sure why I was told it had not shipped when I checked on the order on June 30 which got my reply on July 1 that they were waiting on parts, and it would ship in about 3 weeks.

Needless to say, it's been over 120 days so UPS tracking number is not active anymore and I never received a shipment confirmation nor a tracking number, but they are having the shop build the order again right now and will reship it by the end of this week.

Right now, I am manually going through all of my April emails which is quite a bit to confirm that I didn't get a shipment confirmation number under a different email, but I doubt it considering my order confirmation is from the same email address.

So I could have had my distributor installed earlier this year.  Still, it doesn't change anything I don't have the headers ceramic coated and I don't know what route I am going to go.  I still don't have my tax refund so I dont have the spare cash to just blow on the overpriced nature of Jet-Hot and I dont know of any other place that ceramic coats the inside as well everyone else including Cradin Industries only does the exterior and he has very few color choices unlike Jet-Hot.

Somehow that made me think of the song One Step At A Time Dear Savior. . Eventually you are going to get there.

Gary Lewis wrote

Somehow that made me think of the song One Step At A Time Dear Savior. . Eventually you are going to get there.

Of course.  Just like the air cleaner, I found a company that does semi-custom air cleaners and I am seriously contemplating going with one of theses over trying to source the OE one I am hunting for seeing as I cant justify the insane pricing for a stock unit.

They have this one that is a 15" oval open element air cleaner that can be had in either blue, black, or silver.  Can also get it with a blank and have a custom image/logo/text applied to the blank.









Or I can get the same styles in a 14" round air cleaner


Part of me is leaning towards the black Shelby oval air cleaner with the signature and the other part of me is leaning towards the 14" round one.

Either way I go if I go this route, it will be under $300 for the air cleaner by itself.  I could justify that cost over that cost for an OE unit that needs reconditioning.

I made a pretty big mistake, I hope D.U.I. caught my mistake cause if not then I won't be getting a distributor next week in the mail.

I didnt get a ship confirmation so I went to D.U.I.s site where I still have my order form pulled up and that's when I caught it.  When I emailed D.U.I. through their main email with my order confirmation email not getting replied to the last time, I put in the order # in the description and recited it in the text.  Mistake I made is the last two digits are flipped.  I said 92 when it should have been 29 for the last two digits.  That would explain if they were looking at order 92 why it shipped in April when I placed my order March 24.

But I hope D.U.I. did their diligence and looked into this and checked my email address and caught the mistake on the order number cause if not then they just spent this week building a distributor for someone else and shipping it to them.

What sucks is I read the order number off multiple times and then typed it out and checked it twice and still last two digits I see are flipped in both the title and in the message itself.

I emailed them back informing them of this mistake on my part that I just saw not sure if they caught it or not.  Hopefully they did, not because I want my distributor yesterday but because it was my mistake, and the last two digits were flipped.

I can't call them because they were already closed when I found this out and they are closed saturday/sunday.  Guess this can just be chalked up to a huge screw up on all parts cause if my August 24 email was responded to I wouldn't have had to send a entirely new email trying to get a hold of someone else seven weeks later.

Bummer!  I have that kind of stuff happen frequently, so know how it feels.  Hopefully DUI catches it and makes the change.  

Gary Lewis wrote

Bummer!  I have that kind of stuff happen frequently, so know how it feels.  Hopefully DUI catches it and makes the change.  

Same here, I don't mind if they don't meet the deadline of shipping this week, long as they knew from the start I screwed up and flipped the last two digits by mistake.

Right now, I am just browsing aftermarket air cleaners trying to decide.  I do love the ones I posted above but I would lose the cold air function and while it's not a huge deal with EFI which has an air intake temp sensor to adjust the fuel map, I personally still would like to have as much cold air as possible.

I keep looking at this one from Spectre that can be also had in a single snorkel design.  This is their dual snorkel 150* angle as I think the 180* angle would not work.  It's a 16" diameter x 4" tall with 4" inlet's which would require custom fabrication, but I think I could make it work to where I can get it to fit the oval OE inlet then I can cut up the spare I have put up to mount on the driver side.





