RoninAutoBoX

Stick to carbs? You do remeber that my car is EFI don't you? Maybe not.

Replacing the entire intake tract and engine management system? Maybe not the wildest mod in the world, but certainly nothing simple.

A lot of money is a lot of money only by comparison, and compared to a carb setup, that is a lot of money.

Atkins? I wouldn't buy a T-Shirt from them, but that is a different topic. The setup I mentioned is a one-off put together by a local shop. It starts with a brand new Eaton M90, it is topped off with a Holley 650, all brackets are made by them, as well as the manifold. believe it or not, superchargers and carbs are not that expensive, but some places like to act like they still are. For the price of that Atkins kit, I could get a full Lysholm blower kit with an intercooler! Since the Camden/Atkins kit is the only pre-fab available on the market, it is no wonder it is overpriced (IMHO).

Second hand? I could put together the same kit for $400.

And yet most people who use these systems leave the other functions to other standalone systems. It's not as if a carb'd car cannot have properly working AC, ignition, or boost control. You are talking about a few minor conveniences, that may not even be conveniences compared to having a simpler standalone device. I know a lot of people who prefer adjusting their boost with small buttons or a **** rather than having to whip out a laptop to do the whole thing on the move or plug in a controller. Does the standalone EFI have more capabilities in total? Sure! But nothing critical. It's not like those other functions can't be handled in better ways by other products and systems.

Fuel injection goes back a long way with America, that was my only point. You said that Americans seem to have some kind of preference of carbs, and I pointed out that it was not true because Americans have been seeking and using fuel injection since before any of the companies you mentioned even appeared. My point is valid, Americans are not just carb freaks.

Why no full featured aftermarket EFI? Why for one thing, it simply is not necessary, and it simply is not as affordable, or as easy a thing to put in a car as compared to reprogrammers of OEM computers, chips, and the like, plus it is practically useless on a new car, where an owner can just remove a chip or computer, as opposed to being thrown out the door with no warranty for re-wiring the car. Just look at the RS-Xs and the "Hondata" computer mods. In most cases, full out aftermarket EFI is reserved only for the most extreme applications.

Just because we don't have aftermarket standalone pumping out of the sky, doesn't mean that Americans are carb freaks. The American companies simply choose to address EFI in a different way. You can take a camaro, just as an example, and twin turbo it, put in a 427, and make a destroyer of both roadcourse (real car) and drag strip, and you will not find a haltech, TEC, or anything else like that under its hood. I guess Americans tend to extract as much as possible from the design before chucking it out the window, and it has turned out rather well. The Japanese have a knack for that kind of thing too, reminding myself of an 11 second Civic using the stock computer. It may be a drag racer, but even if you don't like drag, know that is very impressive,a nd was thought impossible for an OEM Honda computer.

I never said that it had to run rich all of the time, I said that it would be tuned to run rich, as to what part of the powerband or for how much of it, I never mentioned. Rotaries run rich. Fact. Rich and lean are both extremes that lie on each of stoichiometric mixture.....the perfect mixture. Rotaries always lie well on the rich side of stoichiometric. Why do you think it is that our cars are just about the only non-turbo cars in the world notorious for blowing jet flames out of the rear pipes? Come off it. Perhaps because some of our fuel is going straight from the tank to the exhaust pipe? Yes. Our engines are richer than Donald Trump. Most engines would need a set of spark plugs mounted in the tips to duplicate the same feat without being tuned to run as rich itself. That is why our engines get poor fuel economy comparitively for both the displacement, and the power of our engines.

And I never said it was as accurate. I merely said that it is not very bad in comparison, and therefore still worth running because of its other advantages. A carbeurated car is not an undrivable sputtering deat trap. It actually runs quite well with the modern engineering that goes into them. Cold starts? I've never seen a huge problem. No more than rotaries usually have in the cold. Fuel economy? I can't say I have ever seen an extreme difference. Fuel metering precision? As I said, I have not seen anything during a dyno run that would indicate excessive mixtures, either rich or lean, during acceleration, or part throttle. No more than usual anyway.

First of all, I never said that EFI was not worth the money. personally, I think that a TEC system is a sick amount of money to pay for an aftermarket EFI, but I know its worth the dough (money).

Secondly, everything you have mentioned is not beyond a carbeurated car. In the perspective of looking only at the engine management, yes, the aftermarket EFI looks very impressive, but the fact is, at the end of the day, both guys are going to have no trouble tuning their cars, both guys are going to have their AC click off under hard acceleration (either by pressure sensitive valve or EFI), both guys are going to be in deep **** if the get into a crash that flips them over, and both of their fuel pumps will probably stop, since most aftermarket pumps used in carb applications do not remain on after the engine has shut off (assuming they even use an electronic pump), while mine would remain charged with tons of fuel pressure and I'dprobably burn to death.

