Ok here is one of "those" questions that people write, akin to writing online "I have this lump on my arm, what do you think it is?"

Ill have a shot anyway, just in case this is a common and known problem.

Have an EA falcon. Swapped the engine for EL an Tickford motor. Also did a thermo fan conversion.
I was lucky to have driven the tickford motor in the EL that it came out of, so I know how this engine SHOULD perform. EA being lighter than the EL, I was expecting better.

Between 0-3000 (almost exactly) it is a DOG!!! Even with ripping the 4 speed auto back to 1st and fair STANDING on the throttle, I can still get beaten by a stock VR/VS. (as an indication of just how embarrassing it is) It also has a full 2.5" system, ceramic coated extractors, msd2 coil, 10mm spiral leads, new dizzy cap, J3 chip /w 98RON tune (this was programmed for the 3.9L although not sure it matters), it also has a set of fully reco AU injectors, new spark plugs!!
Anyway as soon as it hits 3000 rpm it wants to rev its a** off and go hard, but by then some little old lady in her prius has smoked me. (For the record this has never happened, I would never race a prius in case as I would have to kill myself if they won)

I even considered that the diff, being 3.23:1 may be causing to wind up slower.

Im getting a bit sick of buying pointless parts. I guess I have not replaced the EA original cat, yet. If there is no real solution to whats going on, I guess I will keep buying parts.. cant hurt right? - lol

Any thoughts?

Cheers

Have been thinking.

The EF engine was coil pack. To make this work with my EL ECU & J3, we converted the dizzy over from the EA onto the motor.
The engine has had a timing light put on it since it was installed and is in the advanced position.
I am sure it is not too far advanced, if it was it would be pinging its bum off. It never does this.

Some how I feel like this could be ignition timing causing this. As the engine speeds up I assume the timing advances, so at 3000rpm is where it finds its correct spot and wants to go?

Anyone know if this is likely to be the issue or if I am even on track with my thinking?

For starters get a new cat because if that's stuffed then that will affect power, secondly get it tuned to the motor your running not a 3.9 ea motor...if your runing a el tickford motor then tune to that. Then take it for a run. Vr/vs comies have a better first gear by that I mean shorter final drive so they will always be better of the line after about 60 you should real them in and then pull past them.

Sound advice there mate. Regrettably, tunes are so darn expensive. Looked up the other thread about timing, and think mine may be significantly too far retarded. (bit like me really....)
As for the VS low first gear.. ill sort that out too, 4.11:1 purchased, saving up for full reco install

As for the cat, its never going to help indeed, but if that was the sole problem, would the performance be poo right across the rev range?

Are you running the standard EA log inlet manifold or the EL Broad Band?
If you are running the broadband it sounds like you haven't got the runner solenoid hooked up and you are trying to run the car in short runner mode only.
That will make it a dog until you get enough revs on board to create air speed.

You said you had a j3 chip you can normally get an email tune for about 200 if not less if it's a ti chip then send Jason an email with all the specs of your engine, he did mine and when I got it dyno'd the tune was pretty spot on the only way to do it better was a live dyno tune. All Matt's point is true check the solenoid to make you have the long runners before 3k.

Its running the EA manifold on the EF motor. Is this still a possibility? also worth noting the knock sensor is removed etc, as not running coil packs, etc.

Check you timing.

Have done mate. Im not sure it is advanced enough. I have seen that the engine is only advanced a few degrees past the timing mark.

What confuses me is how to time it right, in the sense, the guy who does it for me knows how to time it, but not about the necessity for it to be done in the base mode. Is that what its called? Brain f@rt... cant think.

We just tuned it by ear and looked at it with the timing light. Is the tune mode or whatever its called, essential?

There's your problem.. Your timing is retarded... Your running EL ecu?

Bridge the two left pins in the diagnostic connector in the fuse panel, wait 2 mins for the revs to stumble/almost stall,

You can now set your timing correctly to 0degrees or a couple of degrees advanced.

You either have 1 or 2 mins to set it.. Can't remember but I always get in done in under a minute..


There's plenty of threads on here about this, a little search goes a long way.

also if your running the el ecu with the ea log manifold the timing maps are different and you will have f**k all down low torque under 3000rpm, either advance the timing a good 5 deg or more or fit the ef/el manifold

the main issue I see is running an ea tune on the j3 in an el ecu.unless the tune was for the el ecu to start with?

I thought so too, but Jason from TI says no. Pointed out the errors in the tuning that Ive done.
"+10 degrees when not in base mode is actually about -8"

So yeah.. time to work out how to get it into base mode.

Was mentioned above.

if you cant get it into base timing mode, just set the timing to aprox 20 deg btdc