Carbs, to me, are easy, and CHEAP (best of all). Fuel injection there is SOOOO much stuff to buy, the upper plenum, the lower plenum, bigger injectors, bigger TB, MAF, yadda yadda, with as much money as you spend on the intake alone, you coulda bought some TFS heads (whatever, victors jr.), the intake, the carb, cam, exhaust, and a gear. Obviously that would be for one badass FI intake setup but you get my point. And because I drive a carbed setup I notice the throttle lag between carb and FI. Carbs are instant, FI has a split second lag. As in if you quickly rap the gas pedal, with FI your foot will be off the pedal befor it revs, the carb revs right away. Tuning is way easier too, you buy a kit with different size jets and switch em out as neccessary. O and when lookin for a carb MAKE SURE IT HAS AN ANTI BACKFIRE CHECK VALVE. The older carbs dont have the check valve ball thing, and they blow out the power valve.
-P.

 

you said carbs respond better than FI.. i dont agree there. every carb'd car ive owned responded crappy.

i think a carb'd setup pulls harder than an FI setup. i know theres alot of factors but a 4 barrell at WOT will grab u by the ***** and pin u to the seat.

fuel injection definitely has its advantages and disadvantages. i think if ur car is a drag/street car a carb would be easier to work with. for a daily driver nothing beats fuel injections

 

If tuned properly the throttle response is instant. But thats the key, it has to be tuned right. Before I got my probe as a daily driver, my stang was my daily car. Ive had NO problems with it, in the winter time it started up just fine. Actually started the exact same way whether it was 80 degress outside or -20. And that with my old crappy Holley, my new one is way better. Even my ranger (5.0, AOD), has a carb, I put a edelbrock on that, 750 vacuum secondaires. I think the only advantage with FI is its easier to diagnose, cuz all you do is plug in a scanner and it tells you whats wrong.
Im just partial to em, my 79 stang was a carb (650 vacuum sec), with most of the stock 85 parts on it, it ran great. Never had any issues with it.
Heres the trick to setting your carbed car up right, when setting the timing, initially set it to whats specified by the factory. Then throw the timing light out, loosen the disty, (with the car running), set it to throttle response. When its instant your dead nuts on. Thats how I tune everything. I dont even remember the last time I used a timing light to set the timing.
Heres a little story of timing, my dad has a 91 tbird, he had the motor rebuilt, when he got the car back, it ran ok but it didnt pull worth a damn. I went out there loosened the disty, set it to throttle response. Next time he drove it he called me up and asked what I did to it, that it didnt even feel like the same car. Its all in tuning.
-P.

 

i like fuel injection better because if tuned right u can build serious power and not have to sacrifice gas milage i drive 22 miles one way to work and that adds up to a lot of money in gas. well goin off u said that ur battery was unpluged u may have to go get ur computer reflashed

 

are u running a stock bottom end? if so that cam is not going to fit in that motor, you would bend the hello out of the valves. the heads u have also have 2.02 valves right?

 

...EEC-IV's don't rely on battery power to keep their programming.

 

how are your 02 sensors? if they're constantly detecting a lean mixture it will tell the computer to put in more fuel to richen it up. and the coolant temp sensor as well. if it doesnt tell the computer the engine is warm, it'll inject more fuel becuase it thinks its cold.

 

it also sounds like your custom chip might be over calibrated or something.

 

your ecm does not need to be reflashed. the only thing that happens when you disconnect the battery is that the trouble codes get cleared. if you switch to carb, you will need a distributor and an ignition box, such as msd or duraspark, etc. also, your mileage will suck. highway will be ok, but city will suck you dry. there is greater initial expense when upgrading the efi as compared to carbs, but the improvement in cold starting, driveability, and fuel economy will offset that. not to mention that if you intend to keep your ac, the efi will compensate your idle and the carb can't do that.

think of it this way: if carb's, which are over 100 years old, were better, oem's would still be using them.

also, don't fool with any carb but a demon. they're better, period.

 

Well I had a chance to look at things closer this weekend. I found a wire melted to the exhaust. It was one of the transmission wires (Orange colored). It had shorted out and melted all the way to the plug under the drivers side dash. I didnt see anymore melted wire under the dash. So this leaves me with another question. Could this have shorted out my computer? I noticed that while trying to eliminate things that when I unplugged the MAF and TPS there was no difference in the way that the car ran.