The only thing I can say to this is: Get Real. The newest second gen is over a decade old. The company that made it wouldn't guarantee it against failure if you put a gun to their head.

These cars typically are not reliable. We all know someone who has dumped a lot of money into their rotary just keeping it on the road, and that is totally normal for a 12-18 year old car. Let's not foolourselves into thinking that our cars are solid items.Not even a Honda remains perfectly good after that much time on the road. I know that we all love RX-7s here, but let's not get ridiculous. A car this old is going to have problems.

In the case of my friend, well 2 of them now, it is the throttle position sensor, one of the common failures I mentioned. There are a few things you must know about the TPS failure, it is actually easy to diagnose, you can't get one earlier than 4 business days, it will cost you over $300. One could always buy used, but what are the chances that this will actucally be a good item. Answer? I don't know! So at best, you're going to wait a few days, spend at least a good amount of money, and you'll be throwing the dice unless you want to lay down $300. Luckily, a simple adjustment temporarily remedied my first friend's problem, the second has decided to throw the dice on a secondhand TPS. I on the other hand am going through the BAC valve issue, my nice and advanced computer managed air conditioning system has a valve that is supposed to prevent my engine from stalling at idle due to the load, but my BAC valve has failed (another common failure).

All typical, normal, and quite frankly, acceptable issues.

You seem to be under the impression that I prefer carbs to EFI, or that I support carbs over EFI or something, but such is not the case. I believe that carbs still have a strong position in the aftermarket automotive marketplace, and especially so for the rotaries. I knwo that carb has its disadvantages, but it can still do its job very very well. Let's face it, nothing terrible is going to happen to a car just because it runs carb. it will still have a much better powerband than stock, and it will still be ableto be daily driven and deliver good performance in other areas as well. It may not do it as well as an aftermarkey EFI, but that does not mean that one must forgoe it simply because it is not the superior system in all manners. If I felt that way, I would have bought a third gen and **** on this car, but I knew it could deliver an acceptable amount of performance for a much better price. I like having an engine that I can actually work with too, with my own 2 hands, without having to remove everything.

WhiteFC:

Again, remember that some of the FCs out there have well over 200k miles and are almost as old as I am. Some are right to expect their car not to start. All good things must eventually come to an end, and that includes cars.

Find me 2 working TPSs and a BAC valve for a Series 5 non-turbo motor that I can have within 2 days. Seriously. I need those things badly.

I think our cars make this much too hard.

White_FC

My FC is about as old as you can get one, december '85, I still expect it to start everyday, day in day out. Age has nothing to do wether or not your car should start up everytime you want it to...

Or maybe i'm just crazy...

2 tps and a bac valve? tried Jap import wreckers? I'll bet my left nurrie you'd find what your looking for there.

MPM

Ronin, somehow you have completely missed the point of all this comparison talking. Or maybe your one of those people that simply can't admit your wrong. Whatever.

NZ, always enjoy reading your replies as you make more sense than most anyone else on here.

LONG LIVE FUEL INJECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NZConvertible

Like WhiteFC, I expect my car to start every morning without a problem. I expect this because that's exactly what it's aways done. As I said earlier, I've been using EFI rotary turbos as daily drivers for ~8 years, and have never had an EFI-related problem that has stopped the car from running. Starter motors (2), alternators (2) and clutches (3) are a different matter...
The question is not whether it's necessary, it's why wouldn't you put it on? It's there to improve the engine's performance. It's one little line and you can't even see it!

Mechanical injection is completely different to EFI and is completely irrevant to this discussion. Who cares if you've been using fuel injection for ages? I couldn't care less about mechanical systems, which hardly anyone other than drag racers use anyway. I want to know why electronic systems aren't being developed.
All of those examples apply in this part of the world too, and yet programmable EFI flourishes. That's because there's a huge market in cars that we're originally carb'd or have EFI systems that are now worth upgrading because of their age (like ours). If it can be affordable here, it can be in the US too.
BS. Mine cruises happly right on stoichiometric actually, as will any well set up EFI engine, including rotaries. In fact Aussie tuners often don't use closed-loop tuning at all and tune the ECU's to run quite lean mixtures at light load (i.e. leaner that stoichiometric), significantly reducing overall fuel consumption. Try doing that with a carb. But again, you're comparing rotaries to piston engines. Why can't you just stick to the engine we all own like I keep asking?
I've never heard of a car converted from carb to EFI (and well tuned) not getting gains in fuel economy in the order of 5-10%.
A dyno cannot fully replicate the way an engine behaves on the road, so your dyno experiences mean little. It's on the road that matters. It's not about excessive mixtures, it's about always being that much closer to where they should be.
See my comments above. If your car's as unreliable as you say, I think it's more than just the car. And name me one company that would guarantee a 10yo car? That's a silly comment.

