Originally posted by SoL_93GT
Theres no way a carb and intake cost anywhere near a fuel injected intake, fuel injectors, throttle body, and mass air meter and or an aftermarket engine management system. You can only go so fast with a mass air meter before you have to ditch it and go with a high end speed density setup. I think it's a good idea if you're short on cash but I would personally like to be able to tune my car with a laptop even though it costs alot more, most instances would be double the cost.
$300 Victor Jr intake
$400-$1000 Holley 750 or race carb modified for blow through
$400-$700 efi intake
$300-$800 injectors
$300 throttle body
$300-$500 mass air meter
$1000-$2000 engine management system
Im talking about taking a car with EFI on it already. We both know that you can go plenty fast without an aftermarket computer and still have good drivability. Also, your number are way inflated.
$500 - good intake
$400 - good injectors
$200 - throttle body
$400 - Mass air meter
..thats ballpark. My point is, its not that far off through say mid 10s, at which point you could probably save some $ with carb. There are other perks to EFI as well, like the laptop tune that you mentioned. I remember getting a distributor "curved" back in the day - talk about an inexact science! Same thing for fuel - jets? It just seems like in the end, because of the tunability, EFI would be nicer.
All that said - you can go faster for less money overall with carb, but I feel that only really is true when your dipping down into the 9 second zone.