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Since everything is about money i would prefer spending money on suspension brakes etc than on fuel injection ecu etc. Its a custom build so it does not matter very much. Is fuel injection better? Yes it is. Does it worth spending the extra money? Probably not.
Waiting for the alignment video.
When will you drive this car? nice job EricEric, good video. I don’t understand the bashing you get for your choices on the Fairmont, it’s a one off build and the owner should do what they want.
What really drove the digital world in cars was likely both emission and CAFE fuel standards. Not that a carb engine cannot be clean and efficient, but if it goes out of adjustment or things like the gasoline composition changes (like winter and summer blends in major cities) they can become less efficient. With the digital systems, there is some adjustment through feedback loops (things like fuel trim adjustments based on O2 readings), but when a single sensor goes, it is probably lights out or limp home. You could fix it on the side of the road with a $3000 scanner and a trunk full of replacement parts. The carb you could make an adjustment with a pocket screwdriver and be OK.
One can argue things have gone too far with CAN bus systems, 50 convenience modules and needing a big dollar scanner to manage it all (hello fellow VW owners 🙂 ) , you shouldn’t have to program a radio. Since my real life profession is software engineering, I have been asked by people why the ECM can’t give better fault analysis and point to the real problem. Like everything else, it is a cost benefit proposition, in order to do that you would need odd number (> 1) redundant systems like a lot of military or spaceflight applications have. Do you want to pay another 30% for a car to get that?
The one thing we all have in common is this: if you are either tweaking the car with a screwdriver (analog) or fixing a problem with data measurements and a test light or meter (digital), it is still very satisfying to get the job done successfully.
[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=182043]This video was a long time coming. As you can see, I shot 3 different versions of it. I still feel I could have added a couple more things, but I guess I’ll be happy with it since it’s already uploaded.
Anyway, I hope it sparks some interesting discussion. Thanks for watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB5EFjU5eVA%5B/quote%5D
Hi Eric!I love this topic because I always get asked: Why don’t you buy a new car instead of dealing with the old clunkers you have? My answer every time: I love the simplicity. I drive a 93 civic and a 97 civic. If anyone has ever worked on these cars understands that these cars can take a beating and still go down the road but also if you need to work on them, they are very easy to work with. I do not drive them for the customability or because I am a ricer like a lot of people like to label these cars and their owners. I just like it because it is easy to do anything to it. They do have fuel injection and I am ok with that because it doesn’t have all the other complex electrical systems modern vehicles have. It is new enough that it isn’t entirely dependable on all the sensors to be on point and not old enough to have everything mechanical to where, like you mentioned, need to have the know how to figure out what is wrong with it, you can still use a computer to get that problem close enough. I hate the new electrical cars because my 97 civic still gets me 44 mpg like some of the newer cars out there and I have tested it. In fact I get about 45 to 46 at times. To me the 90’s were the perfect mix of electronics and mechanical. Maybe, depending on the car, even the early 2000’s. It is not about mechanical vs digital but what mixture of the two works for you. Your build is to what you wanted it to be. My cars are what I want them to be. Every person is who they want to be and I hate those that go around and say what is best without actually knowing much about it. Game critics who have never played games or pc reviewers who only read about the cpu of that pc on an overclocking website when the thing was not designed to be overclocked. Everyone has an opinion and they are entitled to it. I like the Fairmont I just would hate to own it because I know nothing carburetor lol. Great job on your build though it seems really solid and well made. Keep up the good hard work you do Eric. There are those of us who really do appreciate it.
Chris Orozco
It’s definitely easier to set and keep a standard with digital technology. A sensor has a known good value range, outside that, set MIL.
That stuff is awesome for mass production of consumer transportation, and I’d argue it’s a good chunk of why the air isn’t completely unbreathable. With digital technology, cars are more efficient, more powerful, more feature-rich, safer, much more reliable, and I’d argue better than cars in the pre-OPEC era.
The real reason analogue technologies, carburetors in this instance, are thought of as old technology is that the last vehicles to have carbs that weren’t mired with horrible emissions related design issues were in the late 60’s. Even as long as they’d been around at that point, they were far from advanced.
Modern carburetors are a whole different animal, but people still see them as 60’s technology. I’m assuming you’re using some type of HEI setup, you’re obviously using modern boost control and an electric fuel pump. When I built my Model A hotrod, I used a carb and glasspacks, because that was the look and sound I wanted. But I also used an electric fuel pump, aluminum radiator and electric fan, modern suspension and brakes, etc. Use the technology that serves that purpose best.
Great topic and video Eric.
