Holley Sniper EFI experience wanted

[Bob-STL]

I am looking for people's opinions and experience with the Holley Sniper EFI.

I NEED both pros and cons.

I also NEED to know about performance between 1000 - 2000 rpm.

It would go on a 331 Ford.

Thanks,

Bob

[John Dol]

Ditto on Bob's request as I'm also looking at this.

John

[Papa]

I am looking for people's opinions and experience with the Holley Sniper EFI.

I NEED both pros and cons.

I also NEED to know about performance between 1000 - 2000 rpm.

It would go on a 331 Ford.

Thanks,

Bob


Ditto on Bob's request as I'm also looking at this.

John

Guys,

My experience with the Sniper EFI has been great. If you've read my build thread, you'll know I started off with the FAST XFI Street EFI system. After trying to get it to lean out with no success and working with FAST and BPE, BPE sent me a Holley Sniper to replace the FAST with. Since then, my car has run great. I will likely still take it to a tuner to smooth out the performance, but it's been like night and day compared with my FAST experience.

My car idles at ~900rpm, so performance from 1000-2000 is literally just getting moving. I will say that the throttle response is very good and I don't have any stumbling or stuttering at all. My biggest issue that needs too be resolved is the deceleration popping I'm still getting. I'm sure this can be corrected with a little tuning.

This was the initial warm up after swapping over to the Holley from the FAST:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt9uvHWulP0


Dave

[John Dol]

Pappa,

Where is your o2 sensor located?
Going to be a little more difficult as the Coupe pipes are segregated in pairs of two.

Thanks,

John

[Papa]

John,

I have 4-1-4 headers with a double collector. My O2 sensor is on the passenger side.

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=85614&d=1525990914

[chuckster]

I have been very happy with my Sniper. Starts and runs flawlessly with no regard to temp. or humidity. Throttle response is great from idle through my 5500 rev limit. The. Throttle position sensor went at about 75 miles, Holley sent a new one.
At about 450 miles it stopped reading the o2 sensor, still ran great, just wouldn’t learn. Sent to Holley and even though the unit was WAY out of warranty, Holley fixed for free. Mine is an early unit (November 2017) and I’m led to believe these bugs have been corrected. I would buy the sniper again.

[wallace18]

I had nothing but problems with the sniper on my blue.print 427. Not even they could figure it out. Put on a Fitech, engine ran perfect. See pb and son build thread for more info.

[Erik W. Treves]

My Ford Racing 427 Z2 crate was awesome with SNIPER EFI system... I would do it again in a heartbeat

[nskaats]

You'll get very mixed reviews from guys that have installed one or two on their personal cars. Having tuned, diagnosed, and repaired dozens of them myself I would tell you to steer clear. The Sniper system has been nothing but trouble for Holley. They're incredibly unreliable (same for the Fitech systems). As a matter of principle, cheap and EFI should never go together. In order to be sold as cheap as possible and still be profitable, every single component in those systems has to be sourced as cheap as possible. The IAC for example is from a 1987 Dodge Ram. Obsolete for a couple decades, it's the cheapest they can get their hands on. The last car I had in for tuning had it's 7th Sniper unit on it when it left. Four units failed due to internal wideband circuit faults, two due to IAC issues, and the last one worked...for now. Unfortunately in the customer's eyes as long as Holley keeps replacing them for free, it's ok. I strongly disagree. The ONLY reason that combination of physical components works at all is because the Holley software is that good.

That brings me to my next point: Don't judge Holley by the Sniper system if you have had problems. The HP, Terminator, and Dominator systems are fantastic. They actually work. The software is outstanding and these systems work incredibly well. You can use them to run anything from the fuel pump to the turn signals if you know how to use them properly. I've had them on anything from 400 hp to 1,500 hp applications with great success.

[FF33rod]

My '33 is not on the road yet but the engine is running. It's a 347 with the Sniper and the full Holley Sniper ignition system - CD box, distributor, coil and EFI. I put it together including wiring - all very straight forward. The Sniper is controlling the timing, rev limit and the fan. Once I found and fixed the intake manifold vacuum leak, it has been perfect. Hopefully it stays that way :)

[PaulProe]

A couple sayings come to mind:

1) You get what you pay for

2) Plug and Play generally doesn't

[John Dol]

My concern is with the fact that it will only read 2 cylinders instead of 4 which was one of the issues with my FAST system. The GEN II has two banks of two cylinders as opposed to the new GEN III that has all 4 together.

