The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

his company in 1970. Disher was even- tually able to find Conelec original owner, David Long, in 2013. He was 82 years-old at the time and in failing health but Disher was, nevertheless, was able to develop a strong relation- ship with him. He was initially reclu- sive and this was the first time that anyone had expressed an interest in the Conelec system but he was willing to share his knowledge. Despite his age he was as sharp as he had been in the early 1970s. He was an engineer- ing genius and eventually shared everything he had about the company with Disher including records, blue- prints and parts. Long was good friends with Fred Goodell and they often flew on Long’s plane. In 2014 Disher asked Long if he wanted to install an original EFI sys- tem on the ‘69 GT350 that Disher owned and he agreed. He had enough parts in his garage to build one more system. Most of the parts were OEM take-offs. Long’s son Chris assisted in the project and between the three of them they installed a Conelec system on Disher’s ‘69 Shelby, #1088. It was the first operating Conelec system on a car since 1972. Once Disher had refined the Con- elec system on his car he was able to assemble another set-up for Armario’s car using parts he had reproduced from a number of sources and the restoration was complete. The goal in finishing the car was to complete it, with an operating Conelec system, in time to show it at the 2019 Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals in Chicago. It won a Concours Gold Award at that show. Following that, Armario decided to sell the car at the 2021 Barrett-Jack- son auction in Scottsdale, Arizona in March. It was brought to the block on Saturday evening, right after SFM5S553, a Triple-Crown concours winner (which sold for $962,500) and CSX3015, Shelby’s twin-Paxton 427 Cobra S/C (sold for $5.1M). This place- ment in the auction could not have been better. The bidding was spirited and the car was sold for $396,000. The high bidder was Dave Riccitiello of Alamo, California. You should proba- bly expect to see this car at SAAC-46 in Sonoma this summer. The SHELBY AMERICAN In its simplest terms, it is the in- troduction of fuel into the cylinders by means of a pump rather than by the suction created by the down- ward movement of the pistons. In engines with spark ignition, fuel in- jection pumps are often used in- stead of carburetors. Fuel injectors are located in the intake manifold and spray fuel through a tiny noz- zle. The fuel injector uses a special nozzle to spray the fuel as mist, in- stead of a strong jet stream. When the throttle valve opens the fuel in- jector sprays fuel to mix with the air and then enters the engine’s combustion cylinders. Electronic fuel injection allows for extremely precise control over how much fuel is sprayed into the cylinders. The fuel pressure regula- tor knows how much fuel to let through the injectors via a signal from the mass airflow sensor (MAF). This sensor tracks how much air is entering the engine at any given time. EFI-equipped engines provide higher power and torque than a carbureted version of the same en- gine. EFI optimizes air air/fuel ratio and ignition timing while compensating for other factors to maintain continuous optimum per- formance. It precisely delivers fuel in the right amount and can tweak it according to several parameters resulting in less fuel wastage and better fuel efficiency. Conelec fuel injection provides a 5-10% horsepower increase over the standard 428 Cobra Jet engine. Fall 2021 31