3rd Gen / L98 Engine Tech 1982 - 1992 Engine Related

Carb Vs. TPI

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Old 07-30-2002, 11:34 PM
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Exclamation Carb Vs. TPI

ok fellas,
which do you think would be the better one to use on a new 350 that i will be installing in my '92 TPI Rs next year? Keep the TPI that came stock or switch it over to carb? What are some of the pros and cons of each and which would really be best for my upcoming project?? thanks in advance.. i always appreciate any advice.

mitch

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~ 383 Build up in the near future
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Old 07-31-2002, 12:50 AM
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OH NO!!!!! NOT AGAIN!!!!!!!! Hide the children!!!!!!!
This has been asked a lot, and it always ends up a huge war. Why are you considering switching? Honestly, if your TPI does what you want and works fine, stick with it. Otherwise, go carb. There are plenty of upgrades for either, it just depends on what you're going for.
And as for pro's and con's, whenever opinions are put into a post like this, they just seem to get bashed by the opossing opinions, no matter how much fact they have.

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Old 07-31-2002, 10:59 AM
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There is nothing wrong with controversy It's good thought stimulation
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Old 07-31-2002, 11:37 AM
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ok, i'll get the ball rolling then
carb:
advantages: 1. low cost
2. plentiful parts
3. easy to tune
4. no wiring harness uglying up teh engien compartment
5. can be tuned fairly quickly
disadvantages: 1. weather sensitve
2. lower gas mileage
3. mechanical only controls make timing and fuel more of very good than perfect, i always feel like a carb has more in it IMHO
tpi:
advantages: 1. port injection is the path to ultimate power
2. ecm can tell you when you are getting close to the right tune up for fuel and timing
3. better mileage
disadvantages: 1. very expensive performance parts(a used tpi intake sells for twice as much as a good carb intake)
2. lots of wires running all over teh place
3. tuning is a slower process f you use a stock ecm sinc eyou can only burn adn run chips one at a time

that should be enough to start a good argument....lol


later
tim

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Old 07-31-2002, 05:47 PM
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I was going to post something then I started fighting what I was saying, so now I'm neutral. Go TBI!

Joe
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Old 07-31-2002, 09:59 PM
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Everyone can flame me now, but if the tpi is so good, how come most drag racers will not touch it?? I prefer carb b/c the motor is easier to work on and you don't have all the damn sensors everywhere. I feel you can get more power out of a carbed motor too.
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Old 07-31-2002, 11:12 PM
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ok so to make things a little more simple, i could keep my tpi and use it on the new engine... but if i wanted later on, i could switch over to carb if i felt it was nessisary??

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Old 07-31-2002, 11:29 PM
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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by JCason:
Everyone can flame me now, but if the tpi is so good, how come most drag racers will not touch it?? I prefer carb b/c the motor is easier to work on and you don't have all the damn sensors everywhere. I feel you can get more power out of a carbed motor too.</font>
Drag racers wont use TPI because it doesnt support upper RPM's needed to make horsepower. It works great for a street car, and that is its advantage.


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Old 08-01-2002, 08:28 AM
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teh reason so many drag guys don't use fuel injection usually has a lot to do withclass rules. there are still only a handfull of classes taht allow fuel injection around.
port injection is perfectly capable of supporting very high rpm with teh correct intake. box type intakes have a tendancy toward turbulance issues.
anyone who wants to go really fast with port injection jsut need to get asingle plain carb intake and convert it. funny thing is a converted carb intaek will work over a larger rpm band, usually has a greater total air capacity and will cost less to convert than buying an aftermarket tpi intake. and since it will have a carbflange on top of it you can use carb bodies as tb's just by taking teh venturis out and replacing eth bowls with block off plates. accel has an IAC kit that you can just plumb into the manifold.
the reason i see port injection as the path to ultimate power is because of the extreme end of motorsport. formula 1 uses n/a 3liter engines and they produce around 750hp and rev to 18k-21k rpm. if they see port injection as the right answer i certainly can't argue with the results.

