NHRA Expands Factory Stock Showdown

[GarysZ24]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

Tuning the computer on a normally aspirated EFI engine is NOTHING like adjusting the boost on a turbo. How in the world did you come up with that?
You can only adjust spark advance and air/fuel ratio. Like altering the advance curve in a distributor (something we have been doing for over 50 years) and changing carburetor jets and air bleeds, again something we have been doing for over 50 years. Biggest difference is the air/fuel ratio can be adjusted every 500 RPM or so. That, and no dirty hands. There is no magic there. I've been in business since Feb 1972, other than the incremental fueling adjustments, and incremental timing adjustments (very little-to-zero gains there if everything else is right) there is no power advantage to EFI computers.
The newest stuff is just crazy under-rated.

Ed, I know they're different, however just like adjusting boost levels can extract hp from your engine, you can also go into an EFI computer controlled engine and adjust a variety of things to enhance the performance of the FI engines (Woodro Josey is/was an ace at doing it, and I wish I understood those Accel Calmaps half as much as he). They may not be the same, but getting hp from either combo is easier than trying to legally extract more hp from a carburetor. Note: Sorry for the late reply, but since my budget hasn't allowed me to race my car in my region earlier this year, I haven't been as motivated to keep up with the racing scene, however since I know you were referring to my April post, I have to reply back to this. I recall being at Bandimere Speedway during a divisional points race, and (although your comments of spark advance & air fuel ratio are good), I managed to pick-up .4 sec., just by spending 10 minutes on my computer (and I'm not the sharpest person out there with regards to these things by any means).

If there's no advantage to EFI's over carburetors, then how come small block EFI engines are the performance equal to carbureted big blocks? Moreover, how come all production vehicles come with computers and no longer carburetors? They're more efficient in extracting more power from the same (or less) amounts of fuel. My EFI '04 Colorado does a better job with only 5cyl's of towing my Cavalier around (on less fuel I might add), than my '77 half ton 350 V8 carbureted Chevy Full Sized truck did back in '99 (it also was rated 45hp more). I'm not going to challenge your mechanical knowledge, but EFI put carbs in production vehicles to RIP status, thus proving the merit of what I stated as well...