Fairmont Ghia has Bosch fuel injection

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 14

Fairmont Ghia has Bosch fuel injection

BEHIND the WHEEL

Peter Greenslade

Time has a habit of passing quickly and so although it may seem only like yesterday when the famous FordVB engine was introduced, it was, in fact, 50 years ago. Now the Ford V 8 is an engine of the past, in this part of the world at least.

Ford Australia has moved away from VBs, thereby leaving the field to General Motors-Holden, and into petrol-injected six-cylinder engines.

Engineers at Broadmeadows, Ford’s plant on the outskirts of Melbourne, have been working on fuel injection since the late 70s when they started experimenting with an injected Repco engine. Even at that stage, the Australian Ford

people had decided that the V 8 was on the way out.

However, when it came to selecting a substitute for the VB, Ford had many factors to consider, not the least important being the reaction of Falcon buyers who bought the cars because they were big, tough and relatively simple to maintain and repair. What is more? the Falcon buyers who bought VBs still wanted the sort of performance that only a V 8 could deliver.

'So Ford Australia has followed the world trend towards smaller-capacity engines and has come up with a fuel-injected 4.1-litre six-cylinder engine that delivers V 8 performance without V 8 petrol bills.

The injection system used in the Ford Fairmont Ghia EFI (for electronic fuel injection) is the latest Bosch LE II Jetronic arrangement. It is used in the new BMW 3 Series cars and the EFI Ford engine does, in fact, represent the first production use of the Bosch LE system by a car-maker outside Europe. Ford Australia worked with Bosch in West Germany where much of the development, particularly in relation to cold starting, took place. Also, much of the two-year development programme and 500,000 kilometres of testing took place under typical Australlian conditions.

The system is electronically controlled, making use of integrated circuits in a central control unit. This unit is fed information from sensors which monitor the engine. It then issues instructions to the injectors for the delivery of petrol. The petrol is delivered to a distributor pipe from which each of the injectors is fed by a high-pressure electric pump which, in the case of the Fairmont, is situated within the petrol tank.

Thanks to a regulator fitted to the end of the distributor pipe, fuel pressure remains constant. Excess fuel is returned to the tank at low pressure, thus ensuring that the injection system is always fed with cool fuel. This is one of the reasons why the car starts so promptly. Working on pulses from the control unit, solenoid-operated injection valves squirt the petrol into the intake ports directly in front of the intake valves. Over the years Ford has 'ed ita-

earned an enviable reputation for building cars that are simple to maintain and repair. This has been a strong point in their favour in Australia and New Zealand where bush mechanics have breathed life into many a vehicle whose owner had reached the stage of abandoning all hope.

The crunch comes in the EFI Fairmont when its injection system needs tuning dr servicing. Neither of these procedures can be accomplished without the help of an electronic diagnostic unit.

Ford Australia has developed its own compact unit and while metropolitan dealerships in this country have them in their workshops, it would be expecting rather a lot of the more remote rural dealerships to have them'also, particularly in areas where EFI-engined Fairmonts are few and far between.

At present the Fairmont Ghia — a roomy and hand-somely-equipped five-seater saloon, carrying a $30,737 price ticket — is the only EFI Ford marketed in New Zealand. Across the Tasman, fuel injection is also standard on the LTD and is offered as an option on 4.1litre Falcons and Fairlanes.

Do not be surprised if Ford New Zealand offers EFI as an option on its 4.1litre Falcon within the next year or so. I’m looking forward to trying an EFI Falcon, fitted with fourspeed manual gearbox and the European Sports Pack, early in 1984 and it could be that this car will prove to be a pilot model for a New Zealand production run.

Compared with the 4.1 carburettor engine, the EFI engine develops 13.3 per cent more power and 6.5 per cent more torque. It is said to be I.4sec quicker than the carburettor engine for zero to 100 km/h, the time being 11.3 sec, a figure that compares favourably with that for the 4.9-litre V 8 engine which is no longer produced by Ford.

As a modern fuel-injec-tion system is designed to supply the precise amount of petrol to the engine to meet the demand the driver imposes on it, fuel consumption should be less than it is in an equivalent carburettor engine in which the fuel intakes cannot be so exactly metered.

I did not make an accurate petrol-consumption check of the Fairmont Ghia, but I noticed from the fuel gauge that the fuel level fell almost imperceptibly during three days of mainly urban and hilly running during which the car was driven fairly easily, because the weather was generally atrocious.

Ministry of Energy figures are identical for car-burettor-engined and EFlengined Fairmonts on the urban cycle — 15.8 litres per 100 kilometres (17.9 mpg

However, at a steady 80km/h the EFI car is more economical. It returned 9.8 litres per 100 kilometres (28.8 mpg whereas the carburettor Fairmont returned 10.5 litres per 100 kilometres (26.9 mpg For comparative purposes the figures seem fair enough. But one should bear in mind that the EFI Fairmont has a less restrictive exhaust system and a recalibrated automatic transmission.

Be that as it may, the EFI Fairmont is a more economical car and, to my mind, it is the smoothest six-cylinder Australian Ford I’ve driven and certainly the most responsive.

Add to its mechanical features, jvhich include pleasant power-assisted steering and exceptionally smooth automatic transmission, its electrically operated windows, central locking, remotely controlled exterior mirrors and its luxurious gunmetal grey upholstery and trim and you have a saloon that should give discerning buyers a great deal of satisfaction. It is a commodious and intensely practical car and one that should, like all “

Fords, prove simple to service and maintain, apart from that fuel-injection system.

Many New Zealanders are almost compulsive do-it-yourselfers, but if those types happen to be in the market for a car such as the EFI Fairmont — and there should be some of them about for 1365 Falcons had been registered this year up to the end of September — they will just have to repress the urge to tinker.

Bosch and Ford do not manufacture rubbish and this EFI system should turn out to be virtually troublefree. The introduction of sophisticated electronics has made the motor car a much more refined and less temperamental beast than it was even a decade ago. These EFI cars will bring a lot of joy to motorists who choose them.