Guess we will find out soon Bob!

John

[Geoff H]

I posted this on the other forum but thought I would include it here as well for those that only frequent this one:

I just got back from a 3000+ mile road trip from Alberta through BC, into Montana and Yellowstone, over to Idaho, and then back home.

I run a 5.0L from an 89 mustang that's an honest 350hp/400tq. I installed the sniper system and dual sync over the winter. First CPU packed it in this spring - thankfully in the garage. Not sure what happened but Holley replaced it under warranty.

The new system has been almost flawless. It did not miss a beat at any RPM on the trip. Hot starts/cold starts, up and down hills, mountains, high elevation (Up to about 8500 ft elevation in Yellowstone), lugging, cruising, WOT blasts, sustained highway speed for hours at a time. Just my experience, but I really like it.

I have the same deceleration lean/popping that Dave has with his system. This only started after the warranty work (wasn't a problem on the first sniper). I need to tune out and will start with a datalog. I make it sound like I know what to do...I don't :).

Geoff

[sread]

You'll get very mixed reviews from guys that have installed one or two on their personal cars. Having tuned, diagnosed, and repaired dozens of them myself I would tell you to steer clear. The Sniper system has been nothing but trouble for Holley. They're incredibly unreliable (same for the Fitech systems). As a matter of principle, cheap and EFI should never go together. In order to be sold as cheap as possible and still be profitable, every single component in those systems has to be sourced as cheap as possible. The IAC for example is from a 1987 Dodge Ram. Obsolete for a couple decades, it's the cheapest they can get their hands on. The last car I had in for tuning had it's 7th Sniper unit on it when it left. Four units failed due to internal wideband circuit faults, two due to IAC issues, and the last one worked...for now. Unfortunately in the customer's eyes as long as Holley keeps replacing them for free, it's ok. I strongly disagree. The ONLY reason that combination of physical components works at all is because the Holley software is that good.

That brings me to my next point: Don't judge Holley by the Sniper system if you have had problems. The HP, Terminator, and Dominator systems are fantastic. They actually work. The software is outstanding and these systems work incredibly well. You can use them to run anything from the fuel pump to the turn signals if you know how to use them properly. I've had them on anything from 400 hp to 1,500 hp applications with great success.

Hey Nick - since you seem to have alot of personal hands on experience, which system would you recommend? I have an LS1 and was leaning towards using the Terminator but it will be a throttle body system on a carb style intake for a more traditional look.

[FF33rod]

I have the same deceleration lean/popping that Dave has with his system. This only started after the warranty work (wasn't a problem on the first sniper). I need to tune out and will start with a datalog. I make it sound like I know what to do...I don't :).

Geoff

When I was having problems getting the engine running initially (turned out to be nothing to do with the Sniper) I found the Holley Sniper forum fantastic. Very similar to this one, good experienced people willing to help. So if you have to tweak a few things, that's a great place to go for help.

https://forums.holley.com/forumdisplay.php?82-Sniper-EFI

Steve

[nskaats]

Hey Nick - since you seem to have alot of personal hands on experience, which system would you recommend? I have an LS1 and was leaning towards using the Terminator but it will be a throttle body system on a carb style intake for a more traditional look.

Glad to see someone else going the LS route. I've sold and tuned a lot of the Holley systems because they do work very well. I've found for most people's cars the HP or Terminator X will cover anything they need. It's not until you start getting into the really wild combinations do you need to look at the Dominator system.

The biggest questions that need answered first:
What do you plan to control with the system, other than basic engine features? By this I mean trans control, wategate solenoids, drive by wire throttle body, any pulse width modulated outputs?
Do you need any specific inputs to the ECU other than the standard engine sensors?

At the bottom of this page there is a comparison chart that will help quite a bit:
https://www.holley.com/products/fuel_systems/fuel_injection/terminator_x/#Compare%20The%20Facts

[sread]

that's a helpful chart - I'm keeping it pretty simple - no power adders, etc. - just want good reliability along the ability to fine tune/tweek any parameters as needed