Why do i want to do this? Is it a good idea? The more i think about it the more id like to remove my fuel injection. I thought i wanted to turbo the car but i know nitrous would be way cheaper. Maybe its the winter blues?

 

Drag car only on a budget?

 

I switched to a carb and love it and i gained about 30 hp.....
Another thing i went to is the front mount distributor and love it.....now i don`t have to worry about coil packs going bad and the reluctor ring moving around and i don`t have to worry about the msd 6010 or 6012 box going bad......they go bad alot....i use the the msd 6al and no problems at all.......i have not touched my car in 2 years and always runs the same.........9,50-9,60 in the 1/4..on motor..daily driver on the street when its nice in the summer....

 

Mostly street. Budget? .....well you know....

My biggest fear is tuning every time i change something.

I think if i sold my stand alone harness, pcm, o44 pump, and regulator i would be close?
Also the intakes(2) tbodys(2) etc...

I was thinking a vic jr with the msd ls1 box. I miss the ability to (just) swap cams with out theother b.s. Its a stock bottom 5.3 with arp rod bolts. The rest of my car is good th400 and 8.8 (in process).


Or maybe its the winter blues?

 

Bump anyone else have an opinion?

 

IF you are the kind of person who likes to tinker and try new setups and the car isnt your daily driver, I would go carb 100%. I started my swap with efi and havent finished it yet. Still thinking carb would be a better choice for me

 

I do like tinkering...but my swap is done..(5-600 miles put on) now im bored (winter) and want to switch it up but everything i do will need a freakin tune

 

Sell off all of your spare parts and factory harness/pcm and buy a Holley HP EFI kit. Self tunes, simple to customize the tune and you can do it all yourself with a laptop. Of course, if you want to keep EFI

 

I have seen countless 6al boxes, MSD dist, and P/Us go bad at an epic rate compared to new GM OEM stuff. A silverado can go 100k with non of these issues. Just change the plugs and wires at a 100k and keep on trucking.

Carbs require just as much or more tuning time and knowledge as EFI. I hear a lot of this from people that bring ill runing carb stuff to the dyno. " I put a carb on her because I know them carbs." When it runs horrible lol.

 

I have seen countless 6010 and 6012 boxes, coil packs, go bad at an epic rate.....also problems with reluctor wheels moveing around.....

 

I work on these things for a living and have only replaced but a couple coils and seen one reluctor wheel let loose on a Chinese Eagle crank. The 6als are no better, must be why every circle track car I dyno tune has two boxs, two coils and a dual pick up distributor.

 

Keep the EFI. Ask questions. Your better off in the long run, Carbs are a pain in the ***. Alot more benefit from running an EFI'd setup anyways. Real time feedback, datalogging, weather compensation, if you end up going on boost you can run antilag and other neat things. PM denmah on here, he has been doing EFI LSx swaps on a budget for a good amount of time.

 

I have struggled with carb vs EFI over and over. I've actually decided to go carb, but still find myself thinking about going EFI. Especially with the results I'm seeing with the Holley setup. MustangLS has one running REALLY good.

 

I struggled with this early on as well. Thought I would go carb because of budget and some false sense of security about "knowing carbs." Then I realized a couple things:

1) going carb on an LS means all new parts, and they are crazy expensive compared to SBC carb parts, whereas going FI opens the doors to many OEM parts that are lower cost, and potentially more reliable (will let the others duke that out)

2) I was kidding myself -- I don't know any more about tuning a carb than FI. But with FI, I'm more likely to at least admit my ignorance and go to someone to tune it and get it running right instead of just running.

So I'm going FI, but my swap isn't done either. So somebody could argue my opinion doesn't count anyway LOL...

Sounds to me like you're letting winter boredom get the best of you. Happens to me a lot. Then I start cruising the forums and CL and getting all kinds of crazy ideas. Go find some other part of your car to work on that isn't gonna require a tune in the spring....

 

Thanks for the replies

 

I was faced with this decision when doing my c4 ls swap. I really wanted to go carb because that what I was used to for the most part. After a lot of debating with myself I decided to stick with the fuel injection, ya the system itself is more complicated with the sensors and what not but the reliability is great not to mention when its cold outside all you have to do is turn the key and it starts not the old crank, crank, crank , crank ....... then finally a start 5 mins later. The icing on the cake will be the gas mileage with FI, carbs will make more hp because of the design nature but fuel injection is efficient and delivers the right amount of fuel every time with a good tune. Not to mention you where talking about afraid of tuning it every time, well, most tuners will charge one upfront fee for the first dyno run and tune then a significantly smaller price for every tune after that.

 

Look at it this way, the OEm's spend countless sums of money building and tuning to meet emission and fuel economy standards. If carbs were the best way to get the job done all production cars would be so equipped. Take advantage of all of this knowledge base and stay EFI. Fuel economy, wide power band, reliability, cold start, throttle response, EFI has it covered. I also have some dyno experience, as helbents10 says EFI will always end up superior overall.

 

Split the difference. Get a copy of HPTuner and learn to do your own stuff. Something about have a "tuner" just doesn't seem like hot rodding to me.

If you do like to tinker, carbs are good fun. Carb stuff is pretty cheap on LS motors these days. Used ignitions and manifolds are starting to show up, everything else you can bring over from the first gens. All you need is a new regulator to use the existing EFI pump on your carb motor. You could easily swap to a carb for under a grand, less whatever you might get selling off the EFI stuff you have.

The feds are the reason for everything being EFI these days. The manufactures had no choice, OBDII is the law. Just like tire pressure monitors and soon to be back up cameras, if you want to sell a car in this country it better have all that stuff.

EFI has no real advantages in terms of gas mileage. EFI people keep chanting that but every back to back swap I have ever seen returns about the same MPG. The only ones that didn't admitted they had a engine problem before the swap. MPG is going to come from the overdrive trans and not over camming it. LS motors do more with less cam so win win.

Wideband O2's have changed carb tuning for the better. You don't have to live with a 70's smogger quadrabog driveability anymore. LS motors run pretty sweet with a carb, and like you said, the same induction parts will work over a wide range of upgrades. Even swap to a different motor. Carb motors are simple to work on. Had to pull the intake the other day and it was off and out of the way in less than 5 minutes.

Cold starts are more difficult, but since you are free of the smog laws you can tune them a little rich to help with that. Plus ignitions now are so much better than back in the day. You can't really compare a stock carb motor from the 60's or 70's with a carb'd LS motor. The new ones are better in every way.

Your choice.

 

Yeah im still tooling it over..... All i would need is intake and msd box, i have most everything else. I could probally get good money for my homemade stand alone harness and pcm. Also my fuel pump and regulator wasnt cheap either. (bosch aeromotive)

Or i could buy hp tuners but they dont give that away. I should just sell the pile and buy a honda (half the car half the price) but id probally kill myself first.

I guess the hardest part is that im a diy kind of guy and now ive got to rely on someone else to make my stuff run.

Anyways thanks for the opinions...

 

I think I'm going to to ahead and pull the trigger on the Holley EFI setup. So if anyone is wanting to go carb, I have some parts maybe we could work out a trade:

https://ls1tech.com/forums/parts-cla...eromotive.html