Another "Is Fuel Injection a Worthwhile Upgrade?" Question
There is actually a Motor Trend (engine masters) "carb trumps EFI" somewhere out there. I swear I watched it. But now I can't find it.
There are plenty. Carbs dump fuel no matter what the motor wants via the accelerator pump. The motor basically catches up to the carb then it just pulls what it wants rich or not depending on the jetting. EFI has to catch up to the motor (in feedback loop mode), ie. you mash the gas, the MAP goes down, the car goes lean and the computer has to play catch up metering the injectors duty cycle to get it to stoich (or whatever the tune says) and this is an injector chasing the RPM scenario. Meanwhile the carbed motor is pulling away. Now this sampling happens in milliseconds but EFI are designed to be clean, metering the motor what it can burn. you can tell them to be rich at WOT past what they are supposed to be at but that is the
tune not the EFI itself. Many WOT's go out to open loop and override the O2 feedback and now your tune better be spot on as its running blind, computing the RPM with the MAP to a table....keep an eye on the AF guage! Cold starts, emissions, ease of driving...it was an evolution of the carburetor to meet current emissions standards. Start an EFI in the -10 night and drive it away, try that with a choke in under 20 seconds. You cant really carb a motor with a supercharger on it and have it idle all day in traffic with the A/C on, and warranty it for 50K for any driveability issues like the current Hellcats, and Mustangs. High pressure pump is the easiest part. then its about 3-4 sensors and the TB (or MPFI injectors) go bank fire so its only a 2 channel system, no need for sequential-no performance gains there. Batch fire is just TBI closer to the valves as they all pulse at once. If you adapt the Ford EEC-IV with its mass air valve, it self tunes to a stock or slight cam. Lots of older 5.0's still running around with their original ECU's and stock tunes. IT doesnt care what its powering as long as the inputs line up. About half of them dont matter on the ECU plug, ie. transmission temp, what gear its in, A/C, seat belts, etc. Modern bolt ons dont have that stuff and are self tuning too nowadays. Good luck. TBI it and carry a carb and a fuel pressure regulator in the trunk if it makes you feel safer. Electronic stuff is getting better every year. reliability of a sensor on top of a vibrating 200F motor is something else. The old systems were erector sets compared to today's LEGOs in engineering and integration. I saw a surveillance hard drive today that had a MTBF of 1,000,000 hours, that's like 117 years.
