Downsides to carburetion?

shootme5150

New Member
Jul 12, 2003
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Denver
So I was talking to someone today and it hit me... this EFI shyt is EXPENSIVE. MAF conversion, new injectors, new intake, tweecer or new chip once the performance additions have been made... PITA. All cars I've had that have been built were old school, so they were carbed. Much cheaper, easier to work on, etc. What are the downsides to going with a carb?
 
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You have to do eveything yourself....which....if you are an enthusiast... is somthing you will actually enjoy. They are less efficient by about 5-10 hp which you gain back by the more efficient intake you will get during the swap. People are gonna say MPG, but I've tuned my carb to do 25 mpg with 3.73's and a t-5. The po po will give you a hard time as will inspection stations cause they want you buying new cars instead of toying with old ones.

Thats about it.

If you live at sea level and climb to 12,000 feet in colorado in an afternoon, you might need to turn some screws up on the summit as there is no auto-adjustments made for air density or temp. I generally play with the idle screws once a season and run 65 jets all around all year round.
 
crazy pete actually had a pretty good write up on all the things you would need to swap to carberation a few theads ago.

The only down side that I ever had was cold starting in Michigan when it was 0- -20F out. But that was on a 87 F-body and not a Mustang.
 
The key to a good cold start is a small carb. Good strong vacuum signal makes a world of difference. Yeah...you might need to throttle blip for 5-10 seconds but then it'll run pretty good. Oh, and that is without a choke. I hate chokes: the darn things never work right or they jam open/shut, the PITA things.
 
Yeah, I had any Eddy 600 with vacuum advance on my 350 (in the F-body).. I am sure the reason that it had trouble starting was because the cam didn't really make vacuum very well. So far, that has been the fastest car I ever owned...

But, that was the only downside to my carb'd Fire-turd. Other than that, you will love it!
 
The biggest downside for me is that the car came stock with EFI, so it doesn't look 100% legal with a huge chrome air filter sticking out the hood (under a scoop but still...). I'd rather see a nice EFI setup but those things cost soo much to get it done right but I'm saving up all the parts I will need for a nice EFI setup.

Driveability? No problem there

Durability? Pretty good stuff, no check engines or anything ;)

Efficiency? You can't compare a huge intake with 650cfm carb with a stock EFI setup but even then you won't see much of a difference in MPG (mine gets better MPG with the 650cfm double pump than my cousin's stock 95 GT).