Another "Is Fuel Injection a Worthwhile Upgrade?" Question
I won't even insult you by saying "some people cannot wrap their head around tuning a carb", but I will say as awesome as your setup is where is the benefit in that for the average weekend hotrodder?. If someone likes all the best tech of cars that's great but the average car guy doesn't need any more than a good grasp on tuning a carb to accomplish all the things you mentioned above. I am far from anti efi but it absolutely depends on what someone is trying to accomplish.
One of the main reasons I see mentioned as pro efi are drivability and reliability so what happens when you have a failure of a part 100 miles down the road?. That is one of my main complaints about aftermarket efi is reliability, have you had a successful track record over ten years and several thousand miles to back up the reliability of a certain affordable system?. Not being a smartass but asking the question seriously, some guys have a heart attack over hitting the road with an msd box and now we are talking about a complete electronically controlled system.
When Finnegan ran blaspheme at drag week it had to be efi, it only makes sense but take a look at the price of his efi setup!. When Kindig builds a custom 100k car it makes sense, when the guy next door wants to geek out and build something cool it makes sense, when the average guy asks if it is an upgrade for a properly tuned carb on his weekend warrior the answer in my mind is no.
In my case, outside of the ECU, every single part is something from a production car made in the last 25 years. You can buy them at at auto parts store anywhere. I can tell by the picture his isn't much different short of the coils, which I may just not know the application (I have the exact same TB). Losing an injector or coil will not keep you from getting home. Neither will losing the TPS, IAC, CLT, IAT, O2 on a single failure. I would say overall the thing that would make the engine not run in a system like this is if you lost the crank sensor. I used a Ford Ranger 3.0 sensor, which is VR (which is not a smart sensor, its literally a coil of wire with a magnet), they are unlikely to fail in the first place. Same with a total ECU failure IMO.
I've got about 7k miles on mine with the EFI, not a single failure of anything. The coils, cam sensor (5.2 magnum distributor base) were used when I put it together.
If you looked at the two types of "engine management systems" because EFI is not just a fuel system, using a DFMEA, you'd find that the EFI has more components, but each component is simpler (outside of the ECU), but there are more of them. A carb alone has a myriad of things that can go wrong. I think you would have to score a carb/distributor as more likely to have a failure in the case that the parts have good quality. Dirt can be a problem for both (carb is more likely to actually be stopped by it since basic fuel injector cleaner usually gets an underperforming injector back to normal) but there's nothing in an EFI system that the E10 fuel eats up like the fuel pump diaphragm or power valve. It's also less likely to develop a leak since all the seals are o-ring or NPT on the rails.
Its frankly odd and embarrassing to see that none of these carb makers went to using o-ring parameter seals on the fuel bowls and metering blocks for example. There just hasn't been a mindset to eliminate all failures. Especially in these more expensive billet carbs.
If you want to run a carb, great, you can live with the compromises. If you were doing $1500 carbs + MSD Box + ProBillet Distributor+ Datalogging +Wideband + E-fan controller + 2 step, its getting to parity on price now. Your chances of getting it right with EFI for every situation are still a lot higher. Way easier to get help if you need it also since you can literally email someone the tune and the datalogging trace.
