With the last carbureted cars in the United States falling under Model Year 1990, it would seem that fuel injection should have a stronger presence in the aftermarket. Yet often we hear of the downsides of fuel injection and the advent of the carburetor from hot rodders who look down on fuel injection as too complex and expensive. Even with companies like Holley cranking out plug and play systems, there are still detractors that are all about a 750 double pumper on a stout intake manifold.
Enter Engine Masters. David Freiburger, Steve Dulcich and Steve Brule are tackling this issue head on in this episode. The lump on the dyno is a Chevrolet LM7 5.3 LS motor, a crate “327HO” block. Stock, these were advertised at 327 horsepower and 347 ft/lbs of torque. For the test, we have two options: a Holley 750 and a Holley Terminator EFI kit. Brule seems to gravitate to the carburetor, Freiburger is familiar with the Terminator system, and as for Dulcich…well, he’s a Mopar guy staring as an LS motor on a dyno. Who wins this round?
EFI systems are still too damn expensive for the average enthusiast. Along with all the LS engine swap stuff. No magazine / tv guy’s comparison will change that. They are there to plug certain vendor products (pays the bills) its that simple.To try and suggest otherwise is simply not true. Like David F. stuffing a Hellcat motor into the road kill charger. Yeah, that was cheap & affordable for an average guy. Get real we have mortgages, kids, and not much left over to throw at projects. My performer Carb is just fine on my disco Camaro with outdated small block.
Absolutely spot-on. Well said, Russell.
AMEN Russel. None of these articles or TV shows are for the average Joe. We don’t get the latest and greatest parts handed to us.
Carbs still kill it in bracket racing. EFI would be a nice luxury for a street rod, but for the price you can buy a carb plus 10 other parts. I personally enjoy changing jets over staring at a laptop. Seems a little more rewarding with the smell of fuel on my fingers all day.
Already ran that test. At this year’s Engine Masters Challenge. In front of everybody. Made the swap from carbureted to EFI in about 7 minutes. Results are public – and very darn close.
The results form this episode are largely airflow driven. To be more fair they should have used a larger carb to mirror the airflow of the throttle body. Interesting that they experienced a distribution problem with the dual plane. Would have been worth further investigation to fix that.
Wonder why they didn’t run one of the newer under $1000 self learning systems like FITech or Holley’s new Sniper EFI
Coverage of my carb to EFI swap….
http://www.hotrod.com/events/1510-survival-motorsports-700hp-483ci-ford-fe-carb-or-efi/
I would like to see a 7, 5 cam swap in an LS motor. Those things do not have the sound of a good old SBC… So, I wonder what a cam with a traditional SBC firing order would do for sound. And how much power would it cost?
David?
I’d take EFI everyday and twice on Sunday! For streetablity and reliability, EFI delivers. I went thru the carb deal on both Street and race cars, they suck!
I’m not much of a Chevy guy, and the debate for me is non-existant…..EFI always wins. Having said that, you guys put on one hell of a show and need a real TV deal. Rarely do you see a show that’s this straight on the tech side, pretty funny and oh my………done with some intelligence.
I look forward to seeing much more from you guys in the future.
PS…….How about getting some of those new parts from the PRI show and start having fun on the dyno?
Micro/Mega squirt … end of story