Another "Is Fuel Injection a Worthwhile Upgrade?" Question

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Nobody will read this and care, but I'll respond with what I know. Both FI and Carbs work. I think most don't understand how a carb works, no matter how long they have run them. I'm still learning as well. But for clarification, let me use these two examples....
  • I put a 750 double pumper on a super six intake (using adaptor) on a stock bottom end 225 slant six using the original head as well. No header. It ran great and performed awesome.
  • I, right now, have 1200 cfm's on a stock short block 318 with 318 heads. It performs fantastic.
I said that to say this: Carbs operate by being pressurized and if set up right, will feed the engine exactly what it needs according to the pressure. The slant pulling air only pressurized the carb enough to get the fuel/air it needed. The 750 DP Holley wasn't faster than the 2bbl, but it wasn't slower either. Same can be said about the 1200 cfm's on my 318, with no headers and 318 heads w/318 valves. Most look for "bolt and go" carbs. They may run good. However, that's not optimal carburetion.
 
yellow rose said:
Yeah, I call bullshit. That’s why these threads get sideways. The EFI or die guys think they are the smartest, brightest and best tuners to ever grab a wrench and the rest of us are just knuckle dragging morons.

I hope the OP buys EFI and it works for him. I swear to God it’s hard to find anyone more arrogant than an EFI or die guy.
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"The EFI or die guys think they are the smartest, brightest and best tuners to ever grab a wrench and the rest of us are just knuckle dragging morons." Hmm. After reading this entire post once more I fail to see where that is the case. I would think that the converse is more accurate. But that's just my opinion.:lol:
 
yellow rose said:
Did I say ALL technology was bad? You’d be surprised how far ahead of the curve I am on man things.

I guess WJ is a moron, because he said he went from Denver to Sonoma and NEVER changed a jet. A carb is a pressure differential device. It IS self adjusting unless it’s so far off it can’t compensate one way or the other enough.

In fact, if I can get a question in this week I’ll ask WJ about it and he can repeat what he wrote.
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I never said that you said anything other than what you did, however your arguments are definitely slanted one way. I don't think you are dumb or stupid, you own Mopars so obviously you have something positive going on in the thought department.

Lets approach this from another angle; carbs, EFI, points, Electronic ignition, etc. are all just tools to be used to achieve one thing or another. None of them are bad, none of them are superior in all respects. Like any tool, the user has to figure out what will get the job done for him/her. I completely recognize the simplicity and functionality of carbs, points, etc. but I really like the versatility and general ease of use of new technology; doesn't mean its "all that", just means I like it.

I have met people who have no idea how to use or tune a carb which seems very odd having grown up with them and while at present I prefer EFI, I am glad I still understand how a carb works (same with points). I do not believe that "old technology" is bad in any way, in fact in some applications it is probably superior. This doesn't make it better or worse, it makes it the right tool for the job.

Anyone here who is slamming someone because of what they know (or don't know) and what their preference is (or isn't) is an idiot and narrow minded.
 
318willrun said:
Nobody will read this and care, but I'll respond with what I know. Both FI and Carbs work. I think most don't understand how a carb works, no matter how long they have run them. I'm still learning as well. But for clarification, let me use these two examples....
  • I put a 750 double pumper on a super six intake (using adaptor) on a stock bottom end 225 slant six using the original head as well. No header. It ran great and performed awesome.
  • I, right now, have 1200 cfm's on a stock short block 318 with 318 heads. It performs fantastic.
I said that to say this: Carbs operate by being pressurized and if set up right, will feed the engine exactly what it needs according to the pressure. The slant pulling air only pressurized the carb enough to get the fuel/air it needed. The 750 DP Holley wasn't faster than the 2bbl, but it wasn't slower either. Same can be said about the 1200 cfm's on my 318, with no headers and 318 heads w/318 valves. Most look for "bolt and go" carbs. They may run good. However, that's not optimal carburetion.
Click to expand...


I agree. Interestingly enough in 1984 I was tuning my car (tunnel ram) a friends car (48 Austin with a flip up body and a TR) and another car with a single 4.

The friend with the Austin had a guy stuff some Hilborn injectors up his butt. I didn’t know jack about MFI, but since I was getting paid I had to learn and quick. So I called one of my dads life long friends who was a hydraulics engineer, among other things.

His first words were it will lose power with the injectors. That went against what everyone else said. Once the engine was ready to go on the dyno he came by to look at it. He said the tunnel ram will beat it by 50 HP and the injection was on alcohol and the carbs were gas.

