Chrysler Once Failed So Hard It Had To Recall Fuel Injected Cars To Install Carburetors

Fuel injection is a feature many drivers take for granted today. There’s no fiddling with carburetor jets and no rough running to ruin your day. You can expect any modern car today to start and run day in and day out. Decades ago, fuel injection might have been closer to magic than everyday technology. When Chrysler tried putting fuel injection into its early 1980s Imperial, it somehow did such a bad job at it that the company recalled the luxury barges so the vehicles could be fitted with old-school carburetors.

This failure hails from that infamous era when Detroit had to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Multiple fuel crises, a slumping economy, environmental concerns, and safety concerns all helped steer future automotive developments. Detroit’s land yachts quickly downsized into vehicles that were comparably dinghies while just about everyone tried to figure out ways to achieve large fuel economy gains.

Many vehicles lost bulk, some vehicles gained diesel engines, others got front-wheel-drive, and manufacturers across industries looked into improving their vehicles through technological developments. This was an era when manufacturers toyed with power and fuel economy through the use of turbocharging and even motorcycles got in on that fun.

The carburetor was also seen as an enemy. Sure, carbs had proven themselves to be reliable fueling systems for decades, but they weren’t the most precise way to run engines. Some of the first gasoline fuel-injection systems to be installed into production cars were made in the 1950s, but those were finicky and unreliable. The 1980s brought on a revolution of fuel injection where the technology and reliability were finally there to deliver the performance automakers wanted.

But, not every fuel injection system was the same. General Motors and Chrysler both put out real stinkers, but Chrysler’s implementation was especially sad.

Chrysler’s Halo Car

The Chrysler Imperial was originally introduced by Walter Chrysler in 1926 as the marque’s flagship luxury product. In its early days, the Chrysler Imperial went up to bat against the likes of Packard, Pierce Arrow, Cord, and Duesenberg. As those brands faded away, the Imperial remained a rival for the likes of Lincoln and Cadillac.

In 1955, Chrysler went as far as to splinter Imperial off as its own brand so it really was like those aforementioned brands. Like a Cadillac didn’t have GM badges all over it, an Imperial was its own thing, free from the naming and badging of its parent.

Imperial was also a true flagship, introducing new and advanced technologies before they trickled down into Chrysler’s lower brands. Imperial was an early adopter of air-conditioning and power steering in the 1950s plus they also got Chrysler’s push-button PowerFlite transmission selectors. and the world’s first all-transistor car radio, developed in partnership with Philco. The 1949 Imperial Crown even got disc brakes, which was novel at the time.

Unfortunately, Imperial fizzled out in 1975 after sales plummeted and the brand just couldn’t compete with Lincoln and Cadillac. This left a giant hole in Chrysler’s lineup for a luxury halo car.

Winds of change came in 1979 when Lee Iacocca took the helm at Chrysler. He was tasked with reviving the storied automaker and among his plans was a new flagship bearing a still-famous name: Imperial. Iacocca had reason to believe he would succeed. Over at Ford, Iacocca took the Thunderbird and turned it into the 1969 Continental Mark III personal luxury car.

For the new Imperial, Iacocca decided to do something special. The new car rode on Chrysler’s J platform, which meant its siblings were the Chrysler Cordoba and the Dodge Mirada. However, Chrysler didn’t just slap Imperial branding on a Cordoba and call it a day. The new Imperial had a unique design featuring a throwback bustleback pioneered by Cadillac the year before.

However, while Cadillac basically forgot to design everything in front of its bustleback, Chrysler gave the Imperial a sharp front end and side profile that planted the Imperial’s look squarely in the wedge-obsessed 1980s while also nodding to the famed Imperials of years past. Chrysler could have stopped there, but there are other small details worth noting. Luxury buyer preferences shifted away from away from chrome, so the Imperial featured limited brightwork. Iacocca also wanted the new Imperial to be like the Imperials that came before it, so there were no “Chrysler” emblems on the car – a Pentastar made of Cartier crystal was the only nod to Chrysler being the manufacturer.

Aside from the styling, Iacocca was making two big bets with the new 1981 Imperial: He thought buyers in the personal luxury car segment would want a vehicle loaded to the gills with technology; and rather than spec’ing the car themselves by ticking option boxes, customers would prefer the car simply include all the would-be options as standard equipment.

Let’s start with the tech. The unibody platform underpinning the Imperial wasn’t anything special. The Chrysler J platform featured an engine mounted up front and drive wheels in the rear. Transverse-mounted torsion bars handled suspension duties up front while S-shaped leaves carried the rear.

How the Imperial stood out against its siblings was its slightly larger slze, but also what was under the hood. The only engine choice for an Imperial was Chrysler’s 318 cubic inch LA V8. This engine was a pretty proven mill that had already been in production for a while. It was also an option for the Imperial’s J-car siblings. So, how did the Imperial’s version of the 318 stand out? It carried 10 more ponies (140 HP net) than its siblings by way of Chrysler’s first “modern” attempt at fuel injection.

