Doesnt get any more reliable than with a carb... O2's, tps, mass air, blah blah. Doesnt effect the way my car carb car runs

 

I think its funny.

This generation thats been raised on EFI thinks that carb are unreliable and notoriously bad to start in cold weather.

I grew up in the north. My carb'd truck, my wifes carb'd car, My GTO's, My Chevelle, my numerous Camaro's and Mustangs,.. all had to deal with sub zero temps with wind chills in the -20 range. 1 pump of the pedal,.. 1 turn of the key,.. started up on the first try and remained that way for years,.. warm weather cold weather. Didnt matter.

Now in very cold weather it did take the engine a little longer to warm up. That is one difference between EFI and a carb. You cant just jump in a carb's car,.. crank it and go. The choke will be in the semi closed position and just wont run right,.. choking and sputtering until its warmed up and ready to go. Usually fine in 1 or 2 mins in warm weather,.. 5 - 6 mins in cold weather.

But if something goes wrong,.. you have only 2 places to look for a problem. Fuel and spark. Its much easier to diagnose a problem in a carb'd vehicle then the numerous places to look for a problem on an EFI car. EFI you have fuel relays all over the damn car,.. under seats, in the back,.. under the hood,.. tucked in a panel somewhere. Fuses,.. sensors,.. all that and then each vehicle needs its own specific tuner and software to control and tweak it. All costing in the hundreds and some in the thousands. Where a simple wrench kit,.. a test light, plyers and a couple screw drivers is all you need for any carb'd vehicle.

I'm sorry,. EFI is nice and all. It gives motors great fuel economy that normally would only get half that when carb'd. But for the Joe schmoe like me,.. I'll take a carb any day of the week. My daily drivers,.. I like the EFI AND A WARRANTY. But for a race car,.. I like the carb.


Hurst

 

I have to agree Hurst....Part of the fuel economy is due to the choke requirements of the carb when cold...and the fact that the car needs to be warmed up before driving it. When it's warming up, what is happening? You are wasting fuel. Now, my carbed 67 used to get 22 MPG before I changed the rear gears over to 4:11's. That was an AVERAGE milage driving from Seattle to Columbus Ohio.

I LOVE my carbed vehicle...and if I ever get the rear gears changed over...or an AOD put back into it, then I'll drive it WAY more.....but for now, I ride my motorcycle the most.

 

IVE ran a 347 w afr heads with my 2 regulator set up ran mid 7 s. now car has a 306 gt 40 heads f cam edelbrock carb 125 shot runs great no fuel pressure issues

 

lol.. i just said that to be a smart ass . guys calm down . carbs have there place its just not on my MOD motor. but with my car i have made well over 600whp and starts up and drives every day (not saying u cant do that with a carbed motor). as for efi and sensors i have a cheap comp program that plugs in my data port , i can look up each sensor and see if its working in the proper voltage range. takes guess work out of trouble shooting. but i would never put a carb on my mustang (i would if it was a push rod motor). im restoring a 47 Pontiac silverstreak i would never put efi on it .

 

Here's a pro point for EFI. LS1 motors seem to be in a world of their own. I've seen LSx based cars run a cam on the street with great manners that would simply not be possible with a carb'd application. The computer is constantly trying to smooth out the idle. The GM setups seem to be a little better at this then the Ford setups.

When its working right and all the parts are working in harmony with each other,.. EFI is great. I'll never argue that. There are guys tweaking their own EFI setups on 5.0 and 5.8 based setups. More power to you guys. You guys know what your looking for when there is a problem. I'm one of those guys that is too far out of the loop,.. too old,.. and lack the patience required to learn it. The whole premise of my post was not to put down EFI. Its already been proven on stock long blocks that EFI can pick up as much as 30 - 50hp more then a comparible carb setup. The carb is not very efficient. Its not the choke that causes them to not get that great of fuel economy,.. its the lack of efficiency,.. and the common bigger is better methodology that some guys throw on the biggest carb they can find. A carb,.. like EFI,.. can be tuned for economy or power. For power they are setup to dump more fuel with each push of the pedal,.. jetted richer,.. and basically,.. completely inefficient. The economical approach is the complete opposite,.. choke the motor down with as small a carb as possible,.. lean the damn thing out and use as little advance as possible in the ignition.

