About the Author

Frank 'Choco' Munday is a Technical Author working on a number of documentation projects for the public and private sector. 

"I joined the Royal Australian Navy in 1970 at the age of fifteen and a half years. I stayed in the Navy for twenty years and emerged as an Electronic Technician, specialising in digital electronics and encryption. I had a keen interest in computers and computing, and took several computing courses before leaving the RAN. I worked as a Service Manager for a large computer hardware and software company early in my post-Navy career, but it quickly turned sour and I moved into an area which had been my hobby and passion for many years - cars. This was short lived, however, as there was more demanding work offered to me as a Technical Writer for a ship design company around the corner. 

"Writing had always been something that I excelled at, but I didn't realise how much I would enjoy it as a career! I moved with the times, maintaining my interests in all things technical, and my career evolved into Defence Electronics and Integrated Logistics Support, managing several defence projects and taking on the responsibilities of senior management in my chosen fields. When the bubble burst, I returned to what I did best - writing - and with the acceptance of the internet as an alternative to delivering documentation and training, my future was assured. I developed many on line documentation systems publishing Technical Manuals, Help Systems, User Guides, brochures, in fact, anything that needed publishing. I published to the Web, to Intranets, to CD and to paper - all at the same time!"

Choco Munday still has the same passion for old cars that are built to go, and GO HARD! He has built a couple of Hot Rods including a chopped, channeled 1936 Ford Coupe that he had for twenty years. It was sold in 1999 to a young Hot Rodder in Adelaide, South Australia, who is enjoying it all over again!

Choco has recently finished building a 1936 Plymouth Coupe, powered by a 360 cu. in. Chrysler V8, EFI tunnel ram and Kalmaker computer. Wife, Vicki, has a 1956 Ford Crown Victoria waiting in the garage and son Danny sold his very low, very black, 1960 Cadillac convertible to get into a 1936 Plymouth 4 door sedan. He has had the top chopped, purchased a 383 BB mopar for power and a 727 Trans.

"I like the concept of driving my Hot Rod to the drags, uncorking the headers, running hard all day and then corking the pipes back up to drive home. I'd like to continue to do this using engines that don't pollute like the older style carb/points engines do, but still make gobs of power. Computer controlled engines are the only way to do this, and they have the extra advantage of reliability. I wrote the Small Block Chev TPI book as a favour to a Hot Rodding friend who only wanted me to photo copy some wiring instructions for his newly acquired TPI engine. I worked with a colleague at the time who owned an 89 Corvette, and I picked up quite a few discrepancies between the wiring instructions I was photocopying, the factory Corvette manual and the actual car. I decided to document the wiring conversion starting from scratch. Before long, I had a fairly extensive document, which I showed to Larry O'Toole of Graffiti Publications (actually, a mutual friend showed him and Larry tracked me down). With Graffiti's assistance, my first book was soon on the shelves, and I followed it up later with the Auto Electronics Reference Manual. This was written with a mechanic friend in mind who had been in the business for years but had never bothered to learn about fuel injection, electronic ignition, engine management systems and so on. He believed it was "too hard" to change from points and carbs to EFI."

Choco's latest books deal with Engine Management Systems, how to convert to EMS and how to build the electronics, plus a recently finished book on the wonders of modern automotive Electrickery, soon to be published by Graffiti. Choco's books target Hot Rodders who want to be brought into the Electronic age of Hot Rodding.