To carburate OR to not carburate Options

[930cabman]

one thing that will tell you about FI. People will want to buy it off you.

Possibly true. I have a bunch of D jet and L jet stuff kicking around, but have little/no way of testing it and do not want to sell stuff I do not know the condition of. The stock FI system is coming up on 50 years of age, how long can this stuff last??

[PCH]

The lack of testing equipment is a big problem.

I ran a d-jet on my daily driver 71. I had a few problems with it. Every time, you had to examine the whole system. Spent a ton of money on the D-Jet. Finally, one day it just wouldn't start. Drove it 70 miles the day before with no problems or even a hiccup.

After a week spent going through everything, I concluded the ECU was bad. Looking around, I realized every replacement ECU is going to be close to 50 years old. At that point, I decided I would go to carbs because reliability is paramount to me. I removed the D-Jet and installed new IDF 40's in less time than it took to diagnosis the FI. I'm at sea level and it cold starts and runs great with minimal initial adjustment.

Decreased fuel mileage is the greatest draw back of new carbs. But hey, I would have had a lot of gas money for what I've spent on the FI.

[JamesM]

Restoring a 70 which will have a 76 2 liter. Currently has factory injection but guy who will be building engine for me is anti injection. I know this becomes personal decision but could use some input on pro/cons. Cost is a concern but so is practicality and performance.
Words of wisdom please.
Merry and Happy to all!

1. If the guy building your motor is anti-injection, find a new guy. Though to be fair if we are talking ONLY about d-jet it may be understandable as d-jet issues can and have nuked brand new motors in short order before. To engine builders d-jet is a liability.

2. Are you only looking at a debate between d-jet and carbs, because there are better options now than both of those?

I personally have always been anti carb because they are at best a compromise (provided you build the engine to take advantage of them) but in most cases they are just a downgrade. I used to be a d-jet purist, and in many 914s over the last 20+ years have always found d-jet to be a very solid system, but the points around the system being 50 years old, difficult to troubleshoot and modify, and some critical parts being NLA do make for a strong case against it.

Modern programable injection, is the way forward, best of all worlds.

[930cabman]

How much can we figure for a new programable FI system?
thanks

[Superhawk996]

How much can we figure for a new programable FI system?
thanks

@930cabman

In kit form, DubShop used to have a nice dual ITB Megasquirt kit with wiring, all sensors, pump, etc., for about $3500. Currently showing Waiting on Throttle bodies and no pricing.

Get ready for price hike with devaluation of the dollar and supply chain issues!

It is the kit I'd love to do if I were going to stay /4 forever.

[Shivers]

I make no excuses for myself, I like carbs. I like the old school performance and I like the the sound. Sounds like my uncles old 356 sc. Plus they look cool.

[Mark Henry]

How much can we figure for a new programable FI system?
thanks

@930cabman

In kit form, DubShop used to have a nice dual ITB Megasquirt kit with wiring, all sensors, pump, etc., for about $3500. Currently showing Waiting on Throttle bodies and no pricing.

Get ready for price hike with devaluation of the dollar and supply chain issues!

It is the kit I'd love to do if I were going to stay /4 forever.

Fuel only SDS, using stock intake (stock pump, injectors, etc) and a DIY install can be done for $1072.* plus a wideband meter.

*Parts also needed (extra) MAP sensor 1 bar $73, TPS $93 (can be had at scrapyard), fuel pump relay $30 (optional but recommended).
This is the minimum extra parts needed, there's other options.

No dyno time required. Basic install time required for me is one weekend, for an amateur maybe 2-4 weekends. Tuning time for me on county back roads one hour, again for the amateur 2-4 times that number. Engine will fire up right away, with the included rich/lean knob I have no worries breaking in a new engine on SDS as you can adjust AFR on the fly.
Based on an engine with no mechanical issues. System can tolerate mild carb cam grinds, limited to the stock intake. Don't expect any more than stock performance on a stock engine, FI doesn't add HP.

NOTE crankfire "F" systems and crankfire E/MSD systems take much longer, as you have to remove the engine and fab a trigger mount.

I've done several of these /4 "D" systems on stock engines, they run great. I have SDS with crankfire on my 2.6L VW bug (T4 conversion) and I have a twin plug system I will install on my 3.0/6 conversion someday.

sdsefi.com

[mate914]

Did the engine builder say what camshaft he wants?
The right camshaft and piston/cylinders can take you car from 100hp up past 150. It becomes a torque monster.
I say YES. However it is your car, so do as you wish.

Matt (IMG:style_emoticons/default/flag.gif)

[Type 47]

My new year's resolution is to get my 914 put back together and complete the restoration, so I'm debating this exact thing.