He added two bypasses to the one I already had and off we go to the dyno. We brought the TR with us, thinking it wasn’t needed.

On the dyno, the injected engine would only do 485 HP and it did that at about 6000 RPM. That’s all it would turn. And that was with all 3 bypasses hooked up.

For day 2 we put the TR back on. First pull on the TR with my base tune up went 540 HP at 7200 and it carried that to 7500 so we could shift at 8000 like it was supposed to be.

Screwing around for a while we pulled 568 HP at 7200 with an engine that at best maybe would have done 500 on the injectors.

So that I would KNOw what was wrong I called the guy who told me what would happen and asked him how he knew and everyone else was wrong.

He said the stacks were way too small to feed 377 inches to start. And, with stack injection you can’t get a single stack big enough to feed much anything over 300 inches. On top of that, the injectors are highly sensitive to reversion (which was true because every time there was a dip in the torque curve we could see fuel standing off above the stacks) and between the reversion issues and lack of air it just won’t make power.

But the biggest thing he said was very amazing. He said when you get everything correct for the injection you will have “carburation”. In other words, he said perfect injection IS carburation.

Of course, I was already sold on MFI because I was switching to alcohol (another giant waste of time, money and effort) so I bought two flying toilets and a Holley Pro Dominator and walked away from carbs. For years I tuned only injected stuff, unless it was on the dyno. If a customer with a carb wasn’t happy after the engine came off the dyno he was on his own.

I don’t remember exactly when it was, but it had to be 2001ish and I was on the dyno with 4 bypases, and idle check valve with a 22 pound spring (just to get the idle in shape and as a comparison, most guys run 3-5 pound idle checks) because the nozzles were now so far up the runner it wouldn’t idle will less fuel pressure at idle. I had the first check (the main bypass) set at 68 pounds and every check after that came on 8 pounds later.

After beating on my crap all day I ended up with enough power to get what I wanted, but when I got home and really looked at the numbers and did the math, I realized I could make the same exact power on two carbs and gas and not have all the bullshit of the injection.

The moral of the story is perfect injection IS carburation.

Certainly MFI isn’t EFI, but the principles are the same. The very first EFI I helped on had issues with getting enough injectors with enough duty cycle to feed the engine. That engine was not NA so it’s a bit different and in 2000 or 2001 the injectors weren’t all that good. The fix for that was using MFI over the EFI. The EFI was for low speed stuff and staging and the MFI pretty much ran the engine when it came off the 2 step. Eventually that guy got rid of the EFI. I don’t know what he is doing today, but he may be using full EFI. Or he may be retired. I should call him.

So I said all that to this...there is no PERFECT solution to any of this. I don’t care what it is. So just blabbing that EFI is everything is as nonsensical as claiming a carb is perfect in every scenario.

Sadly, the EFI worshippers will continue to equivocate and put words in other people’s mouths and will continue to denigrate anyone who doesn’t think EFI does everything and flushes their toilets.
 
6PakBee said:
"The EFI or die guys think they are the smartest, brightest and best tuners to ever grab a wrench and the rest of us are just knuckle dragging morons." Hmm. After reading this entire post once more I fail to see where that is the case. I would think that the converse is more accurate. But that's just my opinion.:lol:
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Don’t know what you read but ok, that’s your opinion.
 
6PakBee said:
"The EFI or die guys think they are the smartest, brightest and best tuners to ever grab a wrench and the rest of us are just knuckle dragging morons." Hmm. After reading this entire post once more I fail to see where that is the case. I would think that the converse is more accurate. But that's just my opinion.:lol:
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Well put. I am an advocate for EFI usually bc the majority of people asking are not lifetime gear heads with big shops, they have a driver quality car and want reliability and drivability. I am not a "EFI or die" guy; I have decided that EFI is good for my cars and that is what I have done, but having said that I respect and recognize how well a carb can work.
 
70chall440 said:
I never said that you said anything other than what you did, however your arguments are definitely slanted one way. I don't think you are dumb or stupid, you own Mopars so obviously you have something positive going on in the thought department.

If I was to race again it wouldn’t be with a Chrysler. I’ve been shot on by chrysler enough and seen it happen to others that I wouldn’t race with one. On top of the fact you can’t buy **** for this Chrysler stuff. So I don’t know what positive comes out of being a “MoPar” guy.

