F/I or Carbs

[Jonathan Taz]

What is the hot set up these days for SCCA National Competition. Carbs or Fuel Injection? Is there still a weight break for using Carbs.

[Stan Clayton]

The answer is 'it depends'...

Carbs do have a 25 lbs weight break if you are using some engines (such as the Toyota 4AGE). A close reading of the GCRs will reveal the details. For persons who can take advantage of the weight break, the 25 pound advantage is worth having (Rennie is so light that we have to add nearly 50 lbs of lead to bring it up to the carb weight - and we'd need another 25 to get it to FI weight). I've talked to some drivers who are heavier and some prefer the FI since the car will weigh that much anyway.

As far as power is concerned, I think there is very little to chose between them on an all-out racing engine. Most consider the TRD EFI unit to be inferior to carbs, but Loynings have their own design which I understand makes as much power as carbs. In either case, proper tuning is essential to getting max performance out of the setup. When we ran EFI we had three maps for different conditions. Now that we run carbs we carry around an assortment of jets and bleeds to accomplish the same thing.

Hope that helps!