How bad is a TBI compared to a carb?

Right now i have a carb setup on my car but can get a complete TBI setup out of a early 90s truck. I wanted to do the swap for a bit more gas mileage but i dont want to hurt my performance much.

 

Too much hassle to swap to a TBI system if all you are looking for is the fuel economy, in my opinion. You'd need the entire ECM, all the sensors, all that crap to go with it.

 

Its all in a truck sitting at the end of my driveway, wont take long to pull the sensors and pull the ECM. But im thinking ill loose a hella lot of power going to TBI. Got the truck for free so no loss there.

 

Your not going to gain any fuel economy going with TBI. Its a very inefficient induction setup. Not worth it IMHO

 

Maybe ill just set the truck on fire, duct tape the gas pedal down and let it drive into the ballpark as a flaming mass...

 

If it's a 454 and if you wanted to go the other way and go for better performance, there's a few cool things you could do with it.

 

Ya i have heard of modding the 2" TBI units from a 454 onto a smallblock manifold but sadly enough its only a 1 11/16 (right?) smallblock TBI. I havent even looked enough into this truck to see if its a 305 or 350 but i know its just a smallblock.

 

If it's a 350, you can probably sell it here. Hopefully soon I will have my pay raise at work and I'll get to start on the TT 383! I'm torn as to whether I will get a junkyard engine to use for the block or buy one of those aftermarket $2000 ones.

 

If im not mistaken arent the 305 and 350 TBI's the same thing?

Anyways i think ill keep with the flaming truck idea, sounds like some fun.

 

I had a mild 305 TBI (former L03) and it got about 15 miles to the gallon "average" with a chip from www.tbichips.com. The car ran great. But I now have a carbureted 350 with a hell of a lot more cam, and I am getting BETTER mileage- I usually get 17 "average" driving. I use those terms lightly because I beat the hell out of my car... must be why my stuff is always breaking




never will I go back to TBI again

 

Well i dont think i can get much worse mileage than what i have now, but i guess ill just stick with it as a nice new engine will be going in this winter.

 

Depending on the engine and state of tune, you can get up to ~24 in the city and 30+ out on the highway. My stock 305 got better fuel economy then my present taurus. The EFI, unlike a carb, is a closed loop system. With the addition of a heated O2, the ecm can regulate teh fueling.

 

If you have a mild motor with its peak torque around 3400-3600 RPM, and you want EFI without doing any tuning, look into a MAF TPI setup. Youll need new injectors and a new MAF if you have the origional bosch crap and a new high pressure fuel pump to go along with the setup.

The tbi will also work equally well, but requires you to get a prom burner and do some tuning. Same will apply to a later SD TPI setup. You MUST tune a SD setup or itll run like crap.