Balancing your aftermarket upgrades against one another so you can pull the best performance out of every enhancement you make to your vehicle means understanding how your fuel delivery affects a vehicle’s performance. If you’re weighing a performance carburetor build against an aftermarket EFI upgrade, the first step to making the right decision is understanding what an aftermarket EFI does for your vehicle.
Fuel Injectors vs. Performance Carburetors
It would be misleading to pretend that a fuel injection kit is across the board better than the best carburetor designs you can find. The fact is, the advantages of each are situational, and there are times when a good carb will get you better times in an event.
What is true is that for most driving situations, fuel injectors have an edge because of the way the system of sensors and electronic feedback calibrates them in real time to match the engine’s needs. Since your carburetor tweaks have to happen between trips, fuel injection brings these benefits to everyday driving situations.
- More power than standard carburetor and throttle body designs
- Greater reliability than the other options
- Increased fuel efficiency so your gas goes further
- Decreased emissions
- Lower maintenance requirements than the alternative
There’s a good reason why fuel injection dominated the market once it became a cost-effective design for automakers, and aftermarket EFI upgrades can give you performance gains over OEM designs that can be dramatic if you have already upgraded key engine and exhaust system components.
Aftermarket vs. OEM EFI Systems
If you upgrade your fuel injectors alone, chances are the aftermarket upgrades will be larger, capable of delivering more fuel, and built to complement an upgraded intake and exhaust so that your engine has extra fuel to balance the extra air coming through so it can cycle faster. Installing an entire EFI system is different, because it upgrades your electronic controller along with your injectors, which can increase the precision and timing of adjustments to the fuel/air mixture.
Some advanced systems can even be controlled from the driver’s seat, allowing you to program fuel injection profiles for different driving situations and change them as needed so you are in total control of the vehicle’s performance. Match that with the right supercharger for sale and you can really take hold of your car’s power output and channel it where you need it.
Fuel, Air and Ignition
Getting more power out of your vehicle means more than just upgrading engine parts or fuel delivery components. You need to make sure that increases in fuel delivery are matched by increases in maximum engine output as well as air flow. If you upgrade the intake and EFI without making improvements to the engine’s ability to react faster or to create more power from reactions, you’re not going to make the gains that someone who is optimizing the potential of every upgrade would.
If you have already balanced your power profile and this is the last step, check out your options for quality-of-life upgrades like cargo carriers, new mirrors, and lighting. Make sure your vehicle is truly built to suit your style.