Lots have told me this air cleaner is junk for performance and to not use it but this one I found on Ebay ranging between $110 and $130 while stores like Summit and Jeg's wants $150 - $170.  Still cheaper than paying $200 - $300 for a used OE air cleaner that will require lots of work to refinish it.  This also has a drop base so it should sit down more around my sniper whereas the OE didn't have a drop base so the air cleaner sits up real high above my valve covers.

Hopefully my D.U.I. Distributor will ship next week.  I called them up this morning since I havent gotten an email reply.  They apparently never got the email but they did confirm that it didnt matter what order number I gave in my email they would have looked my order up via my email address.  So they had the right information.  In the call today I was informed that my order was put to the top of the list to be built.

I will give them till next Friday if I dont have a shipment confirmation by then I will be calling them up the following Monday and will continue to do that till I get my distributor.

It's good news that they use your email address, not the wrong info you gave them.  Hopefully it'll ship next week.  

Gary Lewis wrote

It's good news that they use your email address, not the wrong info you gave them.  Hopefully it'll ship next week.  

Hope so because I am very close to pulling the trigger on this out-of-stock Spectre air cleaner that I found, I think I could fabricate it up to use the 4" round duct and merge it into the OE plastic duct on the core support.

Big reason why I am looking at it is I found a shop on Ebay that is selling them at a serious discount, and he has more than 10 in stock of the one I am looking at.  Summit says it's not available and Spectre`s website doesn't show the part number anymore, but Summit has it listed for $250 for just the airbox, guy on Ebay is selling it for $118 with free shipping.

Another reason is this one here is the non-low profile one which Spectre`s website lists as available, the low profile is a a 14" diameter x 5.4" height airbox with a 12.6" x 3" air filter which running some calculators is showing a 89 sq in flow area and would give me a peak of 0.08% pressure loss and 0.29 horsepower loss estimated.  It says on this calculator to shoot for a pressure loss in the 0.5% to 1.0% range at peak power rpm and less is better.  So, I could get away with it but the one I found on Ebay is 16" diameter can't find a height, but the filter is a 14" x 4" and the same calculator is showing a peak pressure loss of 0.03% and a peak horsepower loss of 0.11.

I am trying to figure out how much of a drop base this is cause with a 16" diameter air cleaner if it's too much of a drop base I am afraid it might contact the coil bracket or maybe even the throttle cable bracket as I was thinking about spacing the bracket up to keep a level cable pull.  Summit says the net height from carb flange is 3.750" but doesn't say what the actual height of the assembly is so I can't gauge how far below the flange this air cleaner will sit.

I'm tempted to say screw it buys it for the cheap price it is priced at and give it a go.  Best case it fits, and I can fabricate the duct work once the engine is in the truck.  Worse case is I end up with another air cleaner I can't use.  Another upside is maybe that old early/mid 70s 302 premium fuel air cleaner decal will fit this airbox better than it fit the OE air cleaners for our trucks.

For comparison below are two stock photos, first one is the low profile dual snorkel airbox with 12.6" x 3" air filter with 135* angled snorkels.  Second one is the regular dual snorkel airbox with the 14" x 4" air filter with 135* angled snorkels.





This is the decal I have I had planned on putting on the OE air cleaner but the curve doesnt fit right.  Maybe if I am lucky it will fit this airbox.  If so then the only question I have to ponder for myself is single snorkel or dual snorkel.

I think I'd go ahead and pull the trigger on it.  If it is too low you can always run a spacer under it.

Gary Lewis wrote

I think I'd go ahead and pull the trigger on it.  If it is too low you can always run a spacer under it.

Thats what I am thinking I can always throw a spacer under it and offset the drop base if need be.  I'm currently trying to figure out how I can cut out a 16" diameter circle in cardboard that way I can see what potentially I would be coming into contact with.  I believe the coil mount and distributor is what I will be dealing with.  The OE air cleaner has the dimple in the front to provide a good air gap between the distributor and the air cleaner itself.