RoninAutoBoX

So basically you have nothing relevant to add to this discussion. I too enjoy NZ's responses, he at least has something to say.

RoninAutoBoX

You have had better luck than most. We all know that all cars have common failures and RX-7s are no exception. No car realistically remains reliable forever. Everything encounters wear and tear that eventually ends its life, this includes electronics, mechanicals and so forth.


It is completely relevant. You accused Americans of having a preference of carbeurators. All that is necessary to debunk that theory is for me to mention one single alternative fuel management system. regardless of whether or not is was the answer that you were looking for, it does prove that Americans do not have an unusual preference to carbs.

I wasn't addressing what you want to know, I was addressing a a comment that you said which was totally wrong. The fact that Americans were seeking fuel injection, mechanical or not, it is an alternative to carbs that was being sought and used decades ago and proves that there is no unusual obsession with carbs.

What can I say? Oh well. I provided a theory, and it may or may not be correct. I cannot say for sure, all I know is that Japanese and American tuning focuses more towards use of the stock ECU, or a modified stock ECU than a standalone.


I did not stick to the engine because I was making a comparison. you brought up how fuel economy is important, and I'm telling you that you shouldn't be so concerned about it when it comes to a serious performance application, because thanks to comparitively rich running, and the overall poor thermal efficiency of the rotary engine, you are already making a sacrifice.

BS all you like. Rotaries run rich. Maybe not while cruising, since when the throttle is still, the engine will automatically aim for the best mixture for fuel economy. I doubt your engine actually ever runs stoichiometric, since it is indeed impossible to tune it for that perfect mixture. If it were, catalyctic converters would not even be necessary, as with true stoichiometric mixture, all that is left over is water. perhaps that is why it is often referred to as "theoretical combustion"

But then again, I was not referring to cruisng, but rather acceleration, be it light, or heavy, that afr meter is going well into the green. Hence the jet flames.

So basically what you are saying, is that on a car with a 300 mile range, it may lose 15-30 total miles of range per tank. As I said, I have never seen any extreme losses or gains between the two, this just confirms it. You're talking barely, or just maybe a single gallon of gas. For someone who considers $2000 into a fuel and intake system to be affordable, you sure are stingy about your gas. Somehow I doubt I will miss the buck-fifty-six.

And just how much of a difference will there be? That is the real subject here. You keep saying how much worse a carb is than EFI, but at the same time, you really have not, except for the fuel economy thing, which didn't turn out to be much of a difference at all. That much of a difference could be made or broken by driving style alone.

You really haven't said much except to offer an opinion as to how much worse a carb is at fuel metering. You say that it's what happens on the road that matters, but I have not seen any numbers, or even any type of measurable reference at all as to how much worse a carb is, yet you claim that it is substantially worse. If it is as "terrible" at all of its other fuel metering capabilities as it is at fuel economy, then my observations are correct that there really isn't much of a difference at all.

For all of the huge difference you claim that there is, you really haven't pointed out anything even remotely critical. Minor conveniences at best. Some of the advantages you named are actually worse than typical setups. (AC that you have to program with a laptop? Yeah........cool.....)

Unreliable? I wouldn't describe my car as unreliable. Well, it was, until I got rid of that god damn automatic transmission, but I still wouldn't describe it as unreliable. It has normal problems due to wear and tear encountered over a decade of operation. Totally normal. sensors failure? Injectors needing replacement or cleaning? There is a reason why these services are both available and popular. These things just happen. You don't honestly think that an RX-7 will run forever without a problem do you? Sorry, but over 10 years of operation is going to have quite an effect over most vehicles.

Who would gauarantee a 10 year old car? A silly comment? I think not. There are at least 3 manufacturers currently offering guarantees on cars that old. I don't know about AU/NZ, but they do have that kind of thing here.

MPM

Luckily this is a public forum and we are allowed to express our own opinions. I'm of the opinion that you have nothing relevant to add to this thread either. EFI is superior to a carb. Live with it and your old school carbs.

RoninAutoBoX

yes, we are allowed to express our opinions, which is why I felt perfectly free to tell you that yours sucks.

