Yeah. I've already got an intake, and my roommate has a edelbrock 750 lying around that he's practically giving me (I'm swapping for a bottle of firewater!). So all that leaves me to buy is a FPR, some fuel line, brackets, gaskets, a dist., and assorted small things. I'll be doing the swap for around 250 bucks tops. Oh, sure, I'll upgrade to better carb stuff in the future, but for now, my goal is to get it running, and running well. I still think TBI is an awesome system, just so you guys know, and I plan on working with it in the future, but the wiring harness in my car has been cut and reconnected in so many places, that it would be very difficult to determine the extent of the damage that I have inflicted over the past 18 months or so; hence, my decision to go carb is for both posterity and economic reasons. I bought this engine in October of 2000, tried to swap a TPI on it, then tried to get TBI to work, and I have come up empty handed after trying to follow the very good advice found on this board and other places. I thank all the people who responded to my posts and gave me great advice. I've learned way more than I ever could have on my own! I'm not giving up on TBI, just postponing it! My parents have a 95 suburban that could be fun to experiment on....
Thanks again!

James

 

yea i know the feeling i am prolly goign to try out a carb this weekend comming up, i will prolly get a carb that my friend is selling for cheep and i am goign buy it and test it out because i have never once really felt the full potential of my engine due to lack of poor tuning and waiting on a chip that i dont think will ever come . i am pretty sure i am gonig to come back to tbi after the carb swap but more i think about it the only real thing that is going to bring me back is mpg that i got off my tbi.

 

On the other side of the fence. I'm making my carbed jeep, TBI. Why?: Cold mornings and carbs don't mix, steep angles and stock carbs don't mix, better aftermarket carbs are a couple hundred dollars, and I got a spare TBI for $35 shipped.

 

let us know when you decide to re-enter the tbi gang. are you gonna leave teh ecm hooked up and just undo the controls and connections at the tb. that is what pablo did and he can still use the electronic timign advance and read the sensors to see what the car is doing. i think he just rigged teh tps to read the throttle position.

later
tim

 

tim thats my plan, too keep the swap simple and to hopefully be temparary. Tas i really dont go offroading with my firebird so i gues that dont apply to me not to mention it is usally warm in florida. i will keep my carb on intill something pops up or i get my chip and try out that but for now i am tired of waiting for it and running like crap.

 

i will probably be going carb come summer time

 

NJSPEEDER,

One of the many reasons why I'm going carb is because my I am getting absolutely no timing advance when I hit the throttle. My distributor is good, but I have so many wires between the knock sensor to the ESC module, to the distributor that have been cut, pulled on, burned in two, melted, etc., that I will have to use a vacuum advance dist. I will probably leave the ECM hooked up because acording to the schematics I have, the VSS signal goes to the ECM before the Speedo. Also, some other minor things are controlled by the ECM (A/C pressure switch, fuel pump priming, I think some of the guages, etc.). Oh, yeah, I forgot torque converter lock-up, another big reason why I am keeping the ECM hooked up. One day I may completely re-wire my car for either carb or tbi, but that day is long ahead of me. For now, I'll stick with the 'hybrid' system, and try to hide as many of those ugly wire looms as I can. I'll probably relocate my fuel pump and fan switch relays, just to clean up the driver's side of the engine bay a little.

Tas, Yes, TBI can be cheaper if that's what you begin with and assuming all of your wiring, etc. is intact. In my very unique case, carb is the best/simplest/cheapest option. I'm getting an intake and a carb for next to nothing ($35 worth of whiskey!). Like I said, I will return to TBI, and I will still hang out on this board to learn even more for when I do finally return.

As far as cold weather goes, well, you've never been to San Marcos, have you? Anyways, I will have a daily driver for those days (A 91 Toyota Corolla YAWN!).

Please, please, please, don't let this post encourage people to steer away from TBI!! That wasn't my intention. I really want to see TBI become a very widely-used system. The more people that are trying new and different things, the better off we all are!!
Hell, I'm even all for you Crossfire guys getting more people to catch on!

 

i think im following suit pretty soon. buddy of mine with a 70 1/2 camaro is selling me his edelbrock 4Bbl, 600 CFM, vacuum secondaries, electric choke carb plus a metering rod tuning kit all for 150.

 

Hmmm... interesting. All of us who are going carb are from Texas!

 

i am not

 

Ooops. Sorry. Well, Florida is close enough

 

I had considered a carb swap before I sold the RS.

I went with FI.

 

:lala: 1998 Camaro Z28 M6 :lala:

 

Hey, hey, hey, what's that supposed to mean?


You should be doing this:


:hail: LS1

 

You know why TBI is so cheap? NOONE WANTS IT. IT SUCKS. I can say it sucks cause I have it and I finally got the cash to convert it to carb AND get more power outta a 625CFM CARB then that $hitty TBI (rap. In My 2nd gen camaros they all had carbs, and you know what they all started great when I gave them a little pump of throttle before the start. They even started in -15* just fine.
And I don't know about you but I don't take my camaro 4 wheelin...
And the deal with the steep hills, thats poor fuel pressure/supply. I have an elect pump at 14PSI hooked to a fuel block. Supply is no problem.

Its sad to say that my other 92 with a V6 BEATS TBI CARS ALL THE TIME. They are not power makers. Your better off either swapping in TPI or going CARB... I am fourtunate to live where the EPA ****'S can't reach so I can swap it out clean...

Hell I am getting all new parts, intake, carb and distrib for under 700 bucks... and gain 30HP doin it... Now add you LT1 cam to that, your heads to that.... You can fine tune a Carb and get even more...

No flme intended.. really. Just stating my opinion/and what I have been told by many a people...

 

Yeah, TBI does suck. Especially when the owner knows jack **** how to tune TBI! Carbs have been around for every and so everybody and their dog knows how to tune a carb, that's the only desirable quality of a carb intake system. Any fool that gives up EFI for a carb is just that, a fool. Ask any of my friends with carbs if I should have gone with a carb, see what they say.
It doesn't help any that most owners of LO3 and TBI vehicles aren't performance oriented to begin with. They got the car for looks or whatever and they only now reliaze they want to go fast. If they spend a little time and research it isn't hard, key words are time and research.
Oh yeah, and any kid that thinks his v6 thirdgen will beat TBI vehicles all day has no 1/4 mile performance time slips to back up his claims, what proof, post the proof.
Hey, if carbs were so much better, don't you think there would be some proof of time slips showing that just a carb swap is faster than TBI!!! Like I said earlier, if you can't tune TBI and you don't want to learn because your friends all made fun of you then get TPI or go with a carb.
Post some proof because I've been on this site long enough to know that TBI is just one of those paths less traveled, doesn't mean it's junk or cheap, just means it's mis-understood and rarely taken advantage of.
Oh yeah, and tell me to my face that a carb would be faster in the 1/4. If you want to compare a carb to a stock TBI setup then you had better also compare it to a stock TPI setup. If you tune the carb with jets and adjustments, you had better not leave out tuning TBI.
So like I've said for a while now. If you don't like EFI and if you don't have the time (hot rodding isn't your hobby) then go with a carb. It's just that simple. If you've got the time and want to learn how to hot rod TBI from the experienced then listen up. It's just like when hot rodders started playing with carbs. They all tinkered around with the stuff and made the cars faster...I'm not doing anything different except I'm doing it with EFI.

 

its cheap because I got parts from cool TBI people that want to help me. Howell, Holley, Turbo City, amoung others sell hundreds of turn key TBI kits for thousands of dollars for each kit.