rmbuilder

These comments are based upon personal experience. During the past year we worked with Alex Haxby in transitioning 14 of our clients from carb to the Holley EFI. These were various stages of performance ranging from 600 to 1400 HP. The vast majority were previously using custom carb setups by quality tuners, the likes of ProSystems, C&S, Willys, and Nickerson. The user feedback has been tremendously positive.

In terms of the ease of use, the latest iterations of EFI are light-years ahead of the less user friendly orientated versions. The systems are intuitive, removing the intimidation factor from real time tuning. The ability to move from sea level to 8000 ft, under any atmospheric conditions, with the ability to optimize your tuning program to the ambient, is invaluable. In a number of instances Alex was able to assist in the initial tuning process real time from a remote location.

From a performance perspective, I have yet to see any qualified data that a carbureted application has any performance advantage over EFI in any marine application.

Bob

Orthobam

Yes, but how much does it cost. Like others have said, at least for me, price matters. If it's $5,000 that's one thing. If it's $20,000 then that's a different deal.

If someone could show me the time value/safety/improved reliability/reduced wear…..then I would do it in a second.

kidturbo

I've been out of the speed shop business for many years and just recently got back into playing with modern diesels on the side. But besides the obvious wiring and ignition part changes, you basically only need to know a few things to lay out a custom EFI setup. How much air your moving, how much fuel your burning, and how much HP your engine is capable of producing. Then you find or build an intake with injectors bosses where you want them, get a throttle body rated to flow the air ya need, and last injectors, rails, fuel pump, and regulator matched to your engine build. Now days ya get to pick from over the counter plug and play setups, or rolling your own custom builds. When I was into this, that first option didn't even exist.

Naturally aspirated, complete multi-port BB Chevy systems with all the wiring and intake start at $2500 from big box mail order shops. If blown, you'll need to take the boost pressure into consideration for multi-port, and possibly some other intake options. If your already blown with carbs, those Holley EFI setups are a very "reasonable priced" upgrade that's pretty much lands on the plug and play side of swaps.

I've always preferred port injection, and with all the supercharger and turbo options out there today it's relatively easy to find the correct intake to fit your build plumbed with bosses and fuel rail mounts. Plus the aftermarket ECM market has exploded with self learning / tuning setups that use wide band O2 sensors to map the fuel curve perfectly. Guessing those setups would take care of most of the under 1000hp users on here. For custom builds like twin blowers or turbos, your gonna wanta spend that 5k plus and let someone who does this every day at least write your tunes and figure the big questions like injectors sizing. Either way, in the end you'll have a rock solid setup that should have better performance, protect the engine, and long outlast everything under it no matter the conditions or how hard you beat on it..

brian41

I have been building/tuning carbed engines most of my life wether it be in boats or hot rod cars and if you would have asked me 3 years ago about doing anything other than a carbed engine I would have sent you elsewhere. I saw the writing on the wall over that last 3 years but it wasn't until this past year I had the opportunity to be involved in 2 different EFI builds at my shop. 1 with Marine Kinetics and another with a local customer. Both opened my eyes to the advantages of systems available to us today that where not just a few short years ago. I am converting all my personal builds to EFI this winter and have and will continue to push my customers in the same direction as the cost and ease of use has finally became a non factor compared to cost of engine builds.

SummerObsession

Honestly BAM, for you I wouldn't see much advantage in switching to FI. You have the skills to dock your boat with blower surge, most of your boating is done at the same elevation (no real need to have the motors auto adjust), and you have the talent available to assist with tuning the carbs as necessary. From a performance standpoint, I don't think you would see much if any improvement by switching, other than maybe a bit more low rpm torque and smoother idle.
From a safety standpoint, as long as all the seals in the carb are refreshed and they are tuned to start easily (no flooding so no excess fuel vapors in the bilge), they should be equal. In fact carbs running at a lower psi fuel pressure should be better in the event of a fuel leak.
that said, if you were buying new engines, I would definitely vote for efi. Hit the key and go.

Orthobam

Thanks for saving me $20,000.

BTW my niece is getting married on April 26th - that's Havasu weekend

TeamSaris

Its fairly rare we even build Carb motors anymore. We use Accel DFI Fuel Management systems with incredible success. Forget the power, its the driveability that makes it worth it. A well tuned EFI motor will never stall, no more pumping it, and your engine is custom tuned to your specific boat. Take a lot of oomph to get on plane? We can add fuel there. Like to cruise at 3500? Lets make that spot as efficient as we can. Not to mention in real rough water, fuel management with carbs goes down the tubes. You land hard, the floats slam down, the motor is way rich right when you need the snappiest acceleration there is. Bad news if you're trying to win. Carbs still work. They certainly have an old school look and feel. Its also kind of cool that not everyone knows how to feel out a big bad carb motor. For example, a big surging blower motor. A lot of people think its neat that you need to know to shift at the bottom of the lope for a lot smoother shift. Me? Nah....Ill take the EFI. If your building a $30,000 800hp motor, the extra 2-4k is completely worth it. We recommend EFI for everything we build. We'll still build a Carb engine, but I'm fairly certain the day will come when Carb engines are like engines with Points....a thing of the past.

Any questions give us a call- 518-644-3080, talk to Jason.

TeamSaris

Don't take this as a "Quote" or "Estimate" from me, but depending on the hardware you have, and the rigging you already have...I really doubt it would be 20k.

Orthobam

I may switch someday but I would probably switch boats before changing an already great set up. Like SummerO said, we didn't have any issues around docks, in rough water, during the heat, and so on. If we would have had a crappy year, I would spend the $20k in a heart beat if it would make for a good year.

The only issue I had was during a 30 minute idle during the LOTO race weekend. That was 30 minute idle each way. My port motor loaded up and I had to change spark plugs. We started to have a similar issue during a long idle during Shootout weekend but I learned to idle on one motor while revving the other to keep that from happening.

mike tkach

that is exactly why efi is better.the fouled plugs at extended idle will no longer be an issue.but you can change a lot of spark plugs for the price of efi.