Fuel Injection vs. Carburetor

[JD Durfey]

I was wondering what the general concenses is on which is better. Carb or injection.

Fuel injection is great in that it is constantly tuning the motor to run at peak performance.

Carburetors are great because they don't have electonics to worry about crapping out and leaving you stranded.

Let me know what you think. I bought a truck to build a pre-runner out of and just in the planning stages of what engine to run.

 

[amr126]

Well, besides the last 25 years of OEM technology telling a one sided story, EFI is the way to go. More power, efficiency, and ease of tuning, not to mention the self tuning abilities of EFI make it the best choice. Also, in the land of off-road inconsistent fuel delivery is a non-issue. Depending on how mild or wild you go with your motor, factory stuff has you covered for low horsepower and ACCEL and FAST have the bigger numbers covered.

 

[Motiracer38]

Check out the Megasquirt system if you want total adjustability for minimal cost. We've used it on 4 cars so far and always had good results.

 

[Dezertpilot]

Carb's are for people who hate technology, EFI is awesome!

 

[cancinoj]

efi rocks , not all carbs like whoops, with efi, no problems at all on whoops, ha,

 

[HardCharger81]

Not to hijack, but I'm getting ready to pick a carb for my 4.3, and I was going to just use a plain ol' 600 CFM Holley double pumper.

But after I talked to the tech guy at Holley and explained to him what I was doing, he suggested a 390 cfm carb they make for
dirt oval/cirlce track cars.
So I decided to wait on my order and do alittle more research. I know that going to big isn't good, but that sounded too small?
The motor is stock except for headers, if that matters. Any insight?

 

[pdailey]

leave the carbs to NASCAR. EFI baby!!

 

[sickrick]

Not to hijack, but I'm getting ready to pick a carb for my 4.3, and I was going to just use a plain ol' 600 CFM Holley double pumper.

But after I talked to the tech guy at Holley and explained to him what I was doing, he suggested a 390 cfm carb they make for
dirt oval/cirlce track cars.
So I decided to wait on my order and do alittle more research. I know that going to big isn't good, but that sounded too small?
The motor is stock except for headers, if that matters. Any insight?

Yes, get that 390. Great throttle response.


If you use the mega squirt/ other system you could have all of the advantages of carb, ease of trailside repair and the benifits of efi.

What you could do is use the carb as the throttle body of the efi system. Hook up a throttle position sensor to the carb. If the efi craps out turn on your low pressure fuel pump and away you go.

We have a car in the shop right now that has the Mega suirt on it and the owner really likes it. Turbocharged ,intercooled, fuel injected, slant six. We are building the turbo manifold and put subframe connecters in it.

 

[HardCharger81]

We had looked at doing a megasquirt setup, but I thought for simplicitys sake, the carb would make more sense.
I imagine after we get our feet wet and get the truck finished and raced a few times, we'll switch to EFI.

390 it is!

 

[efiharness]

efi is the best way to go off road. we supply a lot of systems for the 4.3. if you have any questions,give me a call. steve
909 910 3867

 

[HardCharger81]

Theres been a few of the Holley Pro-Jection units up for sale used on craigs list and eBay.
I didn't realize they came in different CFM ratings. I'm guessing the 900 CFM setup is too big, but it seems to be the most
common one for sale. I had made up my mind on the carb, but to buy a carb, a good one, and then mess with it,
one would only be a couple hundred short of EFI.

 

[Baja Fool]

EFI! After the OEMs did their million or so miles of R&D, they can run upside down, sideways, etc. at +10,000 feet or -1000 feet. No blubber, no stutter, just go.

 

[Wendell #527]

Theres been a few of the Holley Pro-Jection units up for sale used on craigs list and eBay.
I didn't realize they came in different CFM ratings. I'm guessing the 900 CFM setup is too big, but it seems to be the most
common one for sale. I had made up my mind on the carb, but to buy a carb, a good one, and then mess with it,
one would only be a couple hundred short of EFI.

I run a 700 CFM Holley Projection system on my rock crawler Jeep. When I switched to it from carbs, all the carb problems like sputtering and stalling on hills went away. It took forever to finally get it tuned right, though, and even after I got it tuned right it never had as much power as when it was carburated. For prerunning I'd not reccommend the ProJection, but for rock crawling they're awsome. For Pre running I'd go full on EFI, not throttle body injection. The projection is cool, though. I'm actually running a 200 HP shot of Nitros under it, and it works great.