Eric Rosendahl is an early EFI adopter and converted his 468ci big-block El Camino to a Holley Sniper throttle body fuel injection system right after it was introduced. It’s been on the car now for over two years and he couldn’t be happier with how well the big Rat motor runs. He matched it with a Sniper fuel tank and high-pressure, internal electric fuel pump and cold start is now new-car-like and his highway cruise rpm with the 4L60E overdrive automatic often achieved 14-15 mpg. For a healthy 525 hp Rat, that borders on impressive.
During the original Sniper installation, Rosendahl followed Holley’s recommendation and fine-tuned the fuel side first before converting to electronic ignition control. With thousands of successful miles on the TBI conversion, the time was right to upgrade the ignition side. The current ignition consisted of a simple HEI distributor but the big Rat balked at adding any vacuum advance since it would detonate if he tried adding anything more than 12 degrees initial timing and 22 degrees of mechanical advance. The promise was that digital control over the ignition could improve drivability by adding non-linear finesse to the ignition curve.
The HyperSpark distributor is an excellent choice since it installs very simply and is purpose-built for EFI spark control. The distributor uses a Hall Effect design rather than the typical magnetic pickups that can be fussy when it comes to electronic interference.
There are three ways to go about combining digital spark control with the Sniper system. Option one is to update to a Holley Dual Sync distributor that incorporates both a crank and cam sensor in the distributor along with a circuit board. The second option is to use a Holley HyperSpark distributor which is the path we chose. The third avenue is to use a typical MSD distributor, lock out the mechanical and vacuum advance mechanisms and then go through a distributor phasing procedure using an adjustable rotor from MSD.
Here, we’ve installed the phasing tool over the distributor to show how the cap will only fit one way over the pins to properly orient the rotor. The arrow points to the pins that orient the cap.
Our main reason for choosing the HyperSpark distributor was because Holley has created a very simple and ingenious way to quickly and easily set the distributor in the engine and phase the distributor. This is achieved with the use of a clear plastic cap that fits over the rotor which makes it incredibly easy to phase the rotor. We’ll show you how it works.
The first step was to remove the spark plugs to allow turning the engine over by hand with the crank bolt. We decided the engine was probably in need of a new set of plugs anyway along with new MSD plug wires. We then rotated the engine to bring the crankshaft to top dead center (TDC) on the Number One spark plug. This is done by placing a finger over the spark plug hole as the engine is slowly rotated. With cylinder pressure building and the TDC mark on the balancer approaching the timing tab, carefully line up the mark on the balancer to zero (0º) timing, which is TDC. If you overshoot, don’t reverse engine rotation but rather turn it over two full revolutions and set 0 degrees by carefully moving the crank with a socket and ratchet instead of trying to bump the engine with the starter motor. We had to raise the front of Eric’s car with a jack to allow sufficient room to turn the engine over with a breaker bar on the crank bolt from underneath because the accessory drive is very close to the twin electric fans, reducing working room.
Next we removed the HEI cap and plug wires and distributor. On a small- or big-block Chevy, the normal engine rotation turns the distributor rotor clockwise, so note that as the distributor is removed, it will rotate in the opposite direction (counterclockwise) as it rides up the helical cam gear teeth. Now we could install the new HyperSpark distributor. Make sure to place the distributor gasket over the body and then carefully insert the distributor into the hole and watch how the rotor twists into place. We want the rotor to point in the same direction as it did when the old distributor was removed.
In most cases, including ours, the distributor body will not drop all the way into the distributor hole. This is because the oil pump drive tang has not engaged the male tang inside the distributor gear. You can turn the oil pump drive shaft with a long flat screwdriver to help align the tang, but that trick doesn’t always work. We prefer to drop the distributor in then turn the engine in the normal rotation until the distributor drops into place. Sometimes this requires a slight downward pressure with your hand on the distributor body. Once the distributor is positioned properly, turn the engine until compression is felt on Number One and again place the harmonic balancer mark at 0 degrees.
