Another "Is Fuel Injection a Worthwhile Upgrade?" Question

lead69 said
I do not doubt you and appreciate the input but I know quite few guys that have run "affordable" all in one efi kits and not had that level of success with dependability. I also know a few guys that have pieced together systems and the horsepower/performance results were not as good as what could be had with a more expensive truly tunable system or a carb.
I do not discourage anyone from running efi if that's what they truly desire, no different than picking a turbo or nitrous but to argue one is truly an upgrade to the other there are many variables that need to be considered. One is inherently more basic to install, generally cheaper and gets the job done quite sufficiently when tuned properly.

I know someone who installed a Holley sniper and liked it, then took it to the drag strip and the car ran badly by about 3/4 track. So he sends out the data log and its at 100% injector duty and the AFR is 18:1. It didn't have any fuel pressure sensor, but it was starving for fuel. The problem was using the external fuel pump kit and the stock unbaffled tank/pickup. Fixed that, all was good. I'd expect a lot of people do similar things and/or try to do a dead head PWM fuel system, put the filter between the regulator and the fuel injectors, or run the "corvette" fuel filter that is supposed to be a regulator (it's an orifice to a return line) which leaves some to be desired also. Fuel systems are more important, you don't have a bowl to give you any forgiveness. The right system to use is a bypass regulator after the injectors with the same size return line as feed.

The other stuff is wiring, if someone is the type that uses the blue insulated crimp connectors and crummy crimping tools, that could bring trouble.

Finally, and really the last concern I would have on systems that have the ECU in the throttle body, is the temperature in which the electronics reach. Get much over 100 C / 212 F and uprated electronics are needed and I can't say if they are actually used there. It's somewhat likely for it to reach or exceed that temperature at some point.