360 block limits

frosty_the_punk said
I'm not discounting your observations and it's true that the learning curve of EFI is steeper than with a carburetor.

There is a lot to learn to get EFI to run. A lot of people make mistakes within initial startup and getting base tune parameters.. It takes some time and knowledge to get a good configuration compared to a "bolt on and drive away" carburettor.

But after your base tune is sorted, dialing in for wide open throttle is easily the quickest and easiest part of EFI tuning. It's the "driving around town" stuff that gets fiddly.

All modern ECUs have onboard datalogging so there's no strict necessity for dyno time.
You can make a run, play it back, make observations and implement any desired changes accordingly.

Specifically in the last 5 years the resources needed to learn to calibrate EFI have become much more widely available and affordable.

Having a small amount of experience with engine management calibration I found a website called "high performance academy" which offers webinars and instructional videos which have been extremely helpful and have allowed me to expand my knowledge in leaps and bounds.

I do like carburettors for their simplicity, but the more I learn about EFI calibration the more apparent it becomes that the difference between tuning with a laptop and tuning with jets or metering rods is like the difference between a scalpel and a hammer.

I'm 36 years old, what I've found is that guys 10yrs younger than me overwhelmingly aren't interested in carburetors at all because there are too many limitations, and guys 10rs older than me overwhelmingly aren't interested in learning to tune/install EFI at all because they're too complex or cost prohibitive.

Learning curve? If that was all there was to tuning EFI, everybody'd have it. I have a local friend who does high end restorations and builds. Almost all are LS powered with some sort of aftermarket EFI. Almost every one of his ends up "unfinished" because once he gets them "running" his customers rarely want to spend the 800 or so dollars to send it out to get it tuned. ......and to get them dead right, you have to have a dyno. I always thought that was rather funny that a customer spending between 75 and 100K on a build or restoration balks at 800-1000 for a tune, but almost every one of them do.....and then their junk only runs as a shadow of itself and they ***** to everyone they can find what a shitty job the builder did. No, there's much more than just a learning curve. At least with a carburetor, you can figure it out between you and the dragstrip.