3500EI

You are creating modern history here ,no wonder the big boys are knocking on yer door.
At least I may get to see her running without having to buy a plane ticket.
Keep up the wonderful work .Sorry I can add any helpful input other than moral support , Im not that handy on the end of a spanner, let alone things that create sparks.
Gerald
 
Thanks Gerald, moral support is greatly appreciated! :D
As for Mr Taylor, suffice to say that there could be a lot more useful info coming to light. I'll say nothing more yet as I don't want to get my hopes up too much. :wink:
 
If nought else, given past history of another car with ONE genuine badge you will be able to say what ever car you stuck it in is now the last surviving P6b injected prototype car :LOL: That still cracks me up every time I think of it :D

Graeme
 
More input required, this is worse than waiting for the District 9 sequel :LOL:

graeme
 
:LOL: Sorry Graeme. Nothing to report I'm afraid. Been a very busy few weeks at work and have achieved absolutely nothing on my own stuff except for slapping a coat of POR 15 on the Estate's fuel tank. No time this weekend either as it's my anniversary and my beloved wants some attention. :wink:
Maybe Easter weekend will prove useful.
 
KiwiRover said:
:LOL: Sorry Graeme. Nothing to report I'm afraid. Been a very busy few weeks at work and have achieved absolutely nothing on my own stuff except for slapping a coat of POR 15 on the Estate's fuel tank. No time this weekend either as it's my anniversary and my beloved wants some attention. :wink:
No excuses, she's had some attention already, you've slapped some POR 15 on her tank :mrgreen:
 
Hi All,

Complete newcomer to this forum which I found whilst searching for "AE Brico" on Google.

The parts that "Kiwi Rover" has un-earthed are for the AE Brico fuel injection system which was being developed in Coventry from the late 1960's until the project came to a premature halt in 1971. The injectors and ECU are instantly recognisable - for many years I had a full set of cut-away parts for the system in a fitted case given to me by my father who was the Project Director for the fuel injection system at AE Brico from 1968 to 1971.

The "ram" type component attached to the throttle linkage is the later type throttle position indicator if my memory serves correctly some 40 years on. The two OC28 power transistors visible on the ECU casing acted as solid state switches to actuate the injectors which were fired on receipt of a timing pulse from a magnet/coil or magnet/reed switch assembly mounted either on the distributor drive (as in Kiwi Rover's unit) or driven off one end of the camshaft. The shiny round object inside the ECU is the manifold pressure transducer.

The system was "untimed", that is it fired 2 banks of 4 injectors (on a V8) or two banks of 3 injectors ( on a straight six) or two banks of 2 injectors (on a four cylinder engine) every 720 degrees of crankshaft rotation. Trials during the development of the system had shown that "timed" injection (where the fuel is injected at a fixed point in the cycle of each cylinder, usually when the inlet valve is open) produced significantly higher power outputs, but also emissions of unburnt hydro-carbons whereas fuel economy was very similar. Furthermore, an untimed system was far less complex and so less expensive to produce.

The system was fitted to a small number (46?) Aston Martin DB6 / DBS models with the straight six engine, I believe 2 of which are still running with the system. It was also fitted to a number of Rover P6 3500cc cars however I believe all of these were experimental or development vehicles and I don't think any production cars were made. It may also have been fitted to Rover P6 2000 & 2200cc cars again only for development work. At least 2 Ferrari Dino 246's were fitted with the system as development vehicles, one red and one white - a then 14 year old boy well remembers his father arriving home in a white Ferrari one evening! It was also intended to be a standard fitment on the Jaguar V12 engine then in the final stages of development for use in the XJ12 saloon and Series 3 E Type.

I also remember a Family Day for Brico employees held at Silverstone (probably 1969 or 1970) where the Rover 3500, Ferrari Dino and Aston Martin DB6 were demonstrated at high speed on the track.

A number of opinions, all of them wrong, have been offered on the web for why the project was suddenly cancelled in late 1970, leaving Jaguar in particular in the lurch. The real reason was that Rolls Royce went bust. Why you may ask would Rolls calling in the receivers affect a fuel injection system for motor cars? Brico Engineering was a subsidiary of Associated Engineering Group (AE) who were owed some £8m (a vast sum in 1970) by Rolls when it went into administration. The Directors of AE saw little chance of getting their money back, or at least not for a considerable time and the fuel injection project still required substantial funds over the next 3 years to continue development and bring it to market, money which the company no longer had. The rights were therefore sold to Lucas who shelved it preferring to continue with their own electro mechanical system then being used on the Triumph TR6 and 2500PI saloons
 
Some very interesting information there.

Also worth noting that modern fuel injection systems have been mostly "batch fired" right upto the last few years. Apparently the difference over fully timed sequential injection is minimal and hasn't been worth the extra complexity until now.
 