You really don't get it do you? I don't prefer carb to EFI. I might put one on this car just to make it easy to keep day to day, but when I go to slap down some serious cash on a car in a couple of months, which will most likely be a Turbo 2 converted to a 13b REW, I am going to get an aftermarket EFI so optioned out, that it will automatically activate my wipers when I start squinting through the dead bugs.

Well, not literally, but I plan to go all out. I will build up a carb car eventually as well. It will probably come first, because I believe that a carb car offers many advantages that still make it worth while. It certainly will not outdo a turbocharged beast spraying through 1800ccs and breathing through 2 big huffers thaT could eat small children, but it will be a lot of fun none the less, and it won't even cost a lot to build!

I know EFI is superior to carb. I never disputed that. When it comes to fuel metering, EFI has a clear advantage, but on the same side of the coin, carb is a lot cheaper, easier to maintain, easier to find parts for, and it will still be great fun!

RoninAutoBoX

yes, we are allowed to express our opinions, which is why I felt perfectly free to tell you that yours sucks.

You really don't get it do you? I don't prefer carb to EFI. I might put one on this car just to make it easy to keep day to day, but when I go to slap down some serious cash on a car in a couple of months, which will most likely be a Turbo 2 converted to a 13b REW, I am going to get an aftermarket EFI so optioned out, that it will automatically activate my wipers when I start squinting through the dead bugs.

Well, not literally, but I plan to go all out. I will build up a carb car eventually as well. It will probably come first, because I believe that a carb car offers many advantages that still make it worth while. It certainly will not outdo a turbocharged beast spraying through 1800ccs and breathing through 2 big huffers thaT could eat small children, but it will be a lot of fun none the less, and it won't even cost a lot to build!

I know EFI is superior to carb. I never disputed that. When it comes to fuel metering, EFI has a clear advantage, but on the same side of the coin, carb is a lot cheaper, easier to maintain, easier to find parts for, and it will still be great fun!

White_FC

I beg to differ, I dunno whats up with all your american rx-7's over there but my car is dammed near 20years old and is very reliable, strangley enough I also have a AE86 corolla which IS 20years old and I have had nothing but problems with it, strangly enough, it is has a carb on it.

See how useless points about reliability can be?
It's not EFi thats is inherantly(sp?) unreliable on rx-7's.. thats for sure.

Anyway all im trying to get at is, a 10 year old carb and a 10 year old dissy would be insanely more unreliable than a 10 year old EFI system....

RoninAutoBoX

I'm not saying that one is more or less reliable than another. A car that has problems is not a bad car, it is perfectly normal. Wear and tear happens.

The question is, what will you do when that failure comes? It would be nuts to assume that a car will never have a failure. I can't say I am one of those people who expects their car not to start, but not all RX-7 are in as good a condition as mine is. Mine has been very well taken care of, and I take good care of it too, but that does not automatically mean that it will never have a problem. That would be pure arrogance. If RX-7s never broke, we wouldn't have a for sale forum filled with EFI parts all day long being bought and sold.

NZConvertible

Carbs are vastly more common than aftermarket mechanical fuel injection, so the fact that it's available does not debunk anything. In general (i.e. not this forum) America still prefers carbs. That fact that carb spares are as easy to obtain as you have repeatedly said proves this. The import scene is slowly changing this balance.
And the newer the car is, the better this approach is. But for older EFI car like ours it doesn't make much sense to spend lots of money of numerous piggyback modules and still be stuck with a very outdated ECU. That money is much better spent on one new system that can do a much better job. Mazda ECU's are notoriously difficult to reprogramme so that approach is out too.
Any EFI car with a healthy O2 sensor (mine is new) is running very close to stiochiometric whenever in closed-loop mode.
You seem to be completely missing the big picture, only focussing on one thing at a time. Better mileage is only one of the many areas where EFI is superior.
Most people would be pretty damn happy to see a 5-10% drop in fuel consumption, particularly if it was accompanied by more power, better drivability, a wider spread of torque and much greater functionality. This is almost always the case when swapping from a carb to a better-flowing EFI system. If the carb had been upgraded instead, the peak power would be higher, but everything else would have gone backwards.
I'm not even going to attempt to quantify these gains, because there are about a thousand variables that will effect the outcome, not least the quality of the tuning. Suffice to say that in the considerable research I've done over the years I've heard the same results repeated over and over again. As long as it's tuned right, EFI will provide noticable gains in drivability and economy. The grumpier the engine, the more potential for improvement. Any gains in power are strictly related to airflow, but if you replace a 48IDA (or similar) with a 2x50mm TB the results aren't hard to predict.

