Anybody thought about fuel injection for old bikes?

I was thinking (dreaming?) about DIY fuel injection for older bikes using megasquirt open-source ECU. It has been fitted successfully to a bunch of cars, and the folks from the Harley crowd reportedly use it. I used to work on carbs a lot, mostly 1970s vintage cars, Porsche 911, Jaguar and Volvo. It looks like THE pain point for motorcycle community. While my 1985 Maxim X engine is very advanced in many respects, 5 valves per cylinder, etc. the usage of carbs IMHO is pretty retarded. I understand why it was done (cost), but electronics are a lot cheaper in 2007.

Any thoughts? Any links on DIY fuel injection for motorcycles would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. This may sound like a pipe dream to some, but it sounds like an exciting project to me. I messed with carbs and engine tuning for 10 years, and I happen to be a professional computer programmer with over 15 years of experiense. Yes, I do understand the complexities involved.

 

This will be a good place to begin. Start at the 4th post on this thread-
http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=3119/highlight=fuel+injection.html

Do-able, but not easy.

Cheaper now perhaps, but in the early eighties there was no reason to use injection for most bikes, as they ran well enough with established (ie paid for) parts and tooling. The later move to injection was pushed primarily by the need to have good power and keep the EPA happy when emission standards tightened up, and carbs worked well enough in most cases until then. They were often borderline lean, but they worked.

In addition, a lot of early fuel injection systems could leave you parked at the side of the road for little things that a carbureted bike would have no problem with. You can bump-start a carbureted bike with a low battery...but the same thing usually won't work for an injected bike: if you don't have enough to fire the injectors, run the fuel pump and the ignition, you're stuck.

 

Some XJ750s from the early '80s came with EFI standard, mine for example

Ahead of it's time and a rather basic EFI system.

Stan's site makes for some good reading as far as EFI goes, helps to understand how it all goes together.

I do like how with carbs you can pull everything apart and clean, set and fix things though!

 

This needs to be in FAQ department. I know ive aked and have seen a few other riders ask too.

 

Stan's site is great. The key is finding the throttle bodies that would fit Maxim. The rest looks quite doable. I'd probably buy the ECU assembled, just to save a bunch of time. The price is a kind'a steep, but on the other hand replacing carbs and getting them to work well is no walk in the park either.

As for tinkering with stuff, I think it's the same thing with fuel injection. Instead of turning screws and adjusting floats you are dialing in with a laptop. The trial-and-error process (and fun) is still the same, IMHO. It's much easier to undo a screwup with fuel injection, just go back to the "last known good" configuration. This assumes that you haven't burned up the motor by running it too lean. Undoing this may involve rebuilding the engine

BTW, I was told that they don't make diaphragms (membranes) for the CV carbs that are installed on 700cc Maxim. Is this true? If so - yet another reason to go EFI.