It's a great day, no more POS Sniper!

[SquareRoot]

Short story- Bought a Sniper, installed per instructions, ran for 150 miles and it quit. Sent back to Holley under warranty, got it back, hooked it up....same failure -"searching for ECU". Sent it back again. Repaired...was told it needed a firmware update. Got it back, verified it worked and immediatly sold it for half what I paid for it to a " Holley dealer" from the Holley Sniper forum on the Holley website.
I HIGHLY recommend anyone contemplating buying this POS to spend some time reading thru that forum and take note of the endless issues they are having. As people are saying, it's not if but when it's going to die. In retrospect, I can't help but wonder who thought mounting an ecu on top of an engine with the heat and vibration was a good idea? I had lost confidence in it from the start. Thank God it died in my driveway and not out in the desert 50 miles from nowhere with the wife and kid. Put the Edelbrock carb back on and she runs as good and I'm not scared to drive it again.

 

[rpcraft]

Seems like every time i read about someone trying these TBI FI setups they end up being problematic, ushering in a ton of parts replacement to make them work, and then they really never offer any advantage over what would have amounted to a stock TBI setup, other than the fact that you can put them on a square bore intake...

Meanwhile the irony is you could hook up a Edlebrock Performer with an electric choke and gotten better out of the box results...

 

[spanky55amg]

I can't help but wonder who thought mounting an ecu on top of an engine with the heat and vibration was a good idea? .

Mercedes Benz as of 2006-ish.

 

[SquareRoot]

I ran an Edelbrock Pro-flo for a decade. Never had a single issue with it. I'm convinced using factory developed parts will almost always be more reliable than the aftermarket.

 

[SquareRoot]

Mercedes Benz as of 2006-ish.

Mercedes engineers and QA versus Holley engineers. That makes sense.

 

[spanky55amg]

Mercedes engineers and QA versus Holley engineers. That makes sense.

They might be the same people. haha.

 

[bucket]

A large amount of truck and industrial diesel engines have had engine-mounted ECMs for decades now.

 

[Matt69olds]

I have the sniper EFI on my Olds, for the most part I’m happy with it. I’m much less satisfied with Holley tech support. No matter who I talked to, they always seemed rushed. I called/emailed multiple times asking for a basic wiring diagram on how to make the progressive nitrous control functional. Of course, this was AFTER finding out the sniper will control nitrous, air conditioning compressor controls, and a 2step rev limiter, just not all at the same time. I need the Super Sniper for all those features to work. Really chaps my ass that they didn’t tell me about that until it was installed and the basic installation was done. Then the stupid throttle linkage they built the throttle body with (what was wrong with using the same linkage the millions of carbs thru have built over the years?!). I’m done venting

 

[SquareRoot]

The ungodly stiff 1:1 throttle linkage was the very first thing I hated the first time it fired. Even worse with my manual transmission. It went downhill from there.

 

[SquareRoot]

A large amount of truck and industrial diesel engines have had engine-mounted ECMs for decades now.

Ok. Maybe I'm blaming the ECU location instead of the ****** aftermarket parts they use. Or...poor engineering...or poor quality control...or?

 

[bluex]

I had a couple issues with my sniper but after I worked that out its been great. The majority of it was my own fault. It isnt a perfect unit and there are still things I don't like but over all I'm happy with mine. It makes it run more like a modern engine and it's easier to tune imo. I have roughly 4500-5000 miles on mine now.

The stiff throttle feel is easily fixed with an extension that takes 5 mins to make or you can use the progressive linkage they now offer as an add on. I tried it but I didnt like it so I took it back off. It opened the back barrels on mine at like 47% throttle iirc. I like the idea of the progressive linkage but it needs to open the back more around 20% I think.

 

[fussfeld]

Glad to hear some are having success with the Sniper.

But it's unfortunate to hear the high number of complaints about sniper; i was really leaning towards the new direct quadrajet throttle body replacement kit.

i guess i'm sticking with stock GM TBI for now, if i do decide to go injection.

 

[bluex]

Glad to hear some are having success with the Sniper.

But it's unfortunate to hear the high number of complaints about sniper; i was really leaning towards the new direct quadrajet throttle body replacement kit.

i guess i'm sticking with stock GM TBI for now, if i do decide to go injection.

I blame a lot of it on how it's marketed. You can't just slap it on, haphazardly run the wires and run it. It's a little More involved than that and while they are self learning they are not self programming. You just trade jet kits, metering rods and screwdrivers for a computer screen. It still needs tweaking to run at its best just like anything else. But thats not how they market it at all....

 

[SquareRoot]

I had a couple issues with my sniper but after I worked that out its been great. The majority of it was my own fault. It isnt a perfect unit and there are still things I don't like but over all I'm happy with mine. It makes it run more like a modern engine and it's easier to tune imo. I have roughly 4500-5000 miles on mine now.

The stiff throttle feel is easily fixed with an extension that takes 5 mins to make or you can use the progressive linkage they now offer as an add on. I tried it but I didnt like it so I took it back off. It opened the back barrels on mine at like 47% throttle iirc. I like the idea of the progressive linkage but it needs to open the back more around 20% I think.

I bought the progressive link but never installed it after reading all the hassle it was creating for those who did. The problem is Sniper does not have the correct acceleration enrichment fuel maps built into it to support it... despite having the check box in the menu for progressive. I'm just not into dealing with that much programming. It is advertised as install and run it. Not so.

 

[SquareRoot]

I blame a lot of it on how it's marketed. You can't just slap it on, haphazardly run the wires and run it. It's a little More involved than that and while they are self learning they are not self programming. You just trade jet kits, metering rods and screwdrivers for a computer screen. It still needs tweaking to run at its best just like anything else. But thats not how they market it at all....

Exactly!