In what ways are fuel injected cars better for car owners than carburated cars?

[Loon]

I wasn't really sure if I should put this here or in one of the car forums but if it needs to be moved that's fine.

On to the question, I'm having to write an essay and my topic is that fuel injected cars are better for car owners than carburated cars. Some of my points are that fuel injected cars are more fuel efficient, cleaner burning, and less maintenance.

I was hoping some of y'all could offer more insight and possibly more main points to help prove my essay. Any help y'all could offer is greatly appreciated.

 

[Diego440]

I was going to type something quite long, but then realised I had been taking most of the info from howstuffworks.com

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-injection1.htm

Their article on Fuel Injectors explains quite well why it has taken over the carburetor, and why it can be better.

 

[Duke]

For starters, it's "fuel", not "feul".

The primary reason that FI cars are better than carburated cars is that FI offers far better control over fuel mixture and delivery timing. This leads to greater power output and efficiency. It also makes possible the whole idea of "flexible cylinders".

 

[Wolfe]

...less maintenance...

For the later carbureted engines that appeared just before the migration to fuel-injected ones, sure. But old-school carbureted engines are among the simplest things around. Modern engines have many more things to break.

It's the desire for precise control over every aspect of an engine's operation that makes it complicated, regardless of the kind of fuel delivery.

Anyway, for main ideas that could be added to your essay, you could include the fact that fuel-injected cars are more convenient to drive, considering you don't have to deal with choke at all and it's easier to start the engine on a cold day.

 

[High-Test]

And there's no sputtering out and adjusting the jets at red lights with FI.

But, EFI is more precise. Many of the early fuel injection systems were just as finnicky as carburetors.

 

[Loon]

For the later carbureted engines that appeared just before the migration to fuel-injected ones, sure. But old-school carbureted engines are among the simplest things around. Modern engines have many more things to break.

Just because they're simpler does that mean they're less maintenance as well? I think that a car with FI, although it's more complicated, would be less maintenance in the long run compared to a carbed car.

 

[wfooshee]

Fuel injection was pretty much mandated by emissions requirements, because it allows precise and instantaneous control over fuel mixture. For example, emissions such as unburned hydrocarbons can be the result of incomplete combustion, which in turn is usually a rich mixture. With an O2 sensor monitoring exhaust, mixture adjustment is easy for a computer.

But, as long as we've got to put in an electronic management system, let's make it smart enough to do things like run stone cold, or not feed fuel at all when coasting, or even turn off half (or more) of the cylinders if the coolant gets too hot.

The efficiency that electronic fuel injection provides was not the goal in and of itself, it was the tool needed to meet emissions regulations. You're seeing more and more FI motorcycles now, too, for the same reason.

Just think what a basic 4-bbl engine would cost compared to the electronic multi-sensor setup we have to use now? A new car used to be the equivalanet of a few months' income, not almost a full year or even more.

 

[Barracuda]

This engine says fuel injection is for pussies

 

[superberkut]

Would hot weather also be to the detriment of the proper operation of carburetors?

P.S: Fuel injection is better and more efficient, but Ferrari converted, and look at what happened to their engines:

(they whine a lot)

But, practicality counts more in the world of engines of today than charisma...

EDIT: on topic, it increases performance and, (part of the reason) being computer-run today, it is rather reliable.

 

[niky]

I've had old carbs, new carbs, FI, and FI+DI.

With the carbs, I'd have to open up the car and choke the car every ten or twenty thousand kays. Didn't have any vacuum line issues with the older carb, but man, did it run rough sometimes. The newer carb? Looked like a rat's nest of vacuum hoses and cables... EFI? A spritz of contact cleaner on some sensors every now and then ain't so bad... and it's not as mechanically complex as a good carb, so the only parts to watch out for are the sensors... and they're getting pretty cheap nowadays.

In terms of tuning, you could twiddle and tweedle with carbs for a little more power, yeah... but try to get a good kick up top and you ended up with a bottom end that was more like a trough... you'd end up buying a really expensive carb to make up the difference.

With modern EFI? An aftermarket chip and tune costs just as much as a good brand-new set of Webbers, but they'll give you the same kick, and optimize both your low-end and high-end at the same time. I just got done tuning my car, and I've gained 9-15 hp across the board. When we tried that before with carbs (on a different car), we got similar gains above 4000 rpm, but the car struggled to breathe at idle. Jet-tuning is a certified b*tch... and with racing carbs, you'd have to open it up every now and then to check and recalibrate those damn jets.

Yeah, a computer box gives you less to fiddle with... but damn is computer tuning fun... I love EFI...

 

[wfooshee]

Yeah, a computer box gives you less to fiddle with... but damn is computer tuning fun... I love EFI...

And in the motorcycle world, FI bikes have the Power Commander. It's not a chip, it's a device that slips in between the ECU and the injectors, and adjusts the ECU-commanded fuel map by adding or reducing the fuel spray. It can map by throttle% and RPM. What a great device! I've got one on my FJR1300, and while it could be tuned for max power, I've actually got a smoothness map on it for better throttle response. (Stock, the FJR has a rep for poor low-throttle response, probably from being too lean for emissions performance. Trying to roll in a tiny bit of throttle on turn entry could sometimes surprise you.) USB connection and software for your laptop for monitoring and mapping adjustments, save maps as files on your laptop.

 

[niky]

And in the motorcycle world, FI bikes have the Power Commander. It's not a chip, it's a device that slips in between the ECU and the injectors, and adjusts the ECU-commanded fuel map by adding or reducing the fuel spray. It can map by throttle% and RPM. What a great device! I've got one on my FJR1300, and while it could be tuned for max power, I've actually got a smoothness map on it for better throttle response. (Stock, the FJR has a rep for poor low-throttle response, probably from being too lean for emissions performance. Trying to roll in a tiny bit of throttle on turn entry could sometimes surprise you.) USB connection and software for your laptop for monitoring and mapping adjustments, save maps as files on your laptop.

Damn... I hope someone comes up with an aftermarket program to hack into the unichip... the one issue with it is that you need to go to a dealer to get it programmed...

I have some low rpm issues because the stock ECU doesn't want to give up idle control, and when it goes into stock closed-loop mode, it runs lean and pretty rough. But at 3000 rpm and up... half a second to 100 km/h is a pretty good gain for such a simple mod. I'm probably not anywhere as quick as your bike, though...