Some very good points here for both sides which doesn't make the decision easy.

I have a 75' 2.0 with 62k miles and the original engine that has been converted to IDF 40's (not sure cam was changed).

Back in the day we put the FI in a box when something went bad. It had so many components and there was little expertise, except at the dealer, back in the day; shops didn't want to work on them and carbs were an easy solution.

understood that peak performance only comes with skilled tuning for the dual carbs.

I do have the original FI in a box that came with the car, but obviously one of the components is bad and would require a big effort to trouble shoot and get 47 year old parts to come back to life.

I've done a color change so I'm not hung up on it affecting the value, it will never be a concourse level car.

It looks like a rebuild of the Webbers and engine will be on my to do list.

[JamesM]

How much can we figure for a new programable FI system?
thanks

@930cabman

In kit form, DubShop used to have a nice dual ITB Megasquirt kit with wiring, all sensors, pump, etc., for about $3500. Currently showing Waiting on Throttle bodies and no pricing.

Get ready for price hike with devaluation of the dollar and supply chain issues!

It is the kit I'd love to do if I were going to stay /4 forever.

Fuel only SDS, using stock intake (stock pump, injectors, etc) and a DIY install can be done for $1072.* plus a wideband meter.

*Parts also needed (extra) MAP sensor 1 bar $73, TPS $93 (can be had at scrapyard), fuel pump relay $30 (optional but recommended).
This is the minimum extra parts needed, there's other options.

No dyno time required. Basic install time required for me is one weekend, for an amateur maybe 2-4 weekends. Tuning time for me on county back roads one hour, again for the amateur 2-4 times that number. Engine will fire up right away, with the included rich/lean knob I have no worries breaking in a new engine on SDS as you can adjust AFR on the fly.
Based on an engine with no mechanical issues. System can tolerate mild carb cam grinds, limited to the stock intake. Don't expect any more than stock performance on a stock engine, FI doesn't add HP.

NOTE crankfire "F" systems and crankfire E/MSD systems take much longer, as you have to remove the engine and fab a trigger mount.

I've done several of these /4 "D" systems on stock engines, they run great. I have SDS with crankfire on my 2.6L VW bug (T4 conversion) and I have a twin plug system I will install on my 3.0/6 conversion someday.

sdsefi.com

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)
If you have the d-jet intake I would say $1000 is roughly the comfortable low end to do it yourself. It can be done for much less but with much greater time and effort, $1000 is the comfortable point for DIY. I did receive a notice that there are going to be price increases on Megasquirt hardware in the new year though, so that may change a bit.

Marios (dubshop) kit at $3500 includes $1000+ of ITBs and related hardware (and markup) that you can get by without if you already have the 2.0 intake and unless the motor is built up significantly over stock there is not any advantage to running ITBs. that being said it is a complete kit so if you are starting with nothing it may be the easy way to go. His harness is not specific to 914s though, at least not the last one i saw. Also the dubshops type 4 crank sensor, while still my personal favorite serup, does require dropping the engine to install in a 914.

Not sure if PMB is selling any systems for end user installation yet (or what they cost), but they have built out a few now that are 914 specific and use a trigger setup that replaces the distributor so you don't need to drop the engine.

[JamesM]

My new year's resolution is to get my 914 put back together and complete the restoration, so I'm debating this exact thing.

Some very good points here for both sides which doesn't make the decision easy.

I have a 75' 2.0 with 62k miles and the original engine that has been converted to IDF 40's (not sure cam was changed).

Back in the day we put the FI in a box when something went bad. It had so many components and there was little expertise, except at the dealer, back in the day; shops didn't want to work on them and carbs were an easy solution.

understood that peak performance only comes with skilled tuning for the dual carbs.

I do have the original FI in a box that came with the car, but obviously one of the components is bad and would require a big effort to trouble shoot and get 47 year old parts to come back to life.

I've done a color change so I'm not hung up on it affecting the value, it will never be a concourse level car.

It looks like a rebuild of the Webbers and engine will be on my to do list.

Probably wouldn't be as much of an effort as you might think. These days a lot more is known/documented about d-jet, there are really only a couple of the major components that fail in a way to cause serious issues and the info is out there to bench test the components so its fairly easy with the parts already off the car.

BUT, given the age, limitations, and availability of new parts for d-jet I feel like you really need to be committed to the idea if you want to go down the road of putting it back in. Probably worth the time to at least figure out what is wrong with the system you have though, I would bet its probably something simple like a torn MPS diaphragm or bad head temp sensor, both of which are very easy to determine on the bench.