Where with EFI,.. you can get the best of both,.. they are so efficient at what they do,.. 300hp and 20+ mpg has become common place today,.. where 15 - 20 years ago,.. a 300 fwhp Target Master crate motor from GM was considered a bad ass setup,.. but no one ever expected more then 10 mpg out of it. My 396 Chevelle with Q-jet carb got 10 mpg on a good day on the interstate. My 455 GTO was doing good to get 6 - 7 mpg. But hey,.. I had a 20+ gallon fuel tank,.. gas was 0.66 a gallon and you could still buy 101 octane leaded gas. Cops used to come watch us street race in Ocala,.. Z93 radio station came out one night and played music at our Ben Franklin hang out on the blvd,.. and the DJ said I want to see 2 cars line up and I want to see some tire smoke. 6 cars went out on the street,.. all of them power braked at the light,.. they smoked out the whole plaza,.. and no police ever hassled anyone. Those were the days. Now you have little punk white kids who think its cool to act like a black guy from the ghetto and ruin it for everyone.


Hurst

 

I have a solidroller 383 camaro with an 830 d/p no choke at the shop

one half a pump only in the morning starts write up even on cold day idles like a rock drive anywhere as soon as it lights up.just like almost lol all the cars we work on

not knockin fi it works ok too.......

 

hurst, look at the population of the yesteryears and today... alot more ppl on the road, eh? my uncle tells me all the stories of the "back in the day" racing with cops, and shit. sounds fun, wish i could've grown up then...

john, after seeing that maro i doubt i would drive it other than on a trailer and off a trailer. lol

 

Its not the population,.. its the mind set of the current population.

There was a lot of peer pressure back then to not be stupid. You didnt have kids doing donuts in the middle of a parking lot with over 100 people,.. or someone on bike showing off doing a wheelie in the middle of traffic or doing stoppies or other stunts in the middle of a crowded lot.

The idiocy that I've seen is incredible. Cops chasing the crowd off from ones spot,.. everyone leaving to go to another and guys trying to race each other in the middle of everyone going down the road. Back in the day we would drive 15 - 20 miles to the 'race spot',.. which was NOT the hang out spot. They ran on Gandy for 30+ years and it wasnt until 8 or 9 years ago that the cops really started cracking down on people,.. and really even harder in the last 4 - 5 years.

Then you have the punk white kids trying to act like thugs. Walking up talking shit,.. starting shit,.. bringing guns to a race. WTF is that all about? I've given up on those crowds. Its not fun anymore.

Back in the day we hung out,.. jammed to AC/DC or mellowed out to Pink Floyd. Occationally there might be a squabble,.. it usually involved a pissed off girl friend,.. other then that we didnt have half the problems like whats happening today. Theres kids trying to race each other on US 19 in the middle of traffic. My wife has a 2004 Tiburon GT. A kid not more then 19 or 20 with his girl friend in a Cobalt SS was trying to get my wife to race on SR 54 near Gun highway,.. the roads were wet,.. there was a light rain falling,.. and it was in the middle of rush hour traffic. We stopped at the light,.. he yells over,. hey wants wrong,.. you afraid to run that thing? My yells back,.. no,.. I like to live and see my kids when I get home. I dont do stupid shit in the rain or with this much traffic. Now mind you she likes a good race as much as I do,.. but it was simply not the time or place. His reply was,.. "Thats how we roll". He didnt have the common sense God gave a rain drop. Its that kind of supidity that gets people killed.

Hurst

 

Rep for that last post hurst...So true...so true.