I did a lot of searching and couldn't find anything about how much of a drop base it is.  Looking on Summits site at air cleaner bases the largest drop I could find is 1 3/4" drop.  I could use this as a base point to see the absolute lowest this air cleaner could be.  I don't believe the drop is 1 3/4", looking at the photos I could see 3/4" to 1" drop at most.  Photos of a 1 3/4" drop base has an insane dome to create that much drop and looks nothing like what is used on this air cleaner.  A 1" drop on summits site looks about right and if it's a 1" drop and it's too much I can pick up a 1/2" spacer to raise the air cleaner and make it a 1/2" drop.  At least this way I can fine tune it to get the air cleaner as low as possible but still clear everything.

So, I think I am going to order the air cleaner off ebay cause it's a good price and I can go to Spectre and buy 4" hard tubing and couplers, or I could just run a boot from the air cleaner to the plastic duct and just let it hang limply.  I would take care of that once in the truck if the air cleaner fits properly.  I can drive the truck without the duct hooked up, if need be, till I can figure out a solution I like.

I don't think the 16" diameter would be too big that it would pose a risk to coming into contact with the firewall itself.  I will know more once I figure out how to mark out and cut a 16" diameter circle so I can mark the center and place it on the stud for the sniper to see how it looks.

Gave a call to D.U.I on Thursday seeing as my distributor still hasnt shipped last week.  Come to find out I am not being told that the distributor cores just arrived and that they hope to start building my distributor on Friday and should ship middle of next week.  Ill give them till thursday/friday before calling again if I dont have a shipment confirmation.  Im going to stay on them till I get my distributor.

Saturday I used my tape measure to do some basic measurements, I think the spectre dual snorkel air cleaner can be made to work.  If the drop base is a 1/2" - 1" drop I might be able to get by without using a spacer.  If its a 1 1/2" drop then I most likely will need a 1/2" spacer as the distance between the air cleaner flange and the distributor is around 1 1/4" or so.  I went a head and placed the order and been looking at air cleaner studs, air cleaner wing nuts, and spacers.

I cant decide on a wing nut.  I kind of like the proform ford oval wing nut but I think that will be too much especially if I use a Ford marked air cleaner decal.  I cant order a air cleaner stud yet till I know what length I am looking at as well as I may or may not need a spacer.

Decal wise I also was thinking about the dual snorkel 5.0L HO decals, they might fit this air cleaner themselves.  I need to do more digging how ever and I also need to figure out what the fresh air adapter is called that bolts to the knock out plate on the air cleaner base.  I might have to change what breather cap I am using as I might not be able to route the hose neatly.

But I do have a lot to think about and look into, more than I have had in a while now.

You are making progress, and as Jim says, progress is good!  

Gary Lewis wrote

You are making progress, and as Jim says, progress is good!  

Yep progress is good.  Im right now looking at their 4" round duct for the air cleaner and contemplating if I could smash one end down and oval it to make it slip fit the factory plastic duct.

~Update~
Air cleaner just got delivered.  I noticed it in the photo but wasnt sure but I confirmed two big dents in the top of the air cleaner.  Thinking how I could possibly fix the dents.  Im thinking piece of wood with a microfiber towel on top of it and a piece of wood on the inside to tap the dents out as best as possible.  If the dents was near the front I could just cover it up with a decal but they are on the back side of the top more towards the middle.

None the less if I can get home with enough daylight left today I will pull my engine out and set the air cleaner on top to see how it sits and if I possibly need to get a spacer.

Well I mocked up the air cleaner tonight after work.  I will have to use a spacer, not because its hitting the coil or distributor.  It is lightly touching the distributor plug wires but I dont have a gasket on it but the domes to clear the 4150 float adjustment towers isnt tall enough to clear the simulated 4150 sniper ones.  I think I saw on Spectres pdf catalog they have a spacer set that has multiple sizes with the smallest being 1/4".  I think I am going to try that and hope it doesnt elevate this air cleaner too much where it hits the firewall.

