Urban Myths

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Ahhhh, for the days of chrome rings, the throttles wide open, and a can of Bon Ami cleanser.......where have all the good times gone?
 
JBurch said:
fallacy: n; misleading, false( New Websters Dictionary, pocket vest edition )

The fallacy is the statement that FI is the reason of low to minimal cylinder wear, it's not THE reason. It helps some but a bad injector can piss a lot of gas at 70 psi and wash down a cylinder just as well as any carburetor.

Manufacturing technologies were not done for improved longevity of cars; it was done to cut costs! Instead of 6 skilled machinists at 6 different machines, you've got 1 semi-skilled operator who's function is to push "start", "stop", "pause".

I don't beleave materials are better; a great deal of the iron poured is recycled scrap and there are A LOT of impurities left in the iron ( copper, zink, aluminum, lead, what ever the car was made up of that just went thru the shredder ).

I was gonna say lubricants may be better but then it struck me that the trouble people have keeping a lobe on a new flat tappet cam; if lubricants are better, why is there this problem?? And going back to technology; why are cam shafts so damn soft?? In my history of playing with cars, close to 50 years; not knowing I should have kept count; I had like a half-a-dozen engines I put together that I did nothing special in the realm of cam shaft break in. Nothing!!! I installed the cam, fired the engine; some fired right away, some didn't. Once running, I shot timing and then drove the car; one case I drove it 2000 miles with no trouble!

I think the article makes a pretty strong case for singular cause and effect.
Click to expand...

That's twice you've cited a failed injector/driver to discredit the superior fuel control the system offers. I got news, if after 50yrs. You can honestly tell me you've seen routine
examples of this failure vs. routine chokes stuck/malfuntioning,floats stuck/sinking/dirt in the seat, & some just plain carb hemorrhages. Lets not forget cranking until the batt.
goes dead because of flooding/vapor lock/& any combo of the above......get real. I know it happens, but I can count the number of failed injectors that totally failed on both
hands, and the drivers that failed usually involved a "crossed" jump start attempt. Mopar-wise, I saw that on a 2nd gen Neon, and an '88 Omni.......but these are FUBARs,
not common or standard to the system.
Rings are better, pistons are better, and machining is better, period. Std. manufacture for modern engines is as good as race prep was in the old days.....it may be auto-
mated & mass production oriented for sure, but torque plates,fixtures,machining, finish quality is superior in general 'cause it has to be. If You think You can cast an aluminum
head,block, housings,valve covers(they actually house OCV's and oil passages now), etc. that don't spring oil & coolant better than they do today for mass prod. get a patent.
Cams are a different subject altogether, and we all know the myriad of reasons, poor core quality & finish sure, lack of ZDDP...well if so it was O2's and Cats that also made
unleaded a mandate that was an impetus for such. Hmm, thankfully flat tappets aren't an issue for modern engines.
Here is My strong case that while technically informative, the study falls flat in the real world. I have taken everything from late '50's engines to todays engines apart, and
here is many actual observations, every carbureted engine w/a contemporary FI counterpart had more cyl. wear/ridge. I can tear the heads off of a feedback carb 318 w/a
roller cam, and find the same ridge I found on My '72 318. BUT pull the head off a turbo 2.2 w 100K on it, and once you clean what carbon is there, the ridge reamer has
nothing to catch(roller/bit style). Nobody is going to argue the 318 had to work harder, or had higher operating temps/pressure so,.... what then? Hmmmmmm
I am NOT saying FI is the sole cause of decreased wear, and I thought I made that clear. But the fallacy is saying that FI has minimal effect based on that study, esp.
when "in the shop" has proven that to not be the case in My experience.
 