As Hemmings writes, this wasn’t just big news for Chrysler, but it was also a huge deal because it meant Chrysler was the first American automaker to offer electronic fuel injection as standard equipment. Chrysler took its fuel injection system seriously, too, and the engineers who worked on the fuel injection system were the same ones pinched for the Apollo space program’s electronics.

On paper, it should have worked, from Hemmings:

[T]he EFI was a fuel-metering system operating under the guidance of a combustion computer that monitored more than a dozen bits, adjusting the fuel/air mixture to optimum operation ratios depending upon surrounding travel conditions. In short, it was intended to improve fuel economy and drivability, especially when installed in conjunction with the three-way catalytic converter, EGR valve and feedback fuel-air-ratio control. Motor Trend, in an October 1980 article, was able to push the 4,000-pound vehicle, equipped with an engine capable of 140hp and 240-lbs.ft. of torque, to 50 mph in just 9.1 seconds, and reportedly achieved 23 mpg.

On the surface, the system was supposed to work perfectly. Chrysler spent three years testing it on several vehicles, amassing thousands upon thousands of test miles involving 24 new Chrysler patents.

Chrysler’s electronic fuel injection system blended a mix of mechanical components and computerization together. The system utilized two fuel pumps. The first was the lift pump located in the fuel tank. The second controlled how the fuel reached the engine. This second pump used injector valves and these valves were controlled by pressure produced by the engine. All of this was handled and monitored by the onboard computer systems. Those systems controlled the fuel-to-air ratio as well as spark advance. The computers made their decisions based on input from eight sensors that determined environmental conditions, demand from the accelerator pedal, vehicle load, and more.

All of this meant that the Imperial had a slew of unique parts under the hood, including a special intake manifold that Chrysler used to mount the fuel injection equipment onto.

Chrysler’s wasn’t alone here. Cadillac and Lincoln introduced their own electronic fuel injection systems in 1980. The mighty Pentastar brand also had prior experience in this field with its past, which included electronic ignition systems and computerized engine management systems. However, Chrysler’s electronic fuel injection was still more mechanical in nature than its competition.

The graph above shows many of the components of the system.

When Chrysler’s EFI worked, the development seemed to make sense. The Imperial’s Dodge Mirada sibling had to make do with getting 17.5 mpg average with its carbureted 318. But the Imperial? It scored 23 mpg despite being bigger and heavier while its fuel-injected 318 was sharper and more responsive. The benefits of EFI were clear.

Chrysler implemented technology elsewhere as well. The air-conditioner featured thermostatic temperature control, the instrumentation was all-digital with vacuum fluorescent displays, and the instruments were all push-button operated. Of course, the driver also got a full complement of power accessories.

While some of this tech would be dazzling even today, the fuel injection turned out to be a bit of an embarrassment. As the Truth About Cars Notes, the computer and its ancillaries for the fuel injection system were mounted on top of the engine, which meant the equipment got baked every time the engine was running. Excessive heat alone led to some EFI component failures.

If you pop the hood of any ICE vehicle today, you’ll note that your computers aren’t sitting right on top of the engine, but shuffled away in a place where it’s not dealing with the extreme heat cycles of being on top of an engine. Some other failures I’ve found were attributed to sensors gumming up.

Reportedly, since these systems used a combination of electronics and air pressure to operate, any sort of hose leak or bad connection meant that the system couldn’t run the engine correctly. And remember, many of those electrical connections were right on top of the engine, getting baked with everything else. As Hemmings writes, it was believed the best way to make the system last was to fuel your vehicle with premium unleaded gas and to constantly check hoses for leaks and electronic connections for corrosion. You also wanted to replace your fuel filters somewhat often to prevent the aforementioned gumming issue.

What was worse was that reportedly, Chrysler dealer techs weren’t always trained well on fixing the EFI systems and they were far too horrifyingly complex for the home wrencher to figure out.

Things got so bad that even the car’s spokesman, Iacocca’s friend Frank Sinatra, had a bad time. Sinatra was chosen as the figure to help lead Imperial sales into the 1980s. His involvement went deep, resulting in a “FS” special edition Imperial, and Sinatra even wrote a song for the car’s commercial. Reportedly, Sinatra did the deal for $1 plus the very first 1981 Imperial off of the line.

The Imperial FS was made to Sinatra’s exacting specifications. It was available only in Glacier Blue Crystal paint with an interior featuring either Mark Cross blue velvet or Mark Cross leather. No matter your interior material choice, it came in a similar light blue to the exterior. Visually, the Imperial FS wasn’t much different aside from neat alloy wheels and microscopic gold badges, but the interior was properly silly where the buyer got a full 16-piece cassette collection of Sinatra’s music plus a place to store 8 of those cassettes right there in easy reach. Of course, no special edition from a star was complete without a signature, and the handful of FS buyers gone one of those too.

Reportedly, even Sinatra’s personal car couldn’t escape problems with that pesky EFI system. One later variation of the ’80s Imperial included a limo and Sinatra reportedly got one of those, too.

