94 Camaro LT1 Debate: Carbs or Fuel Injection?
 

Hello,

I purchased a 94 Z28 LT1, with a stroker kit now a 383, big cam, lots of upgrades. Was great during the test drive, but after I bought it the car was not reliable after the first day I purchased it. I've been fighting over its fate: Spend the money and do another tune, find out it didn't work out and still have to drop $500+ or go the route lots of people have indicated and convert to carbs. I am frustrated at this point, as the car looks and sounds great but I ultimately want to be able to get in it, drive the way it sounds (awesome) and have some type of reliablility. I've been told over and over it has fuel management problems, it always wants more gas, the second you let off or try to stop I gotta ride the gas and the brake or it dies.

I have been made well aware that in some states you can't change this year from Fuel injection to Carb due to EPA or E-check/pollution rules. I really don't care about hearing about this anymore, I just want a solution to make this care great, without sacrificing reliability.

The question I pose is where can a home garage mechanic win in this situation? Fuel injection is great, but there are so many mods to this care that it seems like I need a performance shop on call to keep it running. Is a full carb conversion best for the sake of reliability and budget, or is Fuel injection still the answer?

Any help and feedback would be greatly appreciated. I heard about the PERFECT painless wiring for fuel management as an option for the fuel injection case. I believe these are only for stock conditions though. Please advise also any info on what is necessary to convert to carbs: any known kits or companies that may sell a full kit to convert.

Thanks!

look under the hood and think about were that carb would go... somewhere in your dash i think. no carb is not the answer. any chance u can have it dino tuned? is it throwing any codes?

you can't extinguish a fire without finding the source of the flame. You've already put into your head that a carb is the way to go as opposed to finding the source of the problem which could be as simple as a disconnected vacuum hose.

yeah it sounds to me like you have a pretty simple problem that you're trying to ignore and hoping it fixes it.

when i had an O2 sensor go bad, it didn't throw a code, but the car ran like crap and i'd have to keep my foot on the gas to keep it running

Thanks for the advice... No codes thrown, but I could go through and look for a bad vacuum hose. The O2 sensor was replaced prior to purchase... but its worth swapping out, as I do have to keep my foot on the pedal.

I shot the same question out to some techs, and get a similar split I posted: half say it needs to go back on the dyno and tuned, the other half say go with carbs to gain some long term reliability, horsepower as well as taking the dreaded "optispark" out of the equation. The opti is new as well, so I've taken that out of the equation as a root to the problem.

OK, I'll bite. How would changing the intake manifold and converting to a carb "take the dreaded optispark out of the equation"?

Not only do you have to bite, it takes a bit of chewing too.
When you convert the LT1 over to a carb, you no longer use the optispark. You can pull the opti out and put a plug in the timing chain cover, or leave the opti there.
With the intake manifold off, you remove the factory oil pump drive.
Buy and install an LT1 4 barrel conversion manifold, and a carb.
Drop in a conventional distributor (the gear on the cam that drove the old oil pump drive will now drive the distributor and the oil pump).
Hook up the ignition like you would an old Gen1 style engine.
Install a return style fuel regulator and plumb your line to the carb.
The biggest headache though is going to be making vertical clearance for the distributor.
"Have sawzall will travel"!

Someone mentioned fidning the problem and fixing it rather than buying upgrades. I think you have a fuel delivery issue that should be adressed first. Does the current fuel pump have enough pressure to the rail? If not, a carb will still give you the same problem.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I am going to take everyone's advice, see if I can find the root of the problem and troubleshoot first. I won't lie, I am tempted to do the LTCC conversion, but I think it may be best to troubleshoot... The tough part now is waiting the weather out. I'm in the Great Lakes area, so I've had a mixture of Snow, Rain, Freezing Rain, 11 degrees one week to 49 today; great weather! I just picked up a Mr. Heater, probably the least expensive part for my project!