Killer6 said:
That's twice you've cited a failed injector/driver to discredit the superior fuel control the system offers. I got news, if after 50yrs. You can honestly tell me you've seen routine
examples of this failure vs. routine chokes stuck/malfuntioning,floats stuck/sinking/dirt in the seat, & some just plain carb hemorrhages. Lets not forget cranking until the batt.
goes dead because of flooding/vapor lock/& any combo of the above......get real. I know it happens, but I can count the number of failed injectors that totally failed on both
hands, and the drivers that failed usually involved a "crossed" jump start attempt. Mopar-wise, I saw that on a 2nd gen Neon, and an '88 Omni.......but these are FUBARs,
not common or standard to the system.
Rings are better, pistons are better, and machining is better, period. Std. manufacture for modern engines is as good as race prep was in the old days.....it may be auto-
mated & mass production oriented for sure, but torque plates,fixtures,machining, finish quality is superior in general 'cause it has to be. If You think You can cast an aluminum
head,block, housings,valve covers(they actually house OCV's and oil passages now), etc. that don't spring oil & coolant better than they do today for mass prod. get a patent.
Cams are a different subject altogether, and we all know the myriad of reasons, poor core quality & finish sure, lack of ZDDP...well if so it was O2's and Cats that also made
unleaded a mandate that was an impetus for such. Hmm, thankfully flat tappets aren't an issue for modern engines.
Here is My strong case that while technically informative, the study falls flat in the real world. I have taken everything from late '50's engines to todays engines apart, and
here is many actual observations, every carbureted engine w/a contemporary FI counterpart had more cyl. wear/ridge. I can tear the heads off of a feedback carb 318 w/a
roller cam, and find the same ridge I found on My '72 318. BUT pull the head off a turbo 2.2 w 100K on it, and once you clean what carbon is there, the ridge reamer has
nothing to catch(roller/bit style). Nobody is going to argue the 318 had to work harder, or had higher operating temps/pressure so,.... what then? Hmmmmmm
I am NOT saying FI is the sole cause of decreased wear, and I thought I made that clear. But the fallacy is saying that FI has minimal effect based on that study, esp.
when "in the shop" has proven that to not be the case in My experience.
Click to expand...


Really? I have disassembled many many carbed engines that didn't have a ridge. Many of them had 50-60k of hard miles getting the **** beat out of them...nitrous hits all day long. Bolt the torque plate on, touch them up and go.


You like to blame carbs for all the ills of years past. Stupid is stupid.


EDIT:

Just retread this post and I want to point out I was NOT calling killer6 stupid. My stupid reference was to stupid people in general who have issues with a pop up toaster and then want to tune a carb. I think it was John Wayne who said you can't fix stupid and stupid should hurt. That was how I meant it.
 
Last edited:
Killer6 said:
That's twice you've cited a failed injector/driver to discredit the superior fuel control the system offers. I got news, if after 50yrs. You can honestly tell me you've seen routine
examples of this failure vs. routine chokes stuck/malfuntioning,floats stuck/sinking/dirt in the seat, & some just plain carb hemorrhages. Lets not forget cranking until the batt.
goes dead because of flooding/vapor lock/& any combo of the above......get real. I know it happens, but I can count the number of failed injectors that totally failed on both
hands, and the drivers that failed usually involved a "crossed" jump start attempt. Mopar-wise, I saw that on a 2nd gen Neon, and an '88 Omni.......but these are FUBARs,
not common or standard to the system.
Rings are better, pistons are better, and machining is better, period. Std. manufacture for modern engines is as good as race prep was in the old days.....it may be auto-
mated & mass production oriented for sure, but torque plates,fixtures,machining, finish quality is superior in general 'cause it has to be. If You think You can cast an aluminum
head,block, housings,valve covers(they actually house OCV's and oil passages now), etc. that don't spring oil & coolant better than they do today for mass prod. get a patent.
Cams are a different subject altogether, and we all know the myriad of reasons, poor core quality & finish sure, lack of ZDDP...well if so it was O2's and Cats that also made
unleaded a mandate that was an impetus for such. Hmm, thankfully flat tappets aren't an issue for modern engines.
Here is My strong case that while technically informative, the study falls flat in the real world. I have taken everything from late '50's engines to todays engines apart, and
here is many actual observations, every carbureted engine w/a contemporary FI counterpart had more cyl. wear/ridge. I can tear the heads off of a feedback carb 318 w/a
roller cam, and find the same ridge I found on My '72 318. BUT pull the head off a turbo 2.2 w 100K on it, and once you clean what carbon is there, the ridge reamer has
nothing to catch(roller/bit style). Nobody is going to argue the 318 had to work harder, or had higher operating temps/pressure so,.... what then? Hmmmmmm
I am NOT saying FI is the sole cause of decreased wear, and I thought I made that clear. But the fallacy is saying that FI has minimal effect based on that study, esp.
when "in the shop" has proven that to not be the case in My experience.
Click to expand...