You seem to be trying very hard to disprove stuff that's been known about for years. You've already pointed out how outrageously expensive aftermarket EFI is, and yet it's popularity over here is huge and growing. If the gains were as insignificant as you think they are, no one would pay the extra money! That seems so obvious...
It's getting more obvious that you don't know as much about programmable EFI as you make out. To use your example, the ECU isn't required to run the A/C, it simply shuts it off when you want full power and stops your engine from stalling when it's running, without using any of the extra hardware that would be required otherwise. You seem to think that anything that isn't fuel control is not worth having. I do not consider full 3D ignition timing control a minor convenience. Likewise perfect idle control under all circumstances. I would much rather have my turbo boost, A/C, thermofan, and other systems and accesories controlled from one place than have a myriad of boxes all over the car.
You have misunderstood what I said. At the moment, there is not a single manufacturer that guarantees a 10yo car. Why? Because 10 years ago, nobody offered 10 year guarantees. You complained that Mazda won't guarantee anything on your car, which is well over 10yo. That's a silly comment whether you like it or not.
How did we go from "my observations are correct that there really isn't much of a difference at all" to "EFI has a clear advantage"?

MPM

http://www.twminduction.com/ThrottleBody/carb_vs_fi.pdf

This is the second time I've posted this link. If you want to see some numbers that show a difference then read the information the link takes you to.

RoninAutoBoX

carb spares are easy to obtain because there were a lot of them made, much more carb cars were built than EFI cars, so the parts are still available. It doesn't mean that America prefers carbs, some people just have old cars that they don't want to drop thousands on getting converted to EFI.


I am aware of this, but then again, the main aftermarket force is towards newer cars, not older ones, which is why you can find more air intakes for newer Hondas than you can total parts for an old RX-7. You can even find new car aftermarket parts in an Autozone.


Near Stoichiometric is not stoichiometric. Big difference between running near it, and actually running it, since stoichiometric mixtures have never been duplicated before.

i see the big picture. EFI is the superior fuel metering system for most applications, but carb offers several advantages that can make it a very worthwhile alternative, or even superior to EFI in some applications.


Why would anyone who drops $2000 on an EFI/intake combo give a damn about a gallon of gas?

That accompanies by the fact that you really can't, which is why you haven't.

I never disputed that EFI was a superior system, I only rejected your ideas that carb is extremely inferior to EFI. I know it is not as good at fuel metering, it just isn't that much worse. For all of your research, you still can't give me even half of an idea as to how much worse a carb is, most likely related to the fact that you really don't know.

Oh please. car owners pay more for **** that doesn't even do anything, and in most cases makes their car crappier. Just because people pay a lot of money for it, doesn't mean it is automatically a million times better. I guess a Combat body kit must be a million times better than OEM aerodynamics because it costs a lot too, or a big carbon fiber ricer wing? Price doesn't mean a damn thing.

There are applications for aftermarket EFI, perfectly valid ones, and yes, it is totally worthwhile, as I have already stated (yet you do not seem to get). But I still believe it is a matter of preference, not necessity. Using specious reasoning alone does not quantify the difference between carb and EFI.

And yet when I look in the actual cars, I more often see the myriad of boxes than the equipment all hooked to the ECU. I know how the AC system works, and what the purpose of it is, but the fact is, if you want to adjust it, you have to whip out the laptop. I never said it is required to run the AC, I merely said that you need a laptop to operate it, and indeed, if you want to make those adjustments, take out your laptop, boot it up, open the program, and then you have to adjust it from the laptop.

I never said that anything not having to do with fuel control is not worth having, I simply said that everything not having to do with fuel control can still be had without the computer, which is the way that most people do it.

Those fuel maps are part of the fuel metering options which I already said from the beginning are indeed superior to carbs.

Once again, you offer nothing but your opinion and preferences. Why don't you just say that you prefer EFI to carb rather than insisting that carb is worthless to run. That's all everything you are saying adds up to. The same stuff again and again.

I never complained that Mazda would not guarantee a 10 year old car. I would never have expected it.

No **** there are no manufacturers who currently have gauarntees on cars built ten years ago, that was my point from the very beginning when I said that a 10 year old car that has problems sometimes is totally normal! Just who are you arguing for anyway?

I said that EFI has a clear advantage in fuel metering, but it is not a significant one. A car with a carbeurator still runs, drives, turns, and performs well. There is obviously a difference, but it is not huge. You can play with EFI more, if it is an aftermarket unit, but drive each car around and you really don't see much of a difference in cruising, acceleration, fuel economy, etc, etc. And on top of that, a carb is cheaper, easier to maintain, and easier to get parts for. offer up as many opinions as you want as to what you would want to do, or what your country does, or whatever, it is still an opinion without any facts.