On the decals, I am leaning towards the orange and black 302 4V Premium Fuel decal.  Neither of the two decals I have fit perfectly but the orange and black one fits the best.

Im also going to hit up summit and see if I can find a premade air cleaner stud.  Measurement I got was 4 1/8" but with a 1/4" spacer and gaskets I would round it up to 4 1/2" and I should be good.  Height of the stud above the air cleaner wont matter with a traditional wing nut but if I go for a dress up one such as a ford oval one then height will matter.

Aside from that, I wiped the air cleaner down with a microfiber towel to polish it up and get the oil stains off it for photos.  The towel was grabbing on the front of the air cleaner I think there are micro rust pits grabbing the towel so I will attempt to go over the whole thing with some polish or compound to try and get the air cleaner slick.  If need be I will hit up local chrome shops and get a quote to have the two dents dinged out and have the assembly chromed with a traditional triple plate process.

Now on to the photos.

First photo is just the air cleaner sitting showing the height which I like as it looks considerably lower than my OE air cleaner which looked like a flat head air cleaner with how high up it sat.  This also shows off the synthetic fiber oiled air filter which is the reason why I got this cause this discontinued model sports a 14" x 4" air filter while everything Spectre offers now is 3" tall at most.


This photo is the blue and white 302 4V Regular fuel decal I have, to get it to look decent and like it belongs on the air cleaner fit wise, Id have to place it half in the step which I dont think I really want to do as I know the decal wont stick right and will eventually start flaking off with engine heat.


An angled photo showing roughly what it would look like under the hood


Then there is the orange and black 302 4V Premium Fuel decal which fits best out along the raised edge of the air cleaner assembly, it doesnt fit perfect but its close enough.  I really like how this one looks but I am not going to put an decal on till I have exhausted alternative options but as of now this is the one I will most likely go with.  I also like the splash of color this orange and black decal gives compared to how everything seems to be blue or black.


An angled photo


With this air cleaner and its 14" x 4" tall reusable filter and its dual 4" ducts, I should not have an issue of starving the 870 cfm Sniper Stealth 4150.

That air cleaner looks good.  Big, but good.  

And I agree with you that the blue & white decal won't work.  But the orange and black one fits nicely and really does "pop".

You are getting there!

Gary Lewis wrote

That air cleaner looks good.  Big, but good.  

And I agree with you that the blue & white decal won't work.  But the orange and black one fits nicely and really does "pop".

You are getting there!

In this case big is good for an air cleaner.  The math I did said that a 307.7 cid engine with peak hp of 381 @ 5500 rpm with a 14.10" OD air filter that is 4" tall, it comes out to 144 sq in flow area and 16 filter discharge coefficient which equates to 0.02% pressure loss 3,500 - 4,000 rpm, 0.03% pressure loss 4,500 - 5,000 rpm and 0.04% pressure loss 5,500 - 6,000 rpm.  With hp loss being 0.04 @ 3,500 rpm, 0.07 @ 4,000 rpm, 0.11 @ 4,500 rpm, 0.13 @ 5,000 rpm, 0.15 @ 5,500 rpm and 0.13 @ 6,000 rpm.

Said for performance applications should shoot for a pressure loss in the 0.5% to 1.0% range at peak power rpm and that less is better.  Im not at 0.5% but 0.04% @ 5,500 rpm which is what I am concerned about cause while I wont spend all my time at those rpm levels, I will hit them when I am passing someone on the highway.  Normal highway driving will be in the 2,500 - 2,750 rpm range and city driving should be no different than it is now with 1,500 rpm around town at 40 mph.

On the decal I agree, it does pop and the orange is like a fluorescent orange that stands out.  I might apply the decal this weekend how ever, I ordered off amazon cause I wasnt about to pay $11 shipping for summit for $25 worth of parts.  I ordered 5ft length of 5/8" silicone hose rated to 60 psi max pressure that I will be using from my breather cap to the air filter base.  I got the Spectre 4954 air cleaner riser kit that comes with three sizes and I will be using the 1/4" riser as that should be well over enough to clear.  I also got a 5" air cleaner stud kit just to hold the air cleaner down till I can decide what wing nut I want.  I also picked up the Spectre 4960 air cleaner fitting for the breather, its the only one I could find with the gasket, I would have preferred to have got the aluminum mr gasket one but it came with no hardware nor a gasket.

