{"id":6862,"date":"2014-07-15T14:01:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T21:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=6862"},"modified":"2016-12-05T12:00:52","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T20:00:52","slug":"drag-race-101-is-carburetion-or-injection-the-way-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/drag-race-101-is-carburetion-or-injection-the-way-to-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Carburetion or Injection the Way to Go?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photos: Courtesy of Holley<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

When I started building performance engines for cars a lifetime ago, we had two choices when it came to getting the air and fuel into our engines: We could choose a carburetor or we could choose a bigger carburetor. Fuel injection, while it had been around for a while, was still in its infancy and not accepted by the rodding community. Now we have to decide, usually during the design process, whether we\u2019re going with a carburetor or with injection.<\/p>\n

Carburetors Are Easier to Adjust<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/b>This was true back then, and it\u2019s still true today. To adjust a carburetor, all you really<\/i> need is a small screwdriver and a good ear. \u201cBack in the day\u201d I was taught to adjust a carburetor by placing a glass of water on the fender and screwing the air-fuel mixture screw in until the engine started to stumble or run rough-the water in the glass would vibrate. Once that point was reached, you backed the adjuster screw out a quarter turn and you were done.\u00a0 Unless you want to get \u201cfancy\u201d and use O2 sensors, carb adjustment is still that easy.<\/p>\n

Fuel injection is more difficult. Sure, you can buy adjustable pressure relief valves\/regulators and you can buy super high pressure fuel pumps to help get more fuel into the combustion chamber. However, tuning the system, really tuning it, requires a computer hookup with an ECM programmer and a programmable ECM\/chip. You\u2019ve got to watch the dwell for each individual injector. You\u2019ve got to watch the pressure at which the regulator pops and returns fuel to the tank. With a carb, pop the hood, pull the air cleaner, and turn a screw and turn another pass. The only time carburetor adjustment gets tricky is if you have multiple carbs. Then you\u2019ll need a special carb balancer tool. Mine\u2019s in my toolbox, just ask, I\u2019ll probably loan it out.<\/p>\n

Carburetors Used to Flow More Air and Fuel<\/b><\/p>\n

When FI first hit the scene, the amount of air and fuel that was flowed to the engine was insufficient for truly strip burning power. Again, sure you could bump up the fuel pressure, but the air inlets were pretty small, while the good old carburetor flowed almost as much air as you wanted, and you could make more fuel flow simply by swapping out jets.<\/p>\n

Most of the fuel injection systems available these days for high performance engines will flow huge quantities of air naturally. You can go to any number of websites and order throttle bodies in a variety of sizes, allowing you to tailor the throttle body size to allow the amount of air your engine will need. Within certain limits, you can also buy injectors that will flow more fuel than stock injectors.<\/p>\n

Carburetors Just Look Cooler<\/b><\/p>\n

For those of us that are old school, nothing will beat a carburetor for a number of reasons. First, nothing beats the sound of secondaries (mechanical or vacuum) kicking open on a high speed pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n