impossible, cars barely ran under their own power before EFI was invented!!!

 

The supprising thing, is that some people will actualy tell you that..

However, In all fairness I should say that when I had stock tires on my truck, I would get 13mpg with the 302. The stock EFI motor just couldn't handle the bigger tires.

 

hey all, quick question for those of you that already did the efi to carb swap, what exactly is involved as far as electronics/wiring is concerned? im really interested in doing this to my truck (88 5.0 5-speed). do you just remove the computer/harness and everything that's connected to it (sensors)? i know illneed amechanical fuel pump and a new distributor, that's no problem, but are there anymore electrical modifications that are needed? thanks!

 

check to make sure your front cover is set up for a manual fuel pump, my 87 5.0 wasnt. i just used a plain jane electric pump with about 7 lbs of fuel pressure. you will have to get a throttle linkage plate for under the carb. if you have ac make sure you find the wires to the clutch on the compresor.
i just eliminated the rest of the sensors i didnt need. theres no smog pump, cats ect.

 

I would rather rely on a simple mechanical carburetor than a complex computerized electrical system...

..... I know an equal amount about EFI and Carburation... And I would trust EFI over Carb any day and any place.... Anyone who says different either likes the HP that Carb makes or has had bad experience with electronic problems.... If EFI was not as reliable or easy to fix as Carb, then why do almost all cars and trucks (almost all cars and trucks) have EFI? Because in 20 years, you don't have to worry about rebuilding anything... And if something does go wrong with it, it is simple to find and easy to fix... Usually you don't have to take it all apart and then rebuild it or fix it, you can just pop the hood, hook it up to a computer/ and or have someone with knowledge about EFI to look at it and maybe replace an injector, or replace a cracked vacuum hose....

 

a carburetor will generally give you some indication that something's amiss...

EFI can quite literally leave you stranded!

I'm a bit of a boyscout, so I keep a spare Duraspark box and pickup coil and a cheap electric fuel pump (to bypass the mechanical with just in case) in the car.

barring a catastrophic mechanical failure of the drivetrain, those are the only three things that could possibly leave me stranded, and they are very cheap/simple to replace/fix on the side of the road.

I've messed with tons of carb and efi cars... I've converted EFI cars to carb, and I've converted carb cars to EFI.

I will admit that the horsepower factors into my preference for carbureted setups... I have a hard time knowing that I left anything on the table!! LOL!

but I still contend that a carb is ultimately more reliable and less hassle. that has been *my* personal experience.

Forrest

 

The driving force for EFI was emissions and fuel mileage.By using a o2 sensor and feedback controls with a catalytic converter you can eliminate alot of the HC emissions from the engine.EFI is more precise for measuring fuel delivery.It is however more complicated.This becomes an issue with a 10-15 year old vehicle.Wires become brittle and lose voltage over time.Most of the time the ecu will tell you if a sensor has a hard failure.But if the ground connection for the 02 is bad or a wire to an injector is dropping voltage or grounding it can't tell.EFI is more efficient but more complicated.It's pretty easy to rejet a carb.Ever try to change a fuel curve on an efi set up? Not unless you can make a computer chip or reprogram it.Todays engines are getting so complicated the home wrencher has a hard time repairing them,much less finding a problem.A carb set up with no emisssions controls is easy to trouble shoot.I have a rich fuel condition on a 90 Bronco.No codes,4 mechanics(including a dealer cannot find the problem).I am down to checking resistance on every wire into the ecm from the 02 and injectors etc.The computer thinks every thing is fine.

CB