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Starting my journey: carb or fuel Injected?


rhys_himself

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Agree with Lyonspride with the twin 40's

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Don't see a problem with webers got 45s on my 2.0 zetec always starts hot and cold and runs well all you need is a good back plate to hold them together and they stay in balance done 7000 miles and all I have changed is the floats and trumpets got a decent dyno man who knows them inside out happy days,had loads of bikes the carbs on them they are no easier to sort out you just need a good dyno guy who knows what he is doing loads out there who haven't got a clue in my experience

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We ran 40s on our Xflow for years. They were brand new with the right progression holes for the engine, set up by a man who knew his Weber onions. Much as you say, started hot or cold, seemed to run fine. Any 'character*' was put down to it having a moderate state of tune and the folklore of 'it's a lumpy cam, it'll always be a bit rubbish below 3000rpm'. Fitted mapped ignition to help with the cranking (11:1 CR and 13 degrees of static advance can be demanding on a small bettery) and discovered it was a different car - having fitted the ECU, converting to FI was a simple step and a set of GSXR 600 TBs finished the job. It probably didn't make any more power on FI, but it was just so much better to drive and more economical too. The 'character*' just vanished.

 

I think it's a case of carbs, even properly set up (increasingly hard to do these days) are always going to have more compromises than EFI. Badly set up EFI is no joke either - seen some epic fails there too.

 

 

* 'character' defined as spitting, farting, popping, dribbling petrol everywhere, flooding if you didn't get the starting technique just right, pants mpg even if driven like a saint, perpetual odor of petrol.

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Haha totally agree with *character!!!

TBH reason I now say FI is that it is only the webers now stopping me from using the car more regular and even SORNing it - & I love all year round usage!

If I drive 30 miles to work I don't want to have to wash the *character off me every time!!

Yes I can get them set up AGAIN but I just want reliabilty safety and not worry. I hope the bike carb set i'm fitting will prove a good compromise as a Pinto foesnt warrant a TB conversion - I'd rather upgrade the car with the money.

Just my view / experiences not slating Webers!

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Rhys, in my opinion it is a matter of cost. At the bottom end of your budget, the majority of cars will be running on carbs, and that is fine. However, in the upper half of your budget most cars will be running with fuel injection. In fact, it isn't so much fuel injection which is the advantage, but rather throttle bodies with the fueling and ignition timing controlled by an electronic control unit.

There isn't any comparison in my opinion, if the engine is quite highly tuned. These days, with a properly mapped ecu, you can drive a car with virtually a full race engine at not much more than a fast tickover in top gear without a problem. So what you are getting with throttle bodies and an ecu is smooth tractability and drive-ability, despite a high state of tune.

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Welp, all of the above sounds pretty much exactly as expected!

I have to say I did really enjoy stinking of fuel on my bikes, and taking my enduro swimming while greenlaning then just being able to drain the carb and ride off is really useful considering an electronic unit would likely have just shorted out, however I want something my missus won't complain about smelling of dead dinosaurs, and that I can just get in and drive.

I totally appreciate the feeling of accomplishment when getting carbs balanced and set up just right, but I'd rather just have a computer do it :)

 

I'm finding the price is pretty much as you mention as well, Mr H. ALthough the injected ones get snapped up much quicker than carbed.

So I'm staying on target now- injected or none!

 

On a related note, what do you think could realistically be expected of power out of a 1.8 Zetec on uprated throttle bodies,exhaust and remap?

I may have found the right 2.0l but would like to know if a 1.8 is still an option if not..

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Just to add to this, my old Fiat lump has a set of R1 carbs along with a traditional dizzy ignition. It's running some pretty aggressive cams but power delivery is still pretty smooth - they were originally set up by Torque Tune and then re-balanced a few weeks ago by NMS.

 

Fuel consumption is admittedly not great, and I could probably eke more power from a mappable setup, but overall it suits the engine very well. It also sounds bl**** lovely.

 

I can’t say I’ve noticed a strong smell of fuel, but it does occasionally launch crackly salvos of unburnt fuel at unsuspecting passers by (carbs are pavement side in the Lampredi twin, unlike the zetec) ;)

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