Alky carb vs. Alky injection

I'm starting to make plans for the offseason upgrades and converting to alcohol is on top of the list. I know it's been debated on here and everywhere else a bazillion times but what's the best setup carb or injecton? Just looking at it from a cost perspective carb conversion with new pump regulator and a few lines and fittings is gonna run me about $1450. Injection on the other hand is gonna be more like 2300, plus I have to do a bunch of fab work to mount a fuel cell up front and move the radiator to do so. I talked with Ken Jones and he says that once the carb is tuned in I'll never touch it again. Is injection that much easier to tune than a carb and worth the extra 900 bucks or so? $900 is a lotta extra cheese....and i need to spend my money right the first time. Thanks Brian.

on a bigger motor I understand the injection is better.

Injection will be faster.

richter69 wrote:Injection will be faster.

With less maintenance

Don't get me wrong, I also like and still use alky carbs, but the injection will always be a tad faster due to design. The injection needs a little tlc just like a carb........and honestly if one is gonna move the cell up front anyway and has to buy all the pieces whichever way he goes, the injection may end up the same price if not cheaper.

IMO a good alky carb is gonna be in the 1000-1200 dollar range anyway..............unless you have a good 1050 or so you can send it to APD and get it converted for say 600 bucks...........I would not screw with an electric pump, they cam be a PITA and by the time you buy a good one big enough with the reg your getting the tally up there where the injection would be the same cost anyway.

There is a learning curve with alky..........and with alky injection over a carb.

...........and the injection will be faster lol...............consistancy, a good alky or gas carb for that matter can be just as deadly as the injection.

With lower horsepower engines the carburetor will be the same or even a little better ... once the power level reaches the point where more than about 400 pounds per hour of fuel is needed, the injection is far and a way the better power maker.

Having my carb converted is gonna run 550. Plus 750 for electric pump regulator and relay setup. Ken jones swears by rear mounted fuel cells and electric pumps. His door car is ran that way and is deadly, so are a few a my buddies that run his set ups. Only advantages I see with injection are less moving parts and gaskets to go bad.

How much faster will injection be? By my numbers injection will be $900 more and not just a bolt on deal with having to mount the fuel cell up front and moving the radiator. My labor is free but dang that's a lot of work.

On my low compression 529 it was a tenth and 2mph faster w inj in the 1/8th. The electric pumps cant give the variable pressure the alky carb wants, I killed like 3 seals and 2 lower bearings in my MF Prostar 500 pump in one season..........IMO the belt pump is the way to go with a carb...........been there done that several times lol. The best electric pumps I ran were the Mallory 250's. I cant say too much as i have a small Aeromotive electric pump to enrich the nos with alky on my deal now lol. And I agree on the lower power enine making a difference in carb vs injection...............with injection you up the power later you just change the nozzles and pills and you are set, if giving up some power in no biggie then a carb is fine.

why would you not run the cell up front anyway? less line and easy on the pump with it up front.i would not run an electric pump for any alky setup,alky will eat them up.like Randy said,the volume of fuel is the deal with alky.rons toilet injectors are easy to set up and a used one can be had worth the $$.if you do go injected,new or used,make damn sure you get the pump flowed so you know where to start.i like enderle stuff

James Monroe at www.killerons.com is the man on the Ron's stuff, he knows more about Ron's injection than the Ron's guys do lol.

richter69 wrote:James Monroe at www.killerons.com is the man on the Ron's stuff, he knows more about Ron's injection than the Ron's guys do lol.

I'm calling James tomorrw and see what he thinks. Naturally I suspect he'll say go with the injection. More than anything I'm concerened about the extra initial cost. As long as the cost pays for its self thats cool.

The five guys I know that run rear mounted cells have had no issues in atleast two seasons of racing, lucky maybe but thats been their experience and they all run Ken Jones' set ups.

Race Ready Fabrications wrote:

richter69 wrote:James Monroe at www.killerons.com is the man on the Ron's stuff, he knows more about Ron's injection than the Ron's guys do lol.

I'm calling James tomorrw and see what he thinks. Naturally I suspect he'll say go with the injection. More than anything I'm concerened about the extra initial cost. As long as the cost pays for its self thats cool.

The five guys I know that run rear mounted cells have had no issues in atleast two seasons of racing, lucky maybe but thats been their experience and they all run Ken Jones' set ups.

ok.........school me on a "Ken Jones" set up. never heard of it.

cool40 wrote:

Race Ready Fabrications wrote:

richter69 wrote:James Monroe at www.killerons.com is the man on the Ron's stuff, he knows more about Ron's injection than the Ron's guys do lol.

I'm calling James tomorrw and see what he thinks. Naturally I suspect he'll say go with the injection. More than anything I'm concerened about the extra initial cost. As long as the cost pays for its self thats cool.

The five guys I know that run rear mounted cells have had no issues in atleast two seasons of racing, lucky maybe but thