georgiaguy246

I know this is a stupid question and all but I don't know that much about engines. What would be better for a daily driver/sleeper a carborated or a fuel injected engine? Which would get better gas mileage? Better horse power? Responds to mods better? Lasts longer? What do you perfer? etc. Just give me some info to give me some free education. Thanks,

P Zero

1) Personal preferance when it comes down to which is a better sleeper.2) Fuel injection will get better milage. 3&4) Carbs resppond better to mods, and are A LOT cheaper to build. 5) Id say they last equally as long, but fuel injection has more parts that can go bad. 6) On stangs I prefer carbs, unless its forced induction (turbo) then Id say fuel injection. I only prefer carbs because it simplifies everything under the hood, not to mention its WAY cheaper to build a FAST carbed car rather than a EFI car, simply for the fact that for just the price of the EFI manifolds, injectors, tuning, etc.etc. you can buy heads, intake, cam and carb for the same amount.
-P.

88stangaruu

Pretty much what he said.

Plus if you built the same exact motor (cam, heads, bottom end, headers) wise, the carb'd engine would make more hp generally. Probably around 20hp more overall.

EFI is going to have much better drivability, especially cold start wise.

A carb'd motor is going to be about $900-$1000 cheaper to build in just about any case, depending if you bought everything new of course.

I prefer carb'd engines to. If you've ever had a problem with an EFI car, it can be a pain in the *** to fix if your not sure what your looking for or if you dont have a code reader. Not to mention a bit more exspensive to iron out the wrinkles. Not to mention all your tuning is done with a screwdriver and a box of jets as far as a carb'd engine goes.

As far as forced induction goes. EFI is much easier to tune and keep it that way. You can adjust everything down to pin point precision which makes working with boost a bit better. You can supercharge a carb'd car also. Usually any S/C'r or Turbo kit you can buy for an EFI car, you can get a carb box and run the same set up, only with a carburetor. But i think EFI is a good bit better forced induction wise.

P Zero

Yeah carbs tend not to like a bunch of air gettin jammed down its throat, there are special carbs out there made for this purpose but theyre very expensive.
-P.

88stangaruu

Yea supercharger carbs are a pretty penny, i think they're like $650+ each.

georgiaguy246

This is helping a lot. But what if you were going to make a badass engine thats just engine and not S/C or anything like that. Which would ya'll go with? Which would be cheaper? Better gas mileage? Thanks,

88stangaruu

EFI is going to give better gas mileage.

Carb is going to make the engine more badass/old school.

EFI is going to have much better drivabilty.

Carb is going to be much cheaper.

A 351 with a carb is probably going to net the most power out of the usual motors people swap into Mustangs. A stroked 351 is going to definatly be the rout to make power with a N/A motor. But not the only way by any means. N/A carb'd 331's and 347's can usually break the 400hp mark with decent heads and a nice carb set up . But a N/A carb'd motor is going to eat some gas, especially to make some good power its going to need gas.

Twister

If a carb will produce more HP, then why was fuel injection invented by racers and used by every form of racing other than NASCAR?

vristang

I think the power potential of each (carb vs efi) is exactly the same.
Maybe in the old days of efi, when little was known about the systems, carbs could easily make more power.
Today I question the peak power advantage usually given to carbs.

The difference between the 2 was explained to me by a professor pretty well.
There are 3 major design characteristics when designing an engine.
Power
Economy
Emissions

With a carb you can optimize the tune for any 1 of these three, and still do fairly well in the others.
With efi you can select 2 of these three, and still do very well in the other.
Since most carb guys give up completely on emissions, they can compromise on the other 2 characteristics.

This is of course speaking very generally, but it gives a good idea of what the compromises are.


Most say that efi is more complicated, but in most cases, emphatic advocates of carbs have little experience with efi.
EFI is not terribly complicated, once you have taken the time to understand what the computer does and how.

Also, I am not sure the cost advantage is there for a carb.
The major question in this argument is going to be what parts you have to start with.
If you are starting from scratch, then it is possible that a carb setup could be cheaper.
If you already have a MAF efi car, then I think the cost advantage could easily go to the efi option.

The issue of drivability is a big one in my mind, as a high horsepower car with a carb will usually sound like a high power car at idle.
A efi car on the other hand can sound pretty tame at idle (if the setup is tuned properly).

The factory A9* computers can control a well built car amazingly well.
If high overlap cams are desired though, a custom dyno tune or a handheld tuner will help the idle quality a great deal.

jason

georgiaguy246

Hey vristang do you have any more articles or sites that I can read more about the difference between the two. You always have great info. Ok I got another question. Say I was going to build a engine and start from scratch. I am building trying to get over the 300hp mark and also trying to watch that it dosen't gulp gas cause I ain't rich. Sorta have a daily driver/sleeper. Which way should I go. Carb or efi? hit me up on some suggestions and comments. Thanks guys!