About half of the 100 cars or so I’ve owned since I was a kid, had either:
(a) non-emission controlled carbs (Webers, Carter, Holley, Solex) or
(b) fuel injection (either TBI or port fuel injection). I do not like GDI fuel injection, because the engines sound like diesels.The only car era I never cared about were those that were built between 1974-1985 or so. I recall that was the period when car makers were struggling with rising fuel economy and lower emissions standards and the cars being sold at that time were heavy, had horrible driveability and performance.
My philosophy towards new car technologies is to embrace them only if it is change for the better, for the following characteristics: better performance, economy, reliability, driving feel, and as a hands on car guy, serviceability.
Performance: Faster is usually better. A modern Camry with a 4 cylinder can keep up with, or outrun for example, a 60/70’s Custom 500 with a 429 4V. Even though the Ford may be a bit slower, the sense of acceleration would satisfy me more. There is no substitute as a big block V8 kicks down a gear, and the secondaries open up, (real) dual exhausts rumble, and rear tires are allowed to slide a bit and burn off a few thousand miles of rubber. A fast modern car with a CVT.. not so appealing.
Economy: Newer cars can really perform, but economy advances have been modest. 80’s Honda Civics and Geo Metros were amazing gas sippers. You need a $30,000 hybrid to match that type of fuel economy, and a breakeven point will never happen due to their high initial prices.
Reliability: New cars need less routine maintenance, but if they get into an accident, they get written off easily due to the huge number of expensive components that are crammed in everywhere, and the crazy number of air bags that go off, and the high strength thin metals and bonding methods that make repair integrity difficult.
Driving feel: There was a period when car companies learned how to make cars with stiffer chassis, and increased driving feel. I think that the last 5 years has been retrograde, with electric steering and traction control/active braking systems that are not good enough to provide meaningful benefit to good, attentive drivers.
Serviceability: I like to work on my cars, and the truth is that I would rather spend my time actually working on car parts than having to first remove plastic engine covers, and studying factory trouble shooting procedures and/or wiring connector and junction/ bus layout diagrams.
Some predict that cars as we know them will cease being manufactured by 2030, supplanted by self driving pods for an increasingly disinterested motoring public. I hope that the auto industry and auto enthusiasts prove this wrong by taking action to make cars meaningful again (and more engaging) for the next generation of drivers and potential car guys/gals.
I love the discussion this video has sparked. Please keep the comments coming. I may not respond to each of them individually, but I am reading them. Thank you very much for your input.
I’m a bit of a Luddite at heart. Old-school analog technology has a “human” feel to it; it’s like the thumbprints of the sliderule-wielding engineers are on the mechanical parts. Digital technology, in comparison, feels sterile, as if no human had any part in the design process.
This topic has made me remember one of the old cars I particularly enjoyed in my younger days, a ’75 Dodge Royal Monaco Brougham four door hardtop. Think of the “Bluesmobile” movie car with hidden headlights and no B pillars. This 2-ton behemoth had a black vinyl top over a black body and wine red overstuffed velour interior straight out of a New Orleans hooker’s nightmare.
440 with a Carter Thermoquad, coupled to an archaic 3 speed auto which I tightened up a bit with a Hurst shift kit. This thing would pick up its skirt and boogie at the slightest prod of the loud pedal. Now, the Thermoquad was never a pretty carb, but it was very effective and easy to work on. The externally-adjustable metering rods were a great design feature, allowing you to tune the carb for economy or performance in 30 seconds without the need for disassembling the carb. And yes, there was some fuel economy available. I used to get a reliable 24/25 mpg on the highway when the carb was trimmed for economy, (so long as I kept my right foot out of the firewall). Not bad for a big-engined overweight analogue lump of iron. City mileage was atrocious, no matter how you massaged the carb, but hey, highway cruising was what this luxo barge was all about. And man, that wicked sound when the secondaries opened up. Fuel injected engines tend to sound hollow and farty, and simply fart louder the more you press the gas pedal.
The best riding, roomiest, most comfortable car I ever had, and I miss it. It had that analog “human feel” to it, you knew it was designed by humans for humans to enjoy. I felt like it was personally built for me. Its modern day digital counterparts, like say, one of the current Cadillacs or somesuch, can’t muster half of the heart and character my old Monaco had.
I can relate to Evil-i ‘s fondness for his Monaco. I used to watch (listen) to certain car movies just to hear 4 bbl. induction noise. (Yes I am a sick man). My favorite induction movie was ‘Walking Tall’ with those full size cop cars wailing down yhe interstate near red line as their torqueflight transmissions kicked down and the venturi noise filled my ears. Just not the same these days with 4 and 6 cylinder modern cars resorting to digital simulated v8 burble playing through their stereo speakers.
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