Now place the clear plastic cap over the rotor and rotate the distributor body until the two small pins on the distributor fit inside the small insert in the clear plastic cap and the rotor is also nestled into the clear plastic cap. This establishes the proper orientation for rotor phasing for the HyperSpark distributor. Tighten the distributor hold-down bolt to secure the distributor.
Certain Sniper EFI kits include this coil driver module while others do no not. For those in need of the driver, it can be purchased separately (as PN 556-150) to add timing control to the system.
We marked our HyperSpark distributor body with a Sharpie to indicate where the Number One spark plug wire should be positioned on the cap. The distributor cap only fits on the distributor body one way and this mark will determine where the Number One plug wire will be located. You will also need to know the firing order to accurately place the spark plug wires. All Chevy V8 engines with distributors use a 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 firing order.
With the HyperSpark distributor in place, we also mounted an MSD coil bracket and canister style coil that is compatible with the inductive ignition. The Sniper throttle body can also be oriented to use a capacitive discharge (CD) style of ignition that would include a capacitive discharge amplifier box and matching coil.
We chose to run the more traditional inductive ignition and a canister style ignition coil. The main reason for this is simplicity and it is more affordable than using a CD system. This inductive system does require a small amount of specific wiring to connect the four wires leading from the coil driver module. As shown in the accompanying schematic, the wiring is the same for both the Dual Sync and HyperSpark distributors as both use Hall Effect triggers.
Holley recommends making sure the Sniper EFI software is kept up to date, especially when updating to a new, computer-controlled ignition. Our Sniper was more than two years old and required a firmware update so that the entire Sniper system was using the latest updates. These software updates can be found at www.Holley.com by clicking the "Tech Support" tab, followed by "EFI Software."
There are four wires that must be connected from the inductive coil driver module: pink, black, grey, and white. The pink wire is switched 12v+ power, black is a ground, the grey connects to the negative side of the coil, and the white wire is the rpm sensing wire that is connected to the ECU. That’s it. We prefer to use non-insulated butt and terminal connectors and then insulate these with a heat shrink tubing to make a professional connection.
With all the wiring in place, we next accessed the Holley website to download the latest version of the Sniper EFI software to ensure that both the ignition and fuel sides of the Sniper were all using the same version. Once this was accomplished, we enabled power to the Sniper and called up the ignition Wizard on the handheld and inputted the HyperSpark distributor under ignition type. This tells the Sniper unit which distributor will be used.”
(Left) The first step on the conversion process is to set the engine at TDC on the compression stroke. This can be easily done by removing the Number One spark plug and turning the engine until pressure is felt. Then slowly move the crank until the TDC mark is lined up with 0 timing on the timing tab. This photo was taken on a different engine to better illustrate the point. (Right) The next step is to remove the original distributor. Note the position of the rotor before you pull it so that the new HyperSpark distributor can be positioned in the same orientation.
With this configured, the next step in the instructions had us disable the fuel pump relay and crank the engine with a timing light connected to ensure the initial timing was at 15 degrees BTDC. After timing was verified the fuel pump relay was reconnected and the engine immediately started. We shut the engine down and using the Sniper hand held, accessed advanced timing and locked the ignition at 15 degrees. Locking the timing out is used to verify that the timing the ECU is commanding is actually what’s happening at the engine. This lockout feature is set to 15 degrees. We started the engine and the timing light indicated only 12 degrees, which meant our distributor was off by only 3 degrees. We simply loosened the distributor hold-down bolt and moved the distributor body until the timing mark on the balancer matched 15 degrees BTDC.
Once the ignition is shut off, the lockout feature is disabled. So if you want to check it again, you must go back through the process of locking it out again in the handheld.