Lets approach this from another angle; carbs, EFI, points, Electronic ignition, etc. are all just tools to be used to achieve one thing or another. None of them are bad, none of them are superior in all respects. Like any tool, the user has to figure out what will get the job done for him/her. I completely recognize the simplicity and functionality of carbs, points, etc. but I really like the versatility and general ease of use of new technology; doesn't mean its "all that", just means I like it.

Other than ignition timing, which most carb guys screw up and lock it out, you can do the same with a carb. You have to data log it, and by data log I don’t mean just measure engine RPM and driveshaft RPM. You need to log that AND throttle position, manifold absolute pressure, Lambda (O2 ain’t all that but you can use it) and look at all of it together. If you do that, you can narrow a carb down to do what EFI does. What you can’t do is adjust the timing curve with a computer so you have to do that mechanically, but once the curve is scienced out, there is no real reason to change it. If you have any experience with what you are tuning you should have a good idea what the curve should look like, and if not, the data should tell you what it wants. FWIW, that is almost never locked out.


I have met people who have no idea how to use or tune a carb which seems very odd having grown up with them and while at present I prefer EFI, I am glad I still understand how a carb works (same with points). I do not believe that "old technology" is bad in any way, in fact in some applications it is probably superior. This doesn't make it better or worse, it makes it the right tool for the job.

I know guys who have tuned carbs as long as I’ve been alive (maybe longer) and they STILL don’t even know how to set power valve timing. You can blame the morons at Holley for allowing that to be taught all these years. That one thing...power valve timing AND how the PV actually works is the biggest sin in carburation I can think of. And yet, they still do it.

Anyone here who is slamming someone because of what they know (or don't know) and what their preference is (or isn't) is an idiot and narrow minded.
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Well the summary I see is some efi guys saying they are an upgrade to carbs in everyway, and the carb guys saying it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. At least that is what I am saying. Then when the fact that a carb makes more power ,is cheaper, and has great drivability when tuned properly is brought up suddenly carb guys are ignorant cavemen stuck in the dark ages and don't know how to send an email.
There are allot of situations I would run efi including a 4x4, a car with a turbo or even a pro touring car that I want to drive the wheels off of to name just a few. That said I would go with the most reliable/proprietary system and not worry about cost etc.
All I think the carb guys are saying is efi has it's place but it is not an upgrade to a properly tuned carb for the average enthusiast unless you are looking for specific benefits and want to deal with the added expense and time.
 
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yellow rose said:
Carbs make more power everywhere. If you can’t get the drivability out of them, that’s on the tuner.

Again, we’re it not for CAFE we wouldn’t even have roller lifters. You can argue all you want but that is the FACT. The US government, which doesn’t know jack **** about oil, cars or anything else, using the EPA decided that phosphorus and zinc needed to be significant reduced and THAT is why you have roller lifters. And BTW and FWIW, they had to change the oil because the same morons decided that catalytic converters would save the world.

I can go on about stupid technology but you think I’m old and stupid so I’m done with it.

Unless you are using some power adder a carb is BY FAR simpler, and easier to use. I you want EFI then do it. Just don’t tell me how smart you are and how stupid I am because I don’t bu that line of ****.
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All the pro racer guys where allowed by rules run roller cams, I mean you can call Jesel, Comp, Lunati, etc up and tell them exactly what you said. They will laugh at you. Rollers make more power due to the ramp rate, and the area under the curve where the valve is open, and reduced friction. You can design a way better camshaft with that, carb or not. Yes, flat tappet cams are cheaper. You want to run one, great. Roller cams are a technology that has one downside, cost.

You can absolutely still buy oil with ZDDP in it. I do it, I think pretty much all of us do it because it's cheap insurance. It will reduce the life of a catalytic converter and add some small amount of carbon buildup. They didn't start changing the oil standard until the mid 90s, yet roller cams appeared in the 1980s in production cars, Chevy, Ford, Chrysler, you name it, just about the time the corner started turning on performance for the first time since the 70s.

BTW: CAFE is corporate average fuel economy. If you want to blame that for cars having 4 cyl engines, small displacement turbos, flex fuel, electric cars, why car companies SUVs or whatever, fine, I would even agree with you then. I don't like it either, I would rather the market decided. I still don't think if it was gone or never existed everyone would have a carb V8 with a flat tappet cam and points right now. Honestly the LS/LT, Gen 3 Hemis, Ford Coyotes are all pretty great, despite having to play by the rules. The guys designing those basically made what would have been a race engine 20 years ago something you can daily drive with a warranty and then churn out thousands of them. There are also loads of cars out there that will never have a single ignition or EFI part touched in 100k miles, but apparently they're idiots according to you also.

