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I’m thinking of fitting fuel injection to my 1980 Alfa Romeo gtv, and I’m keen to use Delco bits, if possible all sourced from a n13 Nissan pulsar/Holden Astra.

I’m completely new to fuel injection and ECUs, I’ve read some of the FAQs but don’t have enough of a background knowledge to clearly understand it.

My car currently runs a electronic distributor from a carburettor Mitsubishi Magna and the stock dellorto carburettors.

Which variant of the n13 pulsar do I get all the bits from? I think 1.8 litre, is the ECU marked 1227808?

Can I get all the bits off the one car? I.e I don’t need to source bits from a different make or model?

I think I need the ECU, engine loom, all sensors attached to the loom, distributor, intake manifold, these I think are easy to modify to fit the Alfa, throttle body, injectors and rail.

Is this right?

Does the pulsar have an external pump which is suitable?

What modifications are needed to the ECU?

How do you connect the ECU to a computer for tuning? My wife has a new MacBook, can I use this?

How hard is it to tune? Do people always go to a dyno? I think some software has an auto tune function based on data logging.

Any help would be great.

Welcome to the forum. Your where I was 7 years ago. To answer some of your questions yes it must be the 808 ecu and the distributor should be inductive type if it's from a carbie Magna which is a perfect match. Get all the sensors including the throttle body and start enjoying the conversion. You will get lots of help from this forum.

Charlescrown wrote:Welcome to the forum. Your where I was 7 years ago. To answer some of your questions yes it must be the 808 ecu and the distributor should be inductive type if it's from a carbie Magna which is a perfect match. Get all the sensors including the throttle body and start enjoying the conversion. You will get lots of help from this forum.

Excellent, I might go to pick a part and grab the bits soon.

I borrowed a n13 pulsar workshop manual from the library today, I’ll photocopy some pages tomorrow.

You mention the Magna distributor i have is perfect for a 808 based conversion, but the Magna distributor I have has a mechanical advance and only two wires coming out of it.

How does this work? The n13 distributor has more than two wires coming from it, I assume due to the advance curve being from the ecu not from mechanical advance in the distributor.

Or can I just trigger the ecu from the distributor I have some how?

Should I get the Efi Magna distributor for this conversion, as I remember it had a multi wire plug on it with several wires.

You just weld the mechanical advance to prevent it working and forget the vacuum. The 2 wires are fed to a Camira (or HEI) module to do the ignition switching. All the timing is then done by the ECU that you program into it. Make sure you get the Pulsar/Camira with the 808 ECU. The early ones had a Bosch system similar to the VK Commodore. Useless for this conversion. The good thing with the Pulsar or Camira is the wiring loom should be pretty much complete for the conversion. The Nissan has a longer loom because of the ECU location under the passengers seat.

Charlescrown wrote:You just weld the mechanical advance to prevent it working and forget the vacuum. The 2 wires are fed to a Camira (or HEI) module to do the ignition switching. All the timing is then done by the ECU that you program into it. Make sure you get the Pulsar/Camira with the 808 ECU. The early ones had a Bosch system similar to the VK Commodore. Useless for this conversion. The good thing with the Pulsar or Camira is the wiring loom should be pretty much complete for the conversion. The Nissan has a longer loom because of the ECU location under the passengers seat.

Excellent, thank you very much for the help. I think I'll grab another Magna distributor to lock the advance, it cost a lot to recurve the distributor in the car now.

If you can get an n13 or camira distributor I would have a go at converting the distributor to fit the engine

You could probably lock it with some lacing wire tied across the advance spring posts even with the springs still in place if you don't want to mess with your custom curve in case you want to revert back later

Thank you for your replies delcowizzid and jenko.

Fitting the camira/n13 distributor to go in the Alfa is not possible as the drive for the distributor in the Alfa is off the oil pump drive a long way in the timing case. So needs a long shaft, the n13 distributor just goes on the end of the cam.

I now have a wiring diagram and have had a look at a car in the wreckers. Looks easy, but I’m still confused about the distributor options.

I think it’s easier for me to start with another distributor for this conversion.

Is it possible to use a Magna distributor for this conversion, not the pulsar distributor?

The wiring diagram for the pulsar shows 6 wires coming out of the distributor, 4 to the ecu and 2 for the tachometer.

The easiest distributor for me to adapt is the Magna, which has 4 wires coming out. I have not got a diagram for the Magna yet.

Are two wires for triggering the spark and the other two the injectors?

Looking in the pulsar distributor it looks to have two triggers, is this right?

Also, how to you connect the ecu to the computer for tuning?

Make sure you get the carbie Magna distributor. One from a Sigma is still a good choice and might be cheaper. You need one with an inductive pickup. I have a few lying around here if you are in Sydney. If you have the advance curve figures from your old dissy itt'l be a big help in programming the timing map.

Charlescrown wrote:Make sure you get the carbie Magna distributor. One from a Sigma is still a good choice and might be cheaper. You need one with an inductive pickup. I have a few lying around here if you are in Sydney. If you have the advance curve figures from your old dissy itt'l be a big help in programming the timing map.

Charlescrown thanks for your help.

How many wires come out of the Magna distributors you recommend?

The one in the car now is a early Magna distributor with only two wires coming out of it.

How do you connect this to the pulsar wiring loom that has 6 wires on the diagram?

Do you not use some wires on the pulsar wiring loom or do you combine some wires?

Sorry to be a pain, but I want to understand.