ok... if i were to take a 86 TBI car and slap about a 600cfm carb on it w/ say a TorkerII and a new dist.... roughly what kinda gains am i looking at? ive been looking on these boards for the past 3 days and cant find anything about this and yes ive used the search function... im hoping for atleast a 20-30hp gain minimum since if i do a carb swap on my little 2.8 i can pick up 40hp EASY.

 

I don't know if you'd even see any gain at all. You'd probably see more power from headers, head work and a new cam.

 

I'm certain you wouldn't get 40HP on a 2.8L unless the carb is so plugged it's losing 40HP already.

Look at exhaust for sure.

 

The reason you can't find anything on it, is that most people have finally figured out that stuff like that isn't how you make one of those faster.

You gain power by finding where the motor is weak, and upgrading that specific thing.

You lighten the car by un-bolting and re-bolting big shiny things that sit up on top where everybody can oooh and aaaahhh over the bling when you open your hood. The lightening occurs at the driver's wallet. Needless to say, since dollar bills aren't real heavy, the effect is very slight.

TBI cars have a restricitve exhaust, a pitiful cam, and heads with no flow. Then on top of that they have gears that keep it below 2000 RPM all the time. If you want to make your car faster, those are the things to work on.

There are few intakes still on the market that are any WORSE than the old T2. It is pitiful. While it might be "better" than your stock TBI manifold, it's a WHLOE LOT WORSE than what you can get some other way, for the same $$$.

And in any case, it hardly matters whether you put a T2 on it, or something good instead. You could put a Hogan sheet-metal intake and a 1050 Dominator on that L03, and you'll still only get 170 HP; because those aren't what's holding the motor back.

I guess the message is, don't waste your money.

 

i made an assumption that the intake was the restrictive part on this motor because on my fiero even when boosted it will only flow 200hp and it sucks.... i really dont wanna spend a ton of money on a L03 if its not gonna have any gain really so i probably wont go carb then. as for the cam... you said its just a turd... do you mean it has very little potential for anything or that its not well suited to lowend OR mid range OR high end.... as for the gearing issue i can take care of that no problem if its a disk brake rear but if its drum ill have to learn how to do drum brakes....

incase you cant tell im a "kid" who is used to the Computer controlled cars of today and 4wheel disk and fuel injection on v6 and I4's but ive had some experience w/ my dads 83 T/A recaro... so if i seem like a person who has no f'in clue as to what im saying its because im coming from the realm of Civic's and Turbo MR2's and built Supra's along w/ Fiero's and others...

 

I respect your Fiero, but as for the rest of that r*cey crap....


TBI injection has a very bad rap in general, espescially on these boards. There are a few members who've gotten a lot from them.

But as mentioned, the TBI is not necessarily the worst part of it. The TBI cars weren't meant to be the fastest 3rd gens made, as you can tell....

Yea, the V-8s in 3rd gens have similar restrictions, but the TBI has the worst of them.
The cam in that sucks, with no good points except driveability. Good exhaust will get you lots of power with no drawbacks (ie. your mileage or driveability doesn't worsen, and it sounds cool, so there ya go!).

The heads are swirl port heads, which is part of the drawback of TBI (tbi motors had swirl port heads, so people dislike TBI motors, when it's really the heads that are the worst... again, an arguable point there..)
Look up Jprevost I think, he might be who I'm thinking of, and hang out in the TBI forum, people have P&P'ed their heads, added a cam and exhaust and gotten quite respectable power out of that setup.

Good luck.

 

I'm curious where you're going to find anything like that.

The LU5 crossfire dual TBI was '82-'83. The LO3 single TBI was '88-'92.

No TBI in '84-'87 f-bodies.

 

yeah i realized that about 20 minutes after i posted it... i think its about a 88 or 89... reason i said 86 was because i thought the tach having yello at 4500 and red at 5000 was the same for all the v8 cars of 86 not just tpi....