If the carb was extra easy to use everyone would have theirs scienced out by now and there would be no problems at all. People also have eyes and ears and their own experience. The vast majority of people haven't spent and will never spend the time going through all the emulsion jets, air bleeds, power valves,you name it, if they even have a carb that supports that. I had a carb, I tuned, most people would have been happy with it, and honestly it was fine so long as the engine was warm or if it was over about 60 F outside and if you ignore fuel mileage. That's where the drawbacks started for me. It always started, it always stayed running, it just has some drawbacks that are exacerbated by the engine combo, where I live/weather, the manual transmission and 3.23 rear gear combo. This is where I went for EFI. In less time than I had spent with the carb, I had my drawbacks taken care of, the engine as far as I can tell made at least the same power, I gained 2-3 mpg. I had every intention on going on the Hot Rod Power Tour for the entire trip this year, but we saw how that went, I think my car will now easily get over 20 mpg on the freeway. The car is built to be driven on the street. I think the vast majority of people would get more enjoyment out of their car with the EFI based on their own skill level, since nearly all of these systems can get you to a decent tune in 20-60 minutes just by driving it.

Same with the distributor, the average guy tries to get a timing curve in place, you'll have the distributor out and apart at least several times working on that, limited by the available springs, weights, rotor plates that you have available. I did this also, but most people won't and their ignition timing is off. You have EFI, you can change it in 20 seconds and upload it to the ECU, so an average person will probably try a few more things there also. I ran basically the same curve in the EFI at the start that I had in the distributor. Got some extra tweaks out, and I could always go backwards in seconds. You want it dyno tuned? It'll be done in an hour by a pro tuner. Already have the data logger and no parts required.

There was even a solid roller in the pro-street chevelle my friend bought that was built in the early 90s, which also had a 4-link, 1050 Dominator, Powerglide, Iron head big block chevy, solid centerlines, 12-bolt with spool, vertex magneto basically all the old school stuff. Car went 9.90s, ran really good at WOT but it was a terrible street car at that time. Over the years he had pro carb guys work on it, dyno tune, you name it. Still not a great street car, he went to switch from the powerglide to the T56 Magnum since he cared more about street driving as the years went by vs going to the strip, and now it's getting some AFR aluminum heads and an EFI system. Guess we'll see how that goes, but I think he will be happy with the result.

Yeah, they work fine in a general sense, yeah, they're cheaper. You may not ever notice some of the drawbacks in an automatic car with a loose converter. Someone who spends a lot of time on them might have better luck on their drag car. EFI from 20 years ago also isn't the EFI from today. We also get that you hate electronics and wiring. So don't use them.

I don't think anyone owns one of these cars anymore because they're cheap, because they aren't.
 
yellow rose said:
I agree. Interestingly enough in 1984 I was tuning my car (tunnel ram) a friends car (48 Austin with a flip up body and a TR) and another car with a single 4.

The friend with the Austin had a guy stuff some Hilborn injectors up his butt. I didn’t know jack about MFI, but since I was getting paid I had to learn and quick. So I called one of my dads life long friends who was a hydraulics engineer, among other things.

His first words were it will lose power with the injectors. That went against what everyone else said. Once the engine was ready to go on the dyno he came by to look at it. He said the tunnel ram will beat it by 50 HP and the injection was on alcohol and the carbs were gas.

He added two bypasses to the one I already had and off we go to the dyno. We brought the TR with us, thinking it wasn’t needed.

On the dyno, the injected engine would only do 485 HP and it did that at about 6000 RPM. That’s all it would turn. And that was with all 3 bypasses hooked up.

For day 2 we put the TR back on. First pull on the TR with my base tune up went 540 HP at 7200 and it carried that to 7500 so we could shift at 8000 like it was supposed to be.

Screwing around for a while we pulled 568 HP at 7200 with an engine that at best maybe would have done 500 on the injectors.

So that I would KNOw what was wrong I called the guy who told me what would happen and asked him how he knew and everyone else was wrong.

He said the stacks were way too small to feed 377 inches to start. And, with stack injection you can’t get a single stack big enough to feed much anything over 300 inches. On top of that, the injectors are highly sensitive to reversion (which was true because every time there was a dip in the torque curve we could see fuel standing off above the stacks) and between the reversion issues and lack of air it just won’t make power.

But the biggest thing he said was very amazing. He said when you get everything correct for the injection you will have “carburation”. In other words, he said perfect injection IS carburation.

