raygreenwood
Samba Member
Joined: November 24, 2008
Posts: 21521
Location: Oklahoma City
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 Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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| KTPhil wrote: |
FI gives better starting, smoother idling, better mileage, and lower emissions. It actually does not do much for power. It just gets you that power in a more efficient way.
And once you get the wiring fixed, and your gas filler water entry problems, it will be more reliable. Parts are easily found here on the Samba, or on ebay.
Take the advice, good though perhaps said tongue in cheek, to clean, rebuild, and rewire the FI, and put it back on next time you have a couple of days and are sick of the constant fiddling carbs bring you.
And yes, some of us are purists! But VW got it right with the simple FI they introduced on these cars. |
for the most part you are spot on. However, in factory stock configuration...with D-jet for example.....these engines got roughly 14- 17 hp more than the bus carbed version of this engine ...primarily because of the ability of the D-jet to use compression ratios that the carbs were just not ideally set up for. This is all speaking of stock.
Now....if changing to a carb were not all you were going to do.....say if you were adding a better cam more suited to twin carbs (and by all means not using that horrible center mounted carb at all)...getting a better ignition and exhaust...and leaving all else alone with just tuning....you could do as well as the stock injection (if you used modern carbs). It would still get less gas mileage and in certain situations not start quite as smoothly...but would be very nice. I say that because its reality...even though I hate carbs on anything other than a weed eater or lawnmower.
In reality the same goes for even the factory injection. There are mods for it as well...cams, better valves, better exhaust and ignition and tuning.
And no...carbs cannot just be easily replaced. It will be carb(s)...because center mounted carbs do not work well at all on these engines without heroic and dedicated tuning with manifold heat. Also...good carbs do not grow on trees anymore. Also...none of them are tuned for your engine out of the box. Got a bag of jets and emulsion tubes on ya?...got experience in tuning carbs? Its not so easy. All carbs have compromises.
The injection and its manifolds were actually fairly well designed and were a good combo.
As much as I love D-jet.....and CIS....were I in your shoes and having time...you can even keep the stock manifolds and cam and go to a aftermarket system and really wake your car up.
As for these cars not being race cars.....bear in mind...all of our modern street cars are not race cars....but would you buy a modern car with a 13-15 second 0-60 time?.....doubt it. Mainly because you will get killed in modern traffic trying to drive it.
These cars when new and properly tuned turned in better times than that in 1972...even with the auto box. It takes very little engine or tuning degradation to make these cars slugs. The four speed was MUCH better.
The addition of a center mounted carb is about as much tuning degradation as you can get.
I also find that about 85% of all type 4 car owners think their cars drive the way they are supposed to and are happy enough to drive them. I find that more than half of those owners are putting out a fraction of the power output their cars should simply because it needs better tuning and care. They don't know what to expect.....so they dont know when its wrong.
When properly tuned...it will surprise you how well they run. The type 4...aside from some sports models like the Brasilia and the 914 was probably about the fastest and quickest of the ACVW's. Its not a bug or a bus. the closest thing is a type 3....and I have not found one yet close to stock that my 412 with 4 speed cannot spank easily. Just some thoughts. Ray |
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adamharo
Samba Member
Joined: October 18, 2012
Posts: 33
Location: Fresno Ca
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| Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:06 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Phil and Ray for the response. That was very insightful.
Phil you have a good suggestion, Since the car is running and I am able to drive it around and enjoy it I think I will spend some time studying the "How to keep your Volkswagen alive" book and going through the injection parts and see if I can't get the injection going myself. Ray, do you have any links on the aftermarket injection systems? Curious what something like that would cost. Do they come with everything or do you use some of the existing FI parts? |
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