NA Fuelie vs NA carburetor

[HORSEMEN RACING]

Thought I would post a thread about the 2 most popular types of induction for Mustangs. First off I like them both they both have something to offer,but I like fuel injection reason being I like the torque of a fuelie,I like the cold start ability,and it makes killer power once it is tuned. The con of fuel injection is it is expensive,and can be a pain in the butt to tune and I hate the 6250 rev limiter that comes with the fuelie cars.

I like the high rpm power of a carburetted combo,sometimes you need that power on the big end of a drag strip,I like the cost,carbs are not too expensive,and they are somewhat easier to tune. The con of carbs is cold start,fuel mileage,and emissions if you live where the smog nazi's live glad I am originally from Texas.

Let's here some opinions on this.

[srv1]

Horsemen, i voted for carb. i love fuel injection, but it is too darn expensive! you can get the same results with carb. it seems you can tweak a carb easier for more HP. if i ever build a street motor it will be carb. this EFI stuff is getting out of hand. $400 for an take! and that is one of the cheaper ones too! i thin k Edelbrock make the best carb manifolds out there. just my .02 cents.

[DRASTiK]

well it really depends on what the car will be used for. If it's mainly a race car, then I say go carb unless you have a ton of cash laying around. If it's a daily driver, then you need to think more about it.

I was originally a carburator guy with my first stang, and now I drive an EFI car. I plan on building another car relatively soon, and it will be a carbed car. Of course it will also be a 69, so EFI would definately be more trouble than it's worth.

Cold starts aren't really an issue on a properly built and tuned carbed car.

[RoadWarrior]

Personally My vote goes out to carbs. Carbs are easier to tune and you dont need any fancy tools, just a screw driver. They are WAY cheaper and you can make some pretty mean power with a good carb. Im rubbing a mild 302 with a Performer RPM Air Gap and a holley 650 DP and i made just over 350hp and a nice 363ft lb. The car pulls hard all the way to the redline. Plus carbs have a unique sound that i Love.

[RPM427]

I'm voting for fuel injection. I think that we are going to see huge performance improvements when tuners start to master tuning Digital Fuel Injection. You can get more power out of a DFI car as well as making it behave better and get better gas milage.

Lets say you have an engine that is not really streetable and has a bad idle. You can fix these problems and have a more well behaved car that is just as fast as a carb'd version, maybe faster.

You can tune the engine in 10 rpm increments. And if you do not have the ability to tune it, you can have parameters sent to you by the manufacter based on you engine combo. very cool stuff.

[chris91LX]

I'm just glad I don't own a modular, you want to talk about expensive to mod

[Jeff Chambers]

I vote carburetor. I've had both and I'm enjoying the carb'd setup alot more this summer.

[grant66]

You guys dove drive a very high altitudes do you! Carbs suck at altitude. Jetting for high altitude like 11,000 feet above sea leval is hard to do. Especially when you have to go back down 5,000 feet above sea level. Fuel injection is worth the money. I just spent $2,500 on fuel injection. I can drive any where in the USA.

Lean and mean that is the game. Plus carbs don't retard the timing if you miss a gear and their goes your 4,000 dollar motor. Sure carbs are fun, but the potential for fuel injection is limited to the horizon.

[RPM427]

You can Set the DFI to retard for nitrous and many other things. It is much more effecient and will make more power if tuned properly.

[RoadWarrior]

You can also setup a MSD box to do all that. The MSD multifunction ignition conroller will let you do everything you can with a fuelie on a carbed setup. Stock for stock fuelie is probably better but once you start doing things carbs are alot easier and accept mods better.

[jwboner]

I would also have to say it depends on where you plan on driving your car most, street or race. I spent the money on the latest and greatest dfi setup and while tuning it is on ongoing thing to get it right on. I wouldn't say it makes more power than a carb, but just as much and with much more reliability, mileage, and options such as controling timing, accesories. Some might not see paying that much for something but I have had it with carbs on the street, but that's just me. Others seem to have really good results with carbs on the street. My brother has a very similar car but has a 308ci, track heat heads, stage 2 cam, and a carbon an air gap. And it has a more aggresive sounding idle than my 347ci, ported track heat heads, stage 3 cam, and vic jr carb intake (with injector bungs). The fi smoothed out the idle and made the whole setup very streetable yet still very capable at the track.

[WheelsUp]

I like them both,carb car definitely has a different sound to it no doubt,nothing like listening to those secondaries kick open on a street car,the con if not tuned properly nothing like that black smoke screen coming out the back neither.

Fuel Injection torque is killer with it,"personally" speaking I have never ridden in a fuelie car that felt soggy on the bottom end like some single plane carb cars. On the other hand nothing more frustrating than to find out you have spent money on this and that and it turned out to be a throttle position sensor why the car is running like crap.

I like them both,and they can both be a pain if not tuned properly.

[Dark Knight]

if you like to tinker with the car... get a carb.. if you want to jump in and go... FI... and a carb can have just as good of a torque curve as FI... when was the last time you saw someone swap a cam and heads onto and FI motor and have it run right the same day :-)

[drag79stang]

Personally, I would never contemplate going from carb to efi.
Old school for me.
I see too many efi's that run like crap at the track as it is. Owners for the most part, scratching their heads in disbelief, wondering why their new maf sensor/bigger cam/different pcm/different wiring setups, etc, etc, don't all work together to make HUGE horsepower/torque.
Maybe down the road, (*like many, many years), when it's all figured out and bolt ons are bolt ons, (without having to have custom chips burned/etc, etc), I would think about it, but for now, carbs are so much easier to play with.............
Again, MY .002