Of course, I was already sold on MFI because I was switching to alcohol (another giant waste of time, money and effort) so I bought two flying toilets and a Holley Pro Dominator and walked away from carbs. For years I tuned only injected stuff, unless it was on the dyno. If a customer with a carb wasn’t happy after the engine came off the dyno he was on his own.

I don’t remember exactly when it was, but it had to be 2001ish and I was on the dyno with 4 bypases, and idle check valve with a 22 pound spring (just to get the idle in shape and as a comparison, most guys run 3-5 pound idle checks) because the nozzles were now so far up the runner it wouldn’t idle will less fuel pressure at idle. I had the first check (the main bypass) set at 68 pounds and every check after that came on 8 pounds later.

After beating on my crap all day I ended up with enough power to get what I wanted, but when I got home and really looked at the numbers and did the math, I realized I could make the same exact power on two carbs and gas and not have all the bullshit of the injection.

The moral of the story is perfect injection IS carburation.

Certainly MFI isn’t EFI, but the principles are the same. The very first EFI I helped on had issues with getting enough injectors with enough duty cycle to feed the engine. That engine was not NA so it’s a bit different and in 2000 or 2001 the injectors weren’t all that good. The fix for that was using MFI over the EFI. The EFI was for low speed stuff and staging and the MFI pretty much ran the engine when it came off the 2 step. Eventually that guy got rid of the EFI. I don’t know what he is doing today, but he may be using full EFI. Or he may be retired. I should call him.

So I said all that to this...there is no PERFECT solution to any of this. I don’t care what it is. So just blabbing that EFI is everything is as nonsensical as claiming a carb is perfect in every scenario.

Sadly, the EFI worshippers will continue to equivocate and put words in other people’s mouths and will continue to denigrate anyone who doesn’t think EFI does everything and flushes their toilets.
Click to expand...

Ended as a classic west coaster...
 
goldduster318 said:
All the pro racer guys where allowed by rules run roller cams, I mean you can call Jesel, Comp, Lunati, etc up and tell them exactly what you said. They will laugh at you. Rollers make more power due to the ramp rate, and the area under the curve where the valve is open, and reduced friction. You can design a way better camshaft with that, carb or not. Yes, flat tappet cams are cheaper. You want to run one, great. Roller cams are a technology that has one downside, cost.

You can absolutely still buy oil with ZDDP in it. I do it, I think pretty much all of us do it because it's cheap insurance. It will reduce the life of a catalytic converter and add some small amount of carbon buildup. They didn't start changing the oil standard until the mid 90s, yet roller cams appeared in the 1980s in production cars, Chevy, Ford, Chrysler, you name it, just about the time the corner started turning on performance for the first time since the 70s.

BTW: CAFE is corporate average fuel economy. If you want to blame that for cars having 4 cyl engines, small displacement turbos, flex fuel, electric cars, why car companies SUVs or whatever, fine, I would even agree with you then. I don't like it either, I would rather the market decided. I still don't think if it was gone or never existed everyone would have a carb V8 with a flat tappet cam and points right now. Honestly the LS/LT, Gen 3 Hemis, Ford Coyotes are all pretty great, despite having to play by the rules. The guys designing those basically made what would have been a race engine 20 years ago something you can daily drive with a warranty and then churn out thousands of them. There are also loads of cars out there that will never have a single ignition or EFI part touched in 100k miles, but apparently they're idiots according to you also.

If the carb was extra easy to use everyone would have theirs scienced out by now and there would be no problems at all. People also have eyes and ears and their own experience. The vast majority of people haven't spent and will never spend the time going through all the emulsion jets, air bleeds, power valves,you name it, if they even have a carb that supports that. I had a carb, I tuned, most people would have been happy with it, and honestly it was fine so long as the engine was warm or if it was over about 60 F outside and if you ignore fuel mileage. That's where the drawbacks started for me. It always started, it always stayed running, it just has some drawbacks that are exacerbated by the engine combo, where I live/weather, the manual transmission and 3.23 rear gear combo. This is where I went for EFI. In less time than I had spent with the carb, I had my drawbacks taken care of, the engine as far as I can tell made at least the same power, I gained 2-3 mpg. I had every intention on going on the Hot Rod Power Tour for the entire trip this year, but we saw how that went, I think my car will now easily get over 20 mpg on the freeway. The car is built to be driven on the street. I think the vast majority of people would get more enjoyment out of their car with the EFI based on their own skill level, since nearly all of these systems can get you to a decent tune in 20-60 minutes just by driving it.