Very interesting stuff indeed. It confirms a lot of what I already suspected. I bought a book on early injection systems recently that covered the Aston Brico system and it did mention that the AE Brico efi system was sold to Lucas. (it also goes into great detail about how it all works, very handy) Not too sure how many Rovers were fitted with the injection. At least a couple of 2000TCs because there are pictures of 2 different variations of that system. Probably a few more though as I have a workshop manual for these. Don't think any SC motors were done and no 2200s. Though there was also a Lucas mechanical injection setup tried out on a TC in 1966 and possibly a Tecalamit efi one too. As for the V8s, there were at least 6 built (there are chassis numbers) and possibly as many as 50 according to another source. But the project died off after Lucas took over though Lucas may have rebadged the cars and used the same system for a bit.
We know that there were Lucas and Brico injected cars running in 1966 and my 2000FI manual is dated 1969, most of the 3500EI stuff I have seen is dated 1970.
 
Btw Mr Fettler, what happened to those cutaway parts? Any pictures? I still don't have the system on the car yet but any further info/pics/details you can think of would be extremely useful! Welcome to the forum!
 
Hi Kiwi Rover,

Not sure what has happened to the cut-away parts, however Dad thinks he may still have them, he is going to have a look see if he can find them. If so I will post some photos. He also thinks he has a box of other bits and pieces (and knows where it is!) which he is going to look out. He tells me he is still in contact with one of the electronics engineers (who was in his 20's then and is now retired) from the project.

Next time I see him I'll also pick his brains and see what else he can remember.

I used to have a copy of a paper presented to (I think) the Institute of Mechanical Engineers around 1970 on the development of the system, however it didn't turn up when I looked for it the other day, but since I seldom throw anything out, it will be around somewhere, just a question of working out where!

Will keep you posted

.
 
Hallo Fettler and welcome to our forum. There are a significant number of us on here extremely interested in the engineering of our cars and in continuing to develop them.

Your info on the Rolls Royce connection does ring bells. I remembered AE being burnt around that time, but not your reason why.

What really interests me is the subsequent history of the AE Brico system after the rights were sold to Lucas. There does seem to be circumstatial evidence that Lucas had initially intended to proceed with the system. Not least the existence of badges reading 3500S with a small panel reading "Lucas Injection" under the S (see earlier in this thread). On the Rover, injection seems to have been linked to a relaunch of the American version of the car - which was a specific model. Rover had failed badly with the original '69 iteration of this US car. This had been partly due to major problems with reliability of the SU supplementary starting carburettor - an early form of automatic choke. But it was amplified by a dealer network which was simply too thin on the ground to provide adequate workshop support and also that workshop support being inadequately trained. The series two version of the US car came extremely close to production, with factory record systems already in place for it etc. Evidence from Rover board minutes suggest that the cancellation was precipitated by a high level conflict within BL over what to do about the US dealer network. There are even suggestions of Rover merging their US operation with Jaguar and perhaps using commonaly badged cars. So the impression lingers that the series 2 US car was cancelled as a result of a decision not to develop the dealer network in whatever way, rather than as a result of any technical issue with, or of any lack of availability of, the injection systems. Since this decision was a BL board level one, I wonder if something similar afflicted Jaguar?

It may be that Lucas shelving the system was precipitated solely by their potential customers evaporating! Certainly any potential use on Rovers in the UK seems to have been entirely dependent on the use of the system on the US cars. Carbs were quite adeqaute both emissions and performance wise for the UK market at the time. Lucas would then have been left solely producing the mechanical system for the Triumphs, all models of which were by then too old to justify a major engineering change. When Lucas did subsequently get back to electronic FI systems for the 1980 US market Rover SD1 and companion TR8, the system offered seems to owe at least elements of the concept to the Brico system if not the detail.

All a tremendous shame. And arguably typical of the real British Disease of the time - which I would contend emanated from timid board rooms as much as from aggressive unions. As Rover enthusiasts, those here are very clear of how stunning a car was lost to Rover.

Chris
 
Not much to report on this project, too many interruptions and too much work. :x But I did get something done. Following Quattro's lead, I had some labels made up by a signwriter a while back and finally got around to painting up some badges and sticking the labels on:

I am hoping to fit the bits to the car soon, even if I can't get it running i'd really like to see it all in place and it might be just what I need to spur me on. The missus is away soon so I'll be getting busy (though I should finish off the turquoise car first I suppose...)
 
I've just read this from start to finish and it is one of the most interesting things I have seen with regards to the P6... It looks like they were unbelievably close to fitting 'EI' to the P6b... It seems sad that Rover had so many 'near-launches' of so many potentially great products, sad and frustrating...!!!
 
very much so. I'd very much like to get a manifold that looks like that original one and fit it to mine with megasquirt controlling it. (I know not original but it'd be right in spirit i think!) Probably not going to happen but one day maybe ;)

Rich
 
That's always been the thought in the back of my mind Rich, don't know how likely the 40 year old ECU is going to work properly but I do have a Megasquirt unit that I bought years ago. Probably a bigger issue will be the injectors. They are pretty much hand made so if they don't work properly i'm stuffed.
This project is hopefully next on my list, now that the turquoise car is essentially done. So I will be chucking the manifold on in the near future and seeing what happens. (Ok, there's a bit more to it than that but i've got to make a start.)
 
i can wait to see the result. I guess on the injector front you'd have to find something electrically similar and then re-engineer the manifold if necessary (drill or fill and drill the hole maybe?)

Rich
 
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