later
tim

------------------
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12's Coming Soon
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Old 08-01-2002, 08:58 AM
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I like the TPI set-up cause you can take a turd 305 and make it have gobs of torque with a crappy canm and a crappy set of heads, you move the same motor over to a carb and it loses bunches down low and gains a little up high. I prefer TPI for a street goer, sure the parts are expensive but you only gave 2500$ for the car anyway...lol. convert to an LT1 intake and the carb is now a moot point, no carb can duplicate the flat torque curve of the LT1 intake, and it can support alot of horsies stock. Carbs can be tuned onthe spot with a box full of spare parts (that are relatively cheap). But EFI does alot of corrections for weather, etc by itself. I think they both have their place.
But I'm riding the EFI bandwagon for now....lol
Perry
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Old 08-01-2002, 09:48 AM
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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by JCason:
Everyone can flame me now, but if the tpi is so good, how come most drag racers will not touch it?? I prefer carb b/c the motor is easier to work on and you don't have all the damn sensors everywhere. I feel you can get more power out of a carbed motor too.</font>
Drag racing is different than street driving. They tune it for the run they are about to make not the run they might make a couple of hours later. A carb would be the same as the TPI if you were sitting on the hood tuning it, every time a barometric change occured, for the best performance. That is all the TPI does. It tunes it for the condition it is currently in. If you could instantaneously transport it from a desert in New Mexico to winter of Michigan, it would work. You could do the same if you wanted to sit on the hood of a Carb car to change the jets.

Carb is easier to work on. That much is true.

How can you get more power out of a Carb motor? The Carb is not magical to make power. You can tune the Carb for max power just like you can tune TPI. If you sat on the hood and dialed a Carb in and wanted to do the same to the TPI by reburning an EPROM, you could do that and achieve the same power. If you make a bunch of mods to the Carb car and tune it in, then compare it to a TPI car where you have not tweaked the program in the ERPOM, then you are comparing apples to oranges.
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Old 08-01-2002, 02:11 PM
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Talking

[QUOTE]Originally posted by NJ SPEEDER:

"anyone who wants to go really fast with port injection jsut need to get asingle plain carb intake and convert it."


so how would i go about doing this conversion? I've decided to keep the tpi on it b/c the car will be my daily driver and i dont want to have to be tuning it all the time for changes in weather... damn michigan..



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~ White 92 Camaro Rs 305
~ Flowmasters
~ K&N Filtercharged
~ 383 Build up in the near future
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Old 08-01-2002, 02:28 PM
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ok now im frustrated,
i could have swore my car was tpi but now ive talked to a few people and they think it might be tbi instead. im only 17 and dont know to much about either... if anyone knows the specs on a 25th anniversary ( 1992 ) 305 camaro Rs could they tell me which it is? or how to distinguish one from the other.. ive only seen one in person... thanks

Mitch


------------------
~ White 92 Camaro Rs 305
~ Flowmasters
~ K&N Filtercharged
~ 383 Build up in the near future
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Old 08-01-2002, 02:42 PM
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a camaro rs is gonna be a TBI motor. tbi is sort of an in between system, which makes it a fairly good basis for learning. you can run carb intakes with an adapter plate to mount the tb on or you can get tbi specific intakes. thee are a lot fo different sizes of injectors available and bigger tb's can be taken off of the big blocks they put in pick ups.
to learn more about tbi you wil prolly wanna go to www.thridgen.org
there is a good discussion area there and a bunch of guys that have already done motor swaps and kept teh tbi and made it work very well.

later
tim

------------------
NJ SPEEDER
91 Camaro RS
305TBI/700R4
12's Coming Soon
2nd Annual East Coast F-Body Nationals
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www.geocities.com/njspeeder
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Old 08-01-2002, 02:47 PM
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ok, well thanks for helpin guys. time to go learn about tbi and see how i can convert it over to my new 350 comin soon..

later all

mitch

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~ White 92 Camaro Rs 305
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~ 383 Build up in the near future
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