Same with the distributor, the average guy tries to get a timing curve in place, you'll have the distributor out and apart at least several times working on that, limited by the available springs, weights, rotor plates that you have available. I did this also, but most people won't and their ignition timing is off. You have EFI, you can change it in 20 seconds and upload it to the ECU, so an average person will probably try a few more things there also. I ran basically the same curve in the EFI at the start that I had in the distributor. Got some extra tweaks out, and I could always go backwards in seconds. You want it dyno tuned? It'll be done in an hour by a pro tuner. Already have the data logger and no parts required.

There was even a solid roller in the pro-street chevelle my friend bought that was built in the early 90s, which also had a 4-link, 1050 Dominator, Powerglide, Iron head big block chevy, solid centerlines, 12-bolt with spool, vertex magneto basically all the old school stuff. Car went 9.90s, ran really good at WOT but it was a terrible street car at that time. Over the years he had pro carb guys work on it, dyno tune, you name it. Still not a great street car, he went to switch from the powerglide to the T56 Magnum since he cared more about street driving as the years went by vs going to the strip, and now it's getting some AFR aluminum heads and an EFI system. Guess we'll see how that goes, but I think he will be happy with the result.

Yeah, they work fine in a general sense, yeah, they're cheaper. You may not ever notice some of the drawbacks in an automatic car with a loose converter. Someone who spends a lot of time on them might have better luck on their drag car. EFI from 20 years ago also isn't the EFI from today. We also get that you hate electronics and wiring. So don't use them.

I don't think anyone owns one of these cars anymore because they're cheap, because they aren't.
Click to expand...


Yup. Your right because you move the mark every time. Are we talking race car ****, street car ****, mass surface transportation **** or what?

The OE’s use roller cams because the oil formulation was changed. That’s a FACT. To argue that is straight ignorant.

The rest of your post is just more bullshit.

You win. EFI good. Carb bad. Urrrgh
 
yellow rose said:
Yup. Your right because you move the mark every time. Are we talking race car ****, street car ****, mass surface transportation **** or what?

The OE’s use roller cams because the oil formulation was changed. That’s a FACT. To argue that is straight ignorant.

The rest of your post is just more bullshit.

You win. EFI good. Carb bad. Urrrgh
Click to expand...

Well I mean for you it was "if you spend the time with a carb it will always peform better than efi, then it was a $1600 carb, then it was the pro-stock guys would like to go back to carbs" Moving all over the place, the OP wasn't talking about a pro-stock car, and extremely likely not a race car. My focus was a primary street use car. The drivability/usability/reliability, there's a lot you can learn from the basic mass transit stuff also. The LS alone has a lot of stuff on it that you could apply to an older small block build.

The OE Changed to roller cams long before the oil was changed. You can't argue against that they make more power either. You can still buy high ZDDP oil. Is Lunati lying then?
Lunati Flat Tappet Or Roller

If you want to talk about spewing BS, look in the mirror. Many of the things you said is a "FACT" aren't facts, if you repeat the same thing enough you can talk yourself into believing that. It's what you believe based on you experience and I get that. But then when someone has a very different experience, then you fly off the handle about it, because in your own mind all the best parts are based on something designed 30+ years ago, and everyone that doesn't lick your boots a moron and is arrogant.
 
yellow rose said:
Yup. Your right because you move the mark every time. Are we talking race car ****, street car ****, mass surface transportation **** or what?

The OE’s use roller cams because the oil formulation was changed. That’s a FACT. To argue that is straight ignorant.

The rest of your post is just more bullshit.

You win. EFI good. Carb bad. Urrrgh
Click to expand...

Now I'm not arguing, I'm just stating a fact that I KNOW to be true. My best friend Billy Peyton (RIP) had a 73 440 Challenger he bought NEW right outta high school. First thing he and his cronies did was pull the engine, 12:1, ported 906s, headers, big intake and carb, and a FULL ROLLER valve train. I've seen the pictures. Billy holdin that huge roller in his hand. Just how "far back" was the oil formulation changed? I can remember as a kid, seeing roller cam ads in hot rod mags in the mid 70s. They were stupid expensive fairly new tech, but they were there. I know ultimately as you say, rollers went mainstream across the board because of ZDDP being decreased. But what about "back then"?
 
cams3.jpg

BTW, this is the cut away of a 3.5L Ecoboost Ford engine. There's no roller there. Uses 5W-20 SM Oil. They do direct acting mechanical buckets for packaging space and cost reduction. They use materials engineering to take care of the wear.
 