With the HyperSpark distributor fully seated in the engine and the crank placed at 0 degrees TDC, place the clear phasing tool over the distributor and rotor and move the body until the clear cap fits snugly over the entire distributor body and rotor. Now the rotor is properly phased and the distributor can be tightened down in place.
As part of the normal Sniper ignition controls, there are only three timing inputs: idle, cruise, and WOT. Rosendahl chose to download the software from Holley to created a personalized spark map on his laptop in a 2D format with timing based on rpm and load expressed in kPa. The top of the vertical scale at 95 kPa is WOT while the bottom of the map at 1 is very high manifold vacuum as seen in deceleration.”
Our initial map was copied from the basic Sniper ignition curve as shown in the accompanying photo. We spent a couple of minutes attempting to optimize the timing curve for this particular engine and what we had observed it liked during road testing. If you want to know more about how to create your own custom curve, Holley has a great instructional video on the details of this process.
This is the wiring schematic for the Dual Sync distributor for the coil driver module but the connections are all the same with the HyperSpark distributor. Note that the drawing shows a single wire coming out of the distributor but it really has three wires because it plugs directly into to a three-wire connector that includes the two twisted green and purple wires to the ECU and the pink wire to switched power. This also requires the wiring adapter PN 558-493. This is the same harness required when adapting the Dual Synch distributor.
We then took the El Camino out for a test drive and noticed the big Rat detonated slightly at part throttle acceleration up to freeway speed so we modified that spot by reducing the timing by 3 to 4 degrees. We also increased the light cruise timing from our initial 36 to 40 degrees which is conservative (it may increase to around 45 degrees once we have more time to evaluate the change) but even on this first test drive the system performed extremely well.
In fact, the next day Rosendahl drove the El Camino on a 124 mile highway jaunt and the big-block consumed a mere 6.8 gallons which computed to an amazing 18.2 mpg. This might be a bit optimistic for a 468ci big-block with a 4L60E lockup overdrive, but nevertheless points out how well the system performed right out of the gate. The previous HEI was not able to use the vacuum advance due to detonation issues and was generally able to deliver around 15 mpg on the highway.
Our efforts to digitize the El Camino’s advance curve were tremendously successful. The engine feels stronger with improvements in both throttle response and fuel economy. Plus we can make WOT timing changes with one degree accuracy with a simple keystroke. It’s especially fun when a simple afternoon upgrade returns such positive rewards.
Because we were changing the type of distributor used, we also had to update the Sniper ECU configuration. From the Home page on the handheld select "Tuning" then "System" followed by Ignition Setup. This will bring you to the screen where you can select HyperSpark distributor. Note it shows the default rev limiter at 20,000 rpm! We recalibrated that to 6,600.
With all the software changes completed, the new plug wires routed, and our new MSD coil wired, it was time for the test. We fired the engine and adjusted the base timing to 15 degrees then revved the engine to 3,000 as per the instructions (still locked out at 15 degrees) to ensure timing does not retard at higher engine speeds. If so, this can be adjusted with the inductive delay but was not required in our case.
(Right) The basic Sniper ignition curve as produced by the handheld. Note it increases timing rather abruptly from idle at 15 degrees to cruise timing (between 1,200 and 1,600) to 40 degrees. (Left) We smoothed these timing steps and added the other minor changes the engine demanded, such as advance in light cruise positions and retard in higher load areas.
This is a three- dimensional view of the same ignition timing map. The higher 20–degree timing points in yellow at the low rpm positions are essentially there as stall savers and may not be necessary in actual driving. The red trough is the idle timing values. Those small bumps and valleys are very minor 3-4 degree timing changes.
Once we adjusted the Sniper spark map to the requirements for the big-block El Camino, it ran much better and with a sharper, more precise throttle response. As a bonus, the big-block’s fuel mileage increased by 20 percent in its first highway mileage test mainly due to our inability to accurately fine-tune the previous mechanical and vacuum advance without incurring part-throttle detonation. The ability to create a specific timing map with the digital control is the main reason for the improvement.