Another "Is Fuel Injection a Worthwhile Upgrade?" Question
Carbs make more power everywhere. If you can’t get the drivability out of them, that’s on the tuner.
Again, we’re it not for CAFE we wouldn’t even have roller lifters. You can argue all you want but that is the FACT. The US government, which doesn’t know jack **** about oil, cars or anything else, using the EPA decided that phosphorus and zinc needed to be significant reduced and THAT is why you have roller lifters. And BTW and FWIW, they had to change the oil because the same morons decided that catalytic converters would save the world.
I can go on about stupid technology but you think I’m old and stupid so I’m done with it.
Unless you are using some power adder a carb is BY FAR simpler, and easier to use. I you want EFI then do it. Just don’t tell me how smart you are and how stupid I am because I don’t bu that line of ****.
All the pro racer guys where allowed by rules run roller cams, I mean you can call Jesel, Comp, Lunati, etc up and tell them exactly what you said. They will laugh at you. Rollers make more power due to the ramp rate, and the area under the curve where the valve is open, and reduced friction. You can design a way better camshaft with that, carb or not. Yes, flat tappet cams are cheaper. You want to run one, great. Roller cams are a technology that has one downside, cost.
You can absolutely still buy oil with ZDDP in it. I do it, I think pretty much all of us do it because it's cheap insurance. It will reduce the life of a catalytic converter and add some small amount of carbon buildup. They didn't start changing the oil standard until the mid 90s, yet roller cams appeared in the 1980s in production cars, Chevy, Ford, Chrysler, you name it, just about the time the corner started turning on performance for the first time since the 70s.
BTW: CAFE is corporate average fuel economy. If you want to blame that for cars having 4 cyl engines, small displacement turbos, flex fuel, electric cars, why car companies SUVs or whatever, fine, I would even agree with you then. I don't like it either, I would rather the market decided. I still don't think if it was gone or never existed everyone would have a carb V8 with a flat tappet cam and points right now. Honestly the LS/LT, Gen 3 Hemis, Ford Coyotes are all pretty great, despite having to play by the rules. The guys designing those basically made what would have been a race engine 20 years ago something you can daily drive with a warranty and then churn out thousands of them. There are also loads of cars out there that will never have a single ignition or EFI part touched in 100k miles, but apparently they're idiots according to you also.
If the carb was extra easy to use everyone would have theirs scienced out by now and there would be no problems at all. People also have eyes and ears and their own experience. The vast majority of people haven't spent and will never spend the time going through all the emulsion jets, air bleeds, power valves,you name it, if they even have a carb that supports that. I had a carb, I tuned, most people would have been happy with it, and honestly it was fine so long as the engine was warm or if it was over about 60 F outside and if you ignore fuel mileage. That's where the drawbacks started for me. It always started, it always stayed running, it just has some drawbacks that are exacerbated by the engine combo, where I live/weather, the manual transmission and 3.23 rear gear combo. This is where I went for EFI. In less time than I had spent with the carb, I had my drawbacks taken care of, the engine as far as I can tell made at least the same power, I gained 2-3 mpg. I had every intention on going on the Hot Rod Power Tour for the entire trip this year, but we saw how that went, I think my car will now easily get over 20 mpg on the freeway. The car is built to be driven on the street. I think the vast majority of people would get more enjoyment out of their car with the EFI based on their own skill level, since nearly all of these systems can get you to a decent tune in 20-60 minutes just by driving it.
Same with the distributor, the average guy tries to get a timing curve in place, you'll have the distributor out and apart at least several times working on that, limited by the available springs, weights, rotor plates that you have available. I did this also, but most people won't and their ignition timing is off. You have EFI, you can change it in 20 seconds and upload it to the ECU, so an average person will probably try a few more things there also. I ran basically the same curve in the EFI at the start that I had in the distributor. Got some extra tweaks out, and I could always go backwards in seconds. You want it dyno tuned? It'll be done in an hour by a pro tuner. Already have the data logger and no parts required.
There was even a solid roller in the pro-street chevelle my friend bought that was built in the early 90s, which also had a 4-link, 1050 Dominator, Powerglide, Iron head big block chevy, solid centerlines, 12-bolt with spool, vertex magneto basically all the old school stuff. Car went 9.90s, ran really good at WOT but it was a terrible street car at that time. Over the years he had pro carb guys work on it, dyno tune, you name it. Still not a great street car, he went to switch from the powerglide to the T56 Magnum since he cared more about street driving as the years went by vs going to the strip, and now it's getting some AFR aluminum heads and an EFI system. Guess we'll see how that goes, but I think he will be happy with the result.
Yeah, they work fine in a general sense, yeah, they're cheaper. You may not ever notice some of the drawbacks in an automatic car with a loose converter. Someone who spends a lot of time on them might have better luck on their drag car. EFI from 20 years ago also isn't the EFI from today. We also get that you hate electronics and wiring. So don't use them.
I don't think anyone owns one of these cars anymore because they're cheap, because they aren't.