My understanding is the production cars went roller for the following reason. EPA by '74-75 had most cars running catalytic converters. I remember full well by the time these cars had 65-70k miles the cats were plugged even with unleaded gas and folks were cutting them off. It was common practice. The zinc in the oil was blamed, so it was cut back by the mid 80's from around 1200 ppm to about 600 ppm. Car manufacturers went to roller cams due to the lack of zinc and cams going flat. Roller cams are more expensive for the manufacturers and they didn't do it to be kind. They did it, in the end, because the EPA and cats. Now, I'm not saying that roller cams aren't better than flat tappet cams, I'm just stating what I've known to be the reason car companies went roller cams. There were plenty of flat tappet cams going to 200k+ miles prior to the changes.
 
318willrun said:
My understanding is the production cars went roller for the following reason. EPA by '74-75 had most cars running catalytic converters. I remember full well by the time these cars had 65-70k miles the cats were plugged even with unleaded gas and folks were cutting them off. It was common practice. The zinc in the oil was blamed, so it was cut back by the mid 80's from around 1200 ppm to about 600 ppm. Car manufacturers went to roller cams due to the lack of zinc and cams going flat. Roller cams are more expensive for the manufacturers and they didn't do it to be kind. They did it, in the end, because the EPA and cats. Now, I'm not saying that roller cams aren't better than flat tappet cams, I'm just stating what I've known to be the reason car companies went roller cams. There were plenty of flat tappet cams going to 200k+ miles prior to the changes.
Click to expand...

Yeah and there was even a "test tube" made for every application with a converter so you could remove the converter, put the test tube in to tell if the converter wad clogged. Remember those? They quickly found out people were leaving the test tubes in so they quit making them.
 
After re-reading this entire post, again, I have come to the conclusion that if I ever do install aftermarket EFI, I'm keeping the hood closed and my mouth shut.:)
 
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6PakBee said:
After re-reading this entire post, again, I have come to the conclusion that if I ever do install aftermarket EFI, I'm keeping the hood closed and my mouth shut.:)
Click to expand...
I've found that in the real world people are very interested in looking at and talking about EFI conversions. When I have the hood off my Duster the car attracts a lot of people asking how I did the coil packs, how did I do the intake conversion, which system is it, how much did it cost, etc?

5 years ago I didn't have any customer requests for EFI engines and now the shop I work with has about 50% of the customers asking for help with EFI. When I'm at the track there is a steady stream of racers asking about converting to EFI. So I think if you convert to EFI you'll find a lot of people are interested in what you did and how you did it.
 
318willrun said:
My understanding is the production cars went roller for the following reason. EPA by '74-75 had most cars running catalytic converters. I remember full well by the time these cars had 65-70k miles the cats were plugged even with unleaded gas and folks were cutting them off. It was common practice. The zinc in the oil was blamed, so it was cut back by the mid 80's from around 1200 ppm to about 600 ppm. Car manufacturers went to roller cams due to the lack of zinc and cams going flat. Roller cams are more expensive for the manufacturers and they didn't do it to be kind. They did it, in the end, because the EPA and cats. Now, I'm not saying that roller cams aren't better than flat tappet cams, I'm just stating what I've known to be the reason car companies went roller cams. There were plenty of flat tappet cams going to 200k+ miles prior to the changes.
Click to expand...

Here's an article.
ZDDP: When, Where, What, Why, How?

"In 1992, an API-rated SH oil contained 1,200 parts per million (ppm) of phosphorus; in 1996 SJ contained 1,000 ppm. It was not until 2001, when the rating went to SL, that we all started to see camshaft problems appear.

So appears to be mid 90s, and they still currently make vehicles without roller camshafts in OHC, if it's designed around it, it will work. Just takes materials/coatings.


AndyF said:
I've found that in the real world people are very interested in looking at and talking about EFI conversions. When I have the hood off my Duster the car attracts a lot of people asking how I did the coil packs, how did I do the intake conversion, which system is it, how much did it cost, etc?

5 years ago I didn't have any customer requests for EFI engines and now the shop I work with has about 50% of the customers asking for help with EFI. When I'm at the track there is a steady stream of racers asking about converting to EFI. So I think if you convert to EFI you'll find a lot of people are interested in what you did and how you did it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have the same experience. The amount of people that talk to me about the EFI and the T56 is just massive.
 
