Many people are curious to how the Commander 950 system works, especially on a 351 Cleveland. I haven't seen many people around or on the internet using it.So I'd say a 73 mach 1 w/ the Projection system is a pretty rare thing.
That being said, people generally have alot of questions. Here is my page where I try to answer some of them. This is from a thread on stangnet, so I'll just cut and paste it here. If you email me, I'll add your questions about the kit and answers here.
When we first decided to get it, it came down to either the projection or a stroker. Wanted lots of power, but I still drive the car everyday. We've had so much bad luck w/ carbs, decided to switch over. When our engine was first rebuilt, a mechanic did it for us. The kit gave him all kinds of problems installing it. The manual does suck, it's pretty vague and not incredibly helpful. But after looking at what he did, if you're good at electronics and have a good week or so to kill running the stuff, go for it. You will make lots of runs for braided hoses though.
When we first got it going, it was a mess. The maps that came with it were all way off. We basically had to go drive around and set the amount of fuel at every load/throttle position. This took awhile. We also had starting issues along the way, so the first few weeks the car ran were incredibly frustrating.
After almost spinning a bearing (thank you mr. mechanic), we got most of the car's problems sorted out. The kit finally became driveable everyday. It was great. Along w/ a super hi-torque starter, the car would fire up only on 3-4 clicks. Almost as fast as my dad's new car. Car got decent mpg (kinda hard to say, since we rebuilt the motor, and it was vastly different than what we had), and car performed well.
The best thing about the fi is the map. I'll post a pic of it later, but you basically have a grid w/ rpm's along the bottom, and load across the top. A red box appears in the map on where the car is at. If you change the number where the car is currently at, does make a noticeable difference in the way it runs.
A huge adv over carb is the fact that I can run it alot richer at wot, and keep it somewhat lean/neutral for daily driving. The values for the map go 0-100, w/ 100 being as much gas as possible. For the daily driving boxes, they're usually set around ~40. On wide open though, the boxes go up to 70 or 75. So I'm dumping in almost 40-50% more fuel only when I need it. Great improvement over setting a car to run at wot and then having to live w/ it on the street.
Now that the weather has turned incredibly cold, this kit has become golden. It's been 30s the past 2 weeks. Car still turns over w/ 3-4 clicks. We use to have a holley carb, and that was a nightmare at xmas. Once you actually got it to start, you'd sit there a good 3-4 mins before you could actually move, along w/ having to play w/ the choke, blah blah. drove me nuts.
I can turn the car on (the car actually doesnt start as well when you try and give it gas while turning the key, pretty cool), and watch it sit there and run. Could only dream of it doing this when I had a carb in this weather. The fi kit basically has a choke on it, so the computer sits there and plays w/ the air/fuel while it's idling.
When we have had a problem w/ this kit, it's usually been something minor to look. Once you use the kit for awhile, it's gets easier to tell where the problem is. For instance, was driving on the interstate last week when the car started jumping around (revs would jump erratically, car wanted to die, etc). I pulled off, looked under the hood for awhile, then turned hook the laptop up. You get o2 readings from the laptop, and it showed it being incredibly lean where I was having problems. Typed in a few numbers, car smoothed out incredibly, and I was on my way.
At the strip it's great. I can adjust the fuel w/o having to rip apart a carb every run. Plus I can add/take away fuel to certain rpm's if need be, and so on.
for now. if the tbi worked as well performance wise as a carb, id probably do it, but i have my doubts. its obviously not the best route, thats why multi port efi was invented i suppose. tbi is old tech, probably not worth 900 dollars now