I havent ordered clamps yet, I want to measure the OD of the silicone hose when installed on the fitting so I can decide which constant tension clamp I need to get.  I would get screw clamps but they are so expensive for the ones that wont rip the silicone hose.  For the cost of a few of those clamps I can buy a whole assortment of constant tension clamps.

Ill also this weekend get out the polish and try and polish the air cleaner up on the front to remove the tiny rust pits as well as seeing if I can devise a way to remove the two dents in the lid without making it look worse.

Yes, big is good for an air cleaner.  And it looks like yours is plenty big enough.  

Good luck on polishing it and getting the dents out.  

Gary Lewis wrote

Yes, big is good for an air cleaner.  And it looks like yours is plenty big enough.  

Good luck on polishing it and getting the dents out.  

Yep, I hope I have good luck, I think I still have some multi purpose polish for stainless/brass/copper/chrome that I will use.  On the dent I may just leave it in there as I rather leave it than make it worse trying to pop the dent back out.

I lucked out as well, the Spectre abs plastic pcv filter fitting for the air cleaner it was slated to be delivered saturday - next friday but it actually got delivered today.  The other items I ordered will be delivered today as well so I will have the stuff to start mocking everything up.  Only thing left to buy is one of the 4" ducts to see if it will properly fit the OE plastic housing.  If not then I might need to look at reducers or something.

Got off work early today so was able to spend a few hours messing with the air cleaner.  I didnt attempt to take the dents out, once I got the air cleaner polished out I could live with the dents.  Once polished out I found there was a couple more minor dings that you really dont notice either.

I found out the 1/4" spacer worked great.  The 90* pcv fitting how ever didnt work.  The location where they had the mount stamped out at put this pcv fitting where it is up against my coil and fuel line or if I rotate the air cleaner it is directly where my throttle cable and brackets will be sitting.  So I didnt mount that but I am thinking about maybe marking the pattern out and just drilling my own holes on the front side on driver side but I am also thinking about seeing if I could find like a straight 5/8" fitting that I could mount in the flat part closer to the Sniper but I havent really had much luck on that.  I was thinking something like a bulkhead fitting but all I could find was bulkhead fittings for boats.

I did place the orange decal and I moved it up some where the dip in the air cleaner is in the center of the decal.  The decal laid down great but there are two points one on each side that keeps curling up so I may have to pull that decal off and put another one on seeing as I have to be careful with wiping the air cleaner with my microfiber towel or it grabs the lifted corner.

I havent cut the air cleaner stud down any as I dont know if I will keep the plain wing nut or if I will go with something a bit more aftermarket.

Below are some photos, the ones showing the 5/8" silicone hose on the fresh air vent is about how it will be mounted as I plan on looping it back forward and up under the air cleaner just dont know if I want to attempt to use the 90% on the angled base that will possibly induce a kink in the hose or if I want to just go with a straight.





Next two are on the 5/8" silicone hose for the pcv fresh air vent.  This is how I am thinking of routing it unless I come up with something better.  Only other option to get it not looped up and down would be to find a breather with the 5/8" barb that is horizontal but I dont think I seen one that is a oil seperator like this one is and all the horizontal ones I was looking at, the barb presses into the breather via a rubber grommet while this one is all made in.







As far as distributor goes, no email confirmation of shipping and order status still shows processing.  So, I will be calling D.U.I. up again on Monday inquiring about the status of my order yet again.  They better hope that there is no telling me that it's going to be another week.  I won't accept that answer because I have been more than understanding and now is the time for them to get me my product I paid for.  They already have lost a 5 star review from me right now they are close to losing a 4 star review and if I have to cancel this order cause they cant seem to deliver then it will be a 1 star review.