The Solution Was Sad

Things were dire for the new Imperial right from the jump. Chrysler sold the Imperial for $18,688 ($62,557 today), noting that for the price, you got everything. The fuel injection system, the technology, and the lavish interior; you got all of it for that one price. In comparison, a Cadillac Eldorado of the same year was $17,550 ($58,747) while a Lincoln Continental Mark VI was $17,939 ($60,049 today). Chrysler tried to market the Imperial as a bargain, pointing out that the Imperial offered you more goodies as standard.

Chrysler thought the Imperial would sell 25,000 copies a year. That wasn’t just ambitious but would have been more Imperials sold in one year than any Imperial had ever sold. Unfortunately, it was the wrong car at the wrong time. Remember folks, this was the tail end of the Malaise Era. Buyers weren’t into giant, thirsty, and expensive ways to get around. They were even less interested in personal luxury coupes.

The year 1981 showed a somewhat small market for personal luxury coupes. Lincoln sold 36,000 Mark VIs while Cadillac moved about 54,000 Eldorados. The Imperial? Chrysler sold just 7,225 of them in 1981, a far cry from the 25,000 goal. The Imperial ended production in 1983 after selling just 10,981 copies. In other words, the entire production run didn’t even meet half of the expected sales for a single year.

Some of the poor sales could be attributed to the fact that the car wasn’t exactly a home run. Car and Driver notes that the amazing tech was largely limited to the engine and instrument panel while GM and Ford were experimenting in more areas:

Like the Eldorado and the Mark VI, the Imperial comes to market with more high-tech engine stuff than you can buy on other, lesser cars from the same manufacturers. Unlike those two, however, most of the high-tech stuff on the Imperial stops with the engine and the instrument panel. Both the Cad­illac and the Lincoln are loaded with so­phisticated electronic and mechanical features in the chassis and the interior that additionally set them apart from the common herd, no matter how you feel about the cars themselves.

But then Car and Driver, in its period review, kept noting downsides, especially the sheer size of the Imperial:

What kind of car will Frank and Greg and the burghers get when they plunk down their $18,311? A big, heavy car, to start with. A car built on the 1976 Aspen/Volaré chassis. A car with an entirely new fuel-injection sys­tem that seems almost too complicated and too ambitious for Chrysler, with its current dearth of people and money. A car that is prob­ably better looking than the competi­tion, at least from the rear wheels for­ward. A car that suffers a bit from the compromised front suspension and ar­chaic rear leaf springs of the Aspen/Volaré, yet a car that is not unpleasant to drive with the cruise control set at 75 and the wizard stereo filling your head with a Strauss operetta.

Like last year’s Dodge Mirada, the Imperial is an imposing sight. The styling is crisp and purposeful, and if it weren’t for the egregious Seville-knockoff trunk, it would rank as a helluva tasty job. It’s just so big. It weighs 4000 pounds and it looks heavier than that. It feels heavier than that. There’s something ponder­ous and a little uncertain about the way it negotiates crowded streets and coun­try roads. The steering is both overas­sisted and lacking in feel, and easing the wheel off top-dead-center at the ap­proach to a freeway off-ramp produces a moment of fleeting imbalance, as though the car were afraid it might stumble on its outside front wheel, but then things settle down and it under­steers around the curve with reasonable self-assuredness. But at the other end, the transition from helm’s alee back to top-dead-center, there comes another heartbeat’s breadth of disequilibrium, while the car grapples with the mathe­matics of returning to straight-ahead motoring.

The complaints didn’t stop there. The magazine said that the dashboard had far too many buttons with complicated functions, the seats were far too small, and the luxurious interior wasn’t even as comfortable as it looked. Reportedly, Car and Driver wasn’t the only one to feel that the Imperials missed the mark.

Then we get back to that EFI. As Hemmings writes, a lot of buyers fed up with the unreliability of their Imperials traded their cars in and washed their hands of the situation. Chrysler’s solution was drastic. It recalled as many Imperials as it could find and ripped out all of the EFI wizardry for a simple, but reliable carburetor. The conversion also included a new instrument cluster, and converted cars often have a little glowing asterisk in their instrumentation noting the cluster change.

The publication notes that it’s unlikely you’ll ever find an Imperial still out there rocking the factory-installed EFI system. That’s how rough things got.

Swing And A Miss

Chrysler tried pulling other levers like adjusting the car’s price and adding other special editions, but buyers just weren’t interested. The Imperial, which was supposed to be a technological marvel that put the Imperial name on the map and cars in the hands of America’s wealthy, fizzled out as a sad failure. Chrysler then killed the Imperial name again for years.

Thankfully, some good news did come out of this era. The Imperial flagship might not have worked out, but Iacocca did manage to save Chrysler, anyway. These cars also have a bit of a following today. It looks like if you find one for sale you probably won’t even pay near $20,000. Just don’t expect to find EFI computers cooking under the hood.

I’m also glad that the automakers never stopped making EFI better. Today, these systems are so good that most people will never need to think about how their cylinders are firing. Most of the time, you just hop in your car and go. But if you were around decades ago, “fuel injection” might have been a swear phrase and Chrysler might have been one of the ones to make you dislike it.

Update: Added additional information about how the EFI systems failed as well as a handy parts diagram.

(Images: Chrysler, unless otherwise noted.)