In early 1990, the Farmington Hill's Bosch office received an unsolicited phone call from an engine builder who was seeking larger fuel injectors for his race engines. The call was forwarded to Meaney, who was best versed in both big injectors and racing. The engine builder on the line was not just some average schmoe, it was John Lingenfelter. Lingenfelter, a well-known racer and EFI whiz of the time, required no introduction to Meaney. After talking big injectors, Meaney went on to mention his pet project, a stand-alone, programmable, digital engine control system. Lingenfelter was immediately interested and wasted no time inviting Meaney down to his dyno shop for a show-and-tell. Also on hand to check out Meaney's creation was Jeff Smith, editor of Hot Rod magazine at the time. Meaney successfully put his system to the test on Lingenfelter's dyno mule big-block Chevy. Both Lingenfelter and Smith were impressed. Smith was anxious to break the news and run the story in Hot Rod, but Meaney needed time. He realized he couldn't market his 'own' fuel injection system while working for Bosch and he also needed time to build some saleable units. Smith agreed to give him four months prior to printing the story. Meaney went on to quit Bosch, find investors, and start building his digital fuel injection systems, or "DFI" as it would eventually be called. Not long after starting his company, Meaney grew the business beyond the pockets of his initial investors and was forced to seek new sources of capital. The Accel brand, then owned by automotive parts giant Echlin, fit the bill and had mutual interest in Meaney's creation. The marriage was made and "Accel DFI" was officially born. After six years of working for Accel and building the DFI brand, Meaney, Accel, and his original DFI creation parted ways. But within days of leaving Accel, Meaney was busy drawing up plans on his kitchen table for a new, improved, and more advanced engine controller.
Through some networking in 1996, Meaney was introduced to Fel-Pro executives who wanted to develop a stand-alone, programmable transmission controller for their TCI brand. John took on the trans project with Fel-Pro and also hooked them on building his new engine controller under the name "FP Electronics." Not long after, Fel-Pro was bought by Federal-Mogul, who went on to market Meaney's latest controller under the Speed-Pro name. The dust had barely settled in 2000 when Federal-Mogul found itself bankrupt, and Meaney found himself looking for a job (separated from his second engine control design), and Comp Cams picked up the pieces by purchasing the Speed-Pro brand controller (to ultimately become F.A.S.T.) along with TCI.
The circuitry guts of the "DFI 6.0 ECU" appear much more commercial looking than the early digital prototype. The shown production board features a Motorola 68HC11 microchip. | 
The backside of the DFI board shows the electronics are still of the through-hole design. The two-layer printed board is proof of progress and commercial production intent. |
The FP Electronics controller, ultimately sold as a Speed-Pro unit, marked notable advancement in design. The tightly packaged unit has two 68HC11 microchips, along with dozens of additional integrated circuits. | |