Actually, I can't say I've routinely seen washed down cylinders. I've seen some.....a POS GMC ex Penske truck with a 366 and the driver could not push the choke off no matter how many times you told him, and then there was the piston I pulled out of a 3208 Cat, leaky injectors out of Volkswagens.

Camshafts are inside engines, lubed with the same oil as everything else, they are not a different subject. A lot of people are still using flat tappet cams; why do they have to suffer?

If you want to think about it just a little, just a little, and this is the direction I'm coming from; you could put leaded gas thru an injector and still get the same cylinder wear as you would get out of an engine with a carburetor!

At this point I'm getting the impression you didn't look up the study and read the abstract......as short and sweet as I can make it....the study investigates the formation of ABRASIVE compounds formed during the combustion process and how they affect cylinder wear. So it's like throwing dirt down the intake; the dirt just happened to be TEL and how it reacted under pressure and temperature with the other chemistry of the gas.

One other reason for lower cylinder wear (not mentioned ) peoples driving habits, fewer short trips, people get in there cars and drive further, engines reach and stay at operating temperature. In another SAE paper, they proved 80% of engine wear occurs at start up.
 
Lol! That's OK YR, I wouldn't take it too hard, I've been called worse by those who've known a lot less! Hmmmm where to try again......
1) I am NOT blaming carbs for all or even most old school ills, but they are/were far more problematic in general than FI, fact. Some carbs were junk new, and never ran
correctly,or trouble free for more than a year or two. Take the Roachmaster Quadrajunk, when they aren't leaking fuel out of the main-well plugs thru the throttle body
gasket into your eng. overnite, they work/run great when setup properly. My Dad's new '76 GMC did this to Him before 2yrs. was out, and I rebuilt more of those things
pre & post feedback versions than I can count. Job one clean, job two prep and seal the leaking plugs, job three finish rebuild.
2) Again, I agree w/the paper as far as there are wear/damaging effects of running leaded fuel, the ONLY positive for running tetraethyl lead is it's unmatchable anti-knock
properties. Per gram it has NO rival anywhere, period. But it brings all this baggage w/it, so far less effective aromatics are used,(not that they're any less poisonous).
3)Yes, one longevity side effect is many less people are tempted to mess w/FI vs smuckin' up their carb, somewhat because many young(men?) aren't interested in gettin'
dirty....at all.
4)The 318 example that immediately popped into mind was a mid-80's 5th Ave, 1st I'd seen w/the roller cam, blew the head gasket by #7. Customer was straight up,i.e.
wasn't the type to carry a funnel to "sneak" leaded into his car, did none of his own work, and brought the car for routine maintenance. Just the same, when I pulled the
head, I found the same carbon/conditions/oil consumption, & carbon packing up the exh. crossover ports......just like every pre unleaded teener I ever pulled apart.
This car never ran a drop of leaded thru it, and I was working w/a friend & His dad servicing Amoco stations back when We were re-stickering the pumps from red(reg.
leaded), to blue(reg. unleaded) along w/the silver, & gold(ultimate- also called"white gas" by some). The skinny there? Long before the mandated switch to UL, the
companies had already stopped putting lead fuel in the tanks so the slowest moving stations had no chance of enough residual to fail to comply. A good year+, even tho'
the pumps still wore the color & the label, it was already unleaded. That Chrysler would've been less than 2yrs. old when it'd been impossible to buy leaded.
5)Just like fuel mileage, engine wear can be most affected by driving habits and proper(or not) maintenance, no surprise there.
6)Absolutely, start-up is an engines enemy, see all of the carb fails above + the stupid comment by YR. Taking dumbasses out of the equation is elec. eng. mgt. & FI's
greatest triumph. Unfortunately, there are engineering dumbasses, so You're never really safe!!!!! (think GM CMPI).A LOT of flooded GM cyls./plugs w/those come
winter, 1 or 2 psi below the(I believe 62) spec & no startie for you!
 
Any other myths you want to turn into pate'....................
 
Urban Legend: Believe everything you read on the internet!
 
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