RustyRatRod said:
Now I'm not arguing, I'm just stating a fact that I KNOW to be true. My best friend Billy Peyton (RIP) had a 73 440 Challenger he bought NEW right outta high school. First thing he and his cronies did was pull the engine, 12:1, ported 906s, headers, big intake and carb, and a FULL ROLLER valve train. I've seen the pictures. Billy holdin that huge roller in his hand. Just how "far back" was the oil formulation changed? I can remember as a kid, seeing roller cam ads in hot rod mags in the mid 70s. They were stupid expensive fairly new tech, but they were there. I know ultimately as you say, rollers went mainstream across the board because of ZDDP being decreased. But what about "back then"?
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I run roller cams all the time. The topic was why the OE’s went to them. It was because the government decided that catalytic converters would save the world, but the phosphorus and zinc coat the catalyst and kill it. So...to fix that folly the answer was a reduction in both of those components. And when you do that, you need to run a roller lifter because the flat lifters won’t survive.

That has nothing to do with roller cams in non OE appilcations. It’s great trying to have a conversation with people who twist everything around (not pointing at you RRR) and turn a topic about OE’s and why they did something and making it look like I said roller cams have no place in anything. It’s the way these people think they win.

The OE’s didn’t go to roller lifters for “area under the curve” or because they wanted to extend engine life. They didn’t care about engine life because once the warranty is up the OE’s don’t give a damn about anything. They did the roller lifter because they were forced into it.

My next engine (sadly) will have roller lifters, unless by some stroke of luck I find a set of mushroom lifters that don’t cost about what a good set of rollers cost. I’d rather rune the mushroom lifters because I want to net somewhere around .720ish lift on that engine and no way can you do that on a .904 lifter and expect it to live.

So unless a miracle happens that engine will get roller lifters and all the crapola that that requires.
 
goldduster318 said:
View attachment 1715663539
BTW, this is the cut away of a 3.5L Ecoboost Ford engine. There's no roller there. Uses 5W-20 SM Oil. They do direct acting mechanical buckets for packaging space and cost reduction. They use materials engineering to take care of the wear.
Click to expand...


Dude, just stop. Anyone with the IQ of a grape KNOWS that OHC stuff with big diameter buckets aren’t the same as OHV pushrod stuff.

Just damn. More bullshit.
 
goldduster318 said:
Here's an article.
ZDDP: When, Where, What, Why, How?

"In 1992, an API-rated SH oil contained 1,200 parts per million (ppm) of phosphorus; in 1996 SJ contained 1,000 ppm. It was not until 2001, when the rating went to SL, that we all started to see camshaft problems appear.

So appears to be mid 90s, and they still currently make vehicles without roller camshafts in OHC, if it's designed around it, it will work. Just takes materials/coatings.




Yeah, I have the same experience. The amount of people that talk to me about the EFI and the T56 is just massive.
Click to expand...


Cats and roller lifters go together. Simple as that.

I really don’t care how many guys build EFI. I hope everyone does it. Still no skin off my ***.

The OP’s original question was is it worth it. I said no, and some of **** yourselves blind. I sat and by that, and call bullshit on carb icing, idle issues and that a carb can’t be made to compete with EFI relatively easy. In fact, I know there are a couple of guys here who have worked with guys on this forum through PM’s to work out carb issues and from what I hear, with worthwhile results.
 
318willrun said:
My understanding is the production cars went roller for the following reason. EPA by '74-75 had most cars running catalytic converters. I remember full well by the time these cars had 65-70k miles the cats were plugged even with unleaded gas and folks were cutting them off. It was common practice. The zinc in the oil was blamed, so it was cut back by the mid 80's from around 1200 ppm to about 600 ppm. Car manufacturers went to roller cams due to the lack of zinc and cams going flat. Roller cams are more expensive for the manufacturers and they didn't do it to be kind. They did it, in the end, because the EPA and cats. Now, I'm not saying that roller cams aren't better than flat tappet cams, I'm just stating what I've known to be the reason car companies went roller cams. There were plenty of flat tappet cams going to 200k+ miles prior to the changes.
Click to expand...


That’s exactly what happened. Since the OE’s never fight back on government overreach you get stupid **** like catalytic converters, which are the solution to something that’s never been an issue, unless you think we have no oil left (peak oil lie) or that the oceans will turn to blood in 2001 (or whatever year that idiot Ted Danson and a bunch of other communists were puking out their faces years ago) that didn’t happen, or if you think the ice caps are shrinking (a they are not).

If you think like that then you deserve CAFE standards and all the junk we deal with because of it.
 
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