RoninAutoBoX

Ok, 2 things here, 1, there is no way in hell that I am going to believe anything written in any company's sales brochures, be it a carb company or an EFI company. Secondly, you can take 2 engines exactly the same configuration and duplicate an equal margin of difference in tests just by controlling the environment of the tests.

This is the one millionth time I will tell you that I know there is a difference between EFI and carb, I never denied that, just the level of the difference.

RoninAutoBoX

Actually, should you insist on using this document as an argument for EFI, I would like to copy these excerpts:

"Digital fuel injection works, although it requires a lot of effort to refine it to the best that it can be. Truth is, to do a Thorough job of mapping on the dyno, we would have to spend several more days - and then some additional tuning would still have been necessary to get "driveability" right. Don't try this at home unless you are prepared for the effort.

Not so easy eh?

RoninAutoBoX

"The starter map was largely useless due to our configuration choices, so it took a while to get running."

"Do not try this with a fresh engine - [b]you will delay break-in because you can't run at higher rpm and load due to lack of the correct map. [i]Break the engine in on a carburator if necessary, or build a good map on an older engine to get the map close before switching to the fresh engine. We also believe that it is painfully difficult to build a map from scratch on the street or an acceleration dyno. Only a dyno with a controllable load is appropriate for the job. If you have an excellent starter map, you may be OK. But otherwise, you will probably just beat up the engine by the time you get a functional map. Accurate mapping is tough, so don't expect to breeze through it."

"By analyzing the power increases and decreases at each load site, you can glean information to refine the map still further. This is NOT SIMPLE, nor is it easy, but it is the best technique that we have found."


What the ****? So unless I have an old engine to beat up on, on a specialized dyno, for days, I need to have a carbeurator on the ****** anyway.

Let me not even touch that comment in the article about how the engine will run a little rich because of the injector positioning.

MPM, you are sooooooo right. I truly do the difference between DEFI and carburator. If that were me, I'd just leave the carb on the engine after it was broken in and take off down the street.

MPM

Thats right, you win Ronin. Carbs are better and cheaper than any fuel injected setup. I bow to your supreme knowledge and only wish I were as smart as you. Maybe oneday when I grow up I'll be smiled upon as you have been and will have the ability to ramble on for days defending an obsolete fuel delivery component that might still work well enough but is still obsolete non the less.

RoninAutoBoX

You're just trying to **** me off, right? Seriously, how many times have you ignored the fact that I have stated I do not believe carbs to be superior in any way dealing with actual fuel metering?

I had a paragraph a mile long for you that I was going to put here, but then I realized that I would just be repeating myself again. I can only hope that others reading this thread will get it.

Carbs are not obselete just because there is something better out there.

White_FC

That is possibly the best oxymoronic statement i think i have ever seen, thank you.

RoninAutoBoX

Oxymoronic how? If you really belive that something is obsolete just because there is a more advanced option out there, then you should be driving an automatic transmission hybrid car, not a manual transmission steel car with an engine design pioneered 70+ years ago. Even EFI is obselete if you go by that path. Your whole car is obselete.

Obsolete by definition, is something no longer in use or no longer useful. Carbs are still very useful, as is a manual transmission, iron parts, cats parts, rotary engine, indirect injection, internal combustion, etc, etc,.

If you believe that anything superceded by new technology is automatically useless, then you need to by a hybrid car, with a ceramic bladeless gas turbine engine, made of carbon kevlar, powered partially by a regnerating magnetless electric motor.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but in a world without unlimited money, resqources, and support, sometimes simpler just works better in a lot of cases. that is why although we have transmissions that can shift themselves , faster than a manual transmission, with infinite drive ratios, that requires less power to drive than even a manual transmission, the best sportscars in the world have manual transmissions, a gear reduction design, dating back 3 centuries.

It's funny how everyone here who claims that I am wrong can only argue their points using exaggerations, lies, isults, specious reasoning, and some of the crappiest one-liners and sarcasm that I have ever seen. How about some facts people? Anyone?

In know I won't really get any from you too, let's see what NZ has to say, I already know what his response is because he knows a lot better than you 2.

White_FC

Awwwww... now come on, thats all a bit unfair.. You changed your statement.

More advanced and "better" are two very different things

If you just say better on its own, that can really imply alot of things, but to me it implies that something meets all the same, but higher requirements, and costs the same ammount of money.. that to me, is better... ie, making the other product obselete..



But you couldn't do doughnuts in one of those cars half as good as you could in my FC could you. Too me at least, that makes it not a better car at all.... therefore, not making mine obselete.



Does a sequential/infinitly-variable gearbox cost the same to put into a car? I doubt it... Does it meet all the same requirments that a customer wants in his sportscar? I doubt it...

.....


But anyway getting back to the topic of carbs, they are obselete, I mean that is of course if you take note of all of the R&D that every single major auto manurfacturer has done recently. Strangly enough I don't see any current cars coming out with carbs anymore.

RoninAutoBoX

And there we have, in each of the examples I used of more advanced and better technology, you brought up cost, and application. Just because something offers better performance doesn't make i=the other obsolete. We see now that aftermarket EFI is nowhere near as cheap, or as easy to set up as carb (according to that article, setting up a carb is one of the stages in setting up aftermarket EFI) nor is it as simple.

Fact is, setting up aftermarket ECUs is a long and difficult task, if you want it done right. This coming from propoganda touted by an aftermarket EFI manufacturer (on the hardware side anyway). There are still a ton of applications where fuel management that isn't that hard to get going is still viable, and therefore still useful, and not obselete.

You can argu all you like, but that setup described in that article probably would cost as much as the computer itself in dyno time. If something is still useful, it is not obsolete. A Mac Strut suspension is not obsolete because double wishbone is a more advanced and better design, a clutch pedal is not obsolete because manual transmission are out there that can be shifted by pedals and electro-hydraulics, indirect EFI is not obsolete because direct injection exists, the rotary engine is not obsolete because gas turbines exist. Want to talk about obsolete? I can show you some VERY interesting comparisons between the kind of EFI a Haltec manages, and direct injection. 20% more power and 11% less fuel consumption sound like a difference? The difference between you great aftermarket EFI and direct injection is a larger difference than the difference between your aftermarket EFI and a carb. Watch what you go calling obsolete before what comes around goes around. And when I do bring out the DFI (direct fuel injection) and GDI (gasoline direct injection) tech stuff, go ahead and bitch about price, and ease of setup all you want because we already know that aftermarket EFI is about as easy to setup as a tripod with 2 legs, and if you really want to know what several days on the dyno would cost (let's assume just 4 hours a day) I can speak to some people locally and find out how much that would cost......and let me remember to find a dyno with controllable load, since anyone's acceleration dyno will be useless.

NZConvertible

You're nit-picking in an attempt to prove a point. I assume you know what closed-loop means, so you know that that is as close as you can get to running a constant stoichiometric mixture. The result is an average that is basically stoichiometric, and this mixture is manitained during any light-load conditions.
You say you can see the big picture, and then you make this comment? That person is going to see an improvement in performance, and use less gas at the same time. You keep saying that nobody building a performance engine is going to care about that, but that would only be stupid people who like wasting money for no gain...
Ah, so you're one of those people who won't believe anybody else unless they can be provided with an internet link? Any numbers I quote will be for one specific case only, and (as I said before) there are far too many variables for that one example to be taken as gospel. Besides I doubt you'd believe any numbers I post anyway. So how would you like me to prove it to you?
Your argument is completely flawed. People don't pay more money for EFI because it's more expensive, they do so because of it's proven abilities. Has anyone ever proven the aerodynamic abilities of the Combat bobykit? No, they haven't. Besides, we're not talking about a bodykit that has little effect on how a car runs. We're talking about the most important system on the car. If EFI truly had as little effect on a car's performance as you say, and was as unrelibale as you say, it wouldn't be as popular as it is. So I'll repeat what I said. If the gains were as insignificant as you think they are, no one would pay the extra money. It's pretty simple.
If you want to prove your point, you should quit with this dumb example. As I said, if you want, you can configure the ECU to turn the A/C off under load and increase idle speed when it's running. You don't need to "adjust" it, you set it and forget it. That's it. End of story. This is a disadvantage how...?
I operate my A/C with a button on the dash, just like everyone else, including those with programmable ECU's.
You are right. I prefer EFI because compared to a carb and dizzy it offers proven superior overall performance. I'm happy to pay extra for that. I'm happy to have a few more wires and vac lines in my engine bay. It doesn't bother me that in the rare occasion I need to replace a part it might take a little longer. These are things that don't bother most people.

And again I remind you, I have not once used the word worthless in reference to carbs. If you're going to quote me, please get it right!
You said, "The newest second gen is over a decade old. The company that made it wouldn't guarantee it against failure if you put a gun to their head." That would be pretty obvious to most people and it wouldn't concern them. The fact that you even mentioned it makes it sound like a complaint.
You really belive that? Jeez, all those people who spent all that money must be gutted!
Personally I think there's some really strange stuff in that article, and they make it sound harder than it needs to be, but you're also forgetting a few important facts. They say you can't tune the ECU with a fresh engine because you can't apply full load. Guess what? That applies to carbs too! If you rebuild an engine, run it in on whatever was on it before. Seems pretty obvious to me. And you don't need a "specialised" dyno to tune EFI. Any decent tuning shop will have a dyno with a controllable load. It also doesn't take days on the dyno to fully tune it. As with a carb, the longer you spend tuning, the better the tune will be. Once full-load tuning is done on the dyno, light-load tuning is best done under real-world driving conditions on the road. Things like cold-start enrichment and warm-up maps obviously require a cold engine. These may take more time to tune, but that's only because a carb doesn't have these extra abilities. Building a fuel map from scratch can take a lot of time if you have little experience. However an experienced tuner very seldom needs to do this though. Many will have complete maps available from similar engine that will quickly have the engine running and ready for fine-tuning. Hell, you can find those on the internet without any trouble.

Judging by your comments on this article, either you don't know enough about programmable EFI to criticise it, or you're simply trying to justify your earlier comments.

RoninAutoBoX

Still not stoichiometric......

hahahahha. Testy are we? Anybody looking for performance is going to lose a lot more than a gallon of gas per tank anyway, so how can you say that it is so important? Anyone who chooses to run turbo vs. N/A power is going to lose at least that much just protecting their engine from detonation in fact. Obviously all those people out there who drive 13 mpg sportscars aren't crying that they lost a bunch of gas to make power. Maybe you will fight to the death for that 1 gallon or less, but that is simply your opinion, the way that you feel. It is not a significant difference just because you say it is.


So in other words, you can't really prsent any facts, and you're going to continue to provide us with more specious reasoning and opinions. Great. Still no facts to support your claims.

That is still specious reasoning. That may show that there are a lot of owners who pay the money for EFI and feel that they get their money's worth, and as I said before, if I was doing a high dollar buildup, I would spend top dollar on the EFI system too, but it does not prove that carbs are substantially inferiorl. You're making an assumption about an assumption. It's funny how for all of the arguments that you now make, I see no factual comparison between EFI and carb, except for you to name a bunch of features that are already controlled by other parts of the car.

The real question is, why would people still pay big money for brand new EFI systems when:

and

Why then would people keep shelling out $2300-$3000 in parts alone for TEC3 setups when perfectly good ECUs can be had for around $300 supposedly. See how poorly specious reasoning works? Never use specious reasoning on human beings, they're too unpredictable for it to work, besides, I could always just come back and explain to you once again the racing teams that prefer carb to EFI, but teven that wouldn't really prove anything except that carb is still a valid system.



1. If you want to set it again, you need the laptop.

2. This system is unnecessary with a carb setup. As I said before, cars with carbeurators ran AC years before most of us were born, and they never had a problem with it. I guess the real question is, how is this feature an advantage?

Yet, if you want to set it up, you need to do it with a laptop.

Uh huh.......speaks for itself.

BTW, it is not required to use a distributor with a carbeurator. ( I assume that is what a "dizzy" is?)

Oh, I am so sorry, you never called it worthless, you only completely contradicted my comment that carbs are not obsolete, a word meaning useless instead of worthless. My mistake, I am so sorry!


Oh boy. The fact that i even mentioned it proves that a 10 year old car is not going to be totally reliable. That is all, I used it as an example to prove my point. If i wanted a warrantied car, I would have bought one. I can't believe you actually think that I bought a 14 year old car and then started complaining that i didn't have a warranty on it. You're really grabbing for air with this one. If you can't provide any facts, stop spouting this crap.

If they are doing a highperformance buildup of a rotary engine, they probably are! Need I go once again and find the amounts of money that some people have spent on their buildups? They aren't usually cheap.

I said from the very beginning that I don't believe anything printed in a company's sales brochures, and there is a good reason why. I brought out all of those examples in case anyone actually wanted to use that article for their argument, just as MPM did twice. Just letting everyone know that double edged sword swings both ways.

Judging by your comments, I'd say that you don't have alick of evidence to support any claim that you have made, in fact, your claim that there is a "significant" difference between EFI and carb is about as vague as it gets, which prompted me to ask for some evidence in the first place. You have attempted to define this using nothing but assumptions. (If this were this, then why would this?) And if you really believe that it is better to spend more money than to ay less and get an older, slightly inferior example, go park your FC and buy an RX-7 SP1 or something.