Elec. Fuel Injection carb.....anyone?

OZ40

Active Member
I've noticed Holley has come out with a series of Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI) systems housed within a factory look carburetor body. My question is has anyone tried these and how did they work for you? My '60 LeSabre has the 401 motor and the dynaflow trans. I also have a petronix unit instead of points. Would one of these EFI systems work with my car? My current carb works fine but I've heard fuel injection is much more driveable and reliable.
 
Depending on the type of unit it CAN be. Most cases NO. The MUCH more expensive units will work much better than a seemingly low cost unit. By the time you end up the seemingly low cost usually balloons into MANY more $$$$ especially if you can't do MUCH of the work yourself. Will end up costing 2K or more with you doing the majority of the work..
Just my thoughts.


Tom T.
 
Thanks Tom

Thanks for the reply Tom. The units I saw ran the gamut in price starting around $900.00 up to around 1400.00. Some of them had electronics covering the trans too, which is what made me wonder since I have a dynaflow. I was going to call Holley's tech line and talk to them but I thought since they work for the company they might not be totally straight with me. Since this is the first time I've seen these I guess the next generation of them will be better yet.
 
Efi

OZ40, you would not be sorry, I believe, if you did this. I did it some time back on my Straight Eight. Let me tell you, I am a happy camper! Todays gasoline is formulated to run under pressure, not sitting in an atmospheric bowl in the carb. Not the carbs fault. Remember, no car has been built with a carb since 1984, if I remember correctly.

Pricy, but the hobby is pricy. I am building a "hot" 263 to replace the 248 in my '50. It will have EFI.


Ben
 
Todays gasoline is formulated to run under pressure, not sitting in an atmospheric bowl in the carb.



AvGas has always had a much higher vapor pressure value than pump gas because it must remain liquid at high altitude so i sincerely doubt that 'modern formulations' of pump gas are going to cause any significant difficulty for carbed induction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas#Properties

i know i've run AvGas in a carbed induction 455 race car and it worked flawlessly.





no car has been built with a carb since 1984, if I remember correctly.




something like that, yeah.

doesn't really matter though, pump gas is still used in carbed lawn mowers, motorcycles, boats and all sorts of off road / race vehicles. and it still works fine.

also, race gas is still widely available and that would be still be specifically formulated for carbed engines as NASCAR is pretty much the only major US sanctioning body which has gone all EFI.

http://www.racegas.com/fuel/compare



the only 'major' concern that an old engine like a straight 8 might have is that modern formulations no longer have any TEL / tetra ethyl lead in them. the lead additive was primarily an additional lubricant for the valve guides and seats.

lead is still available in 100LL AvGas ( the LL stands for "low lead ) and in race formulations so if you feel like you need it, you can still get it.
 
My feeling is that because of the straight 8's fuel distribution via the intake manifold/head design that injection would be a worthwhile step in the direction to have more even fuel distribution, especially if you went to port injection. Remember how poorly the 1st. v-6's ran with a carb. Then fuel injection came out & made a world of diff.
Just my thoughts, again.
 
Just 4 cruisin'

As you can guess, with a land yacht like my '60 I was looking at EFI not for racing or tons more power but for better cold & hot start-ups, maybe a little better mileage, and above all since we take long trips in it, reliability. Could this be a true EFI system if the injection takes place in a carb style unit or is it a sort of injection system?
 
Could this be a true EFI system if the injection takes place in a carb style unit or is it a sort of injection system?


unless you have, at a minimum, Port Injection for each individual cylinder, you're still going to have the same uneven cylinder mixtures problem presented by carburetion. because that's simply a function of the intake plenum underneath the carb base.


you'd likely have better control over rich / lean and cold start because you wouldn't be completely dependent on chokes and jets working properly. also, in a good FI system, there's going to be a feedback loop from the burnt exhaust gases. with a carb you have to adjust the idle mixture and what not to current humidity and temp conditions. then you walk away and hope nothing changes too much.

EFI connected to an exhaust O2 sensor will, for the most part, tune itself in.


that is where getting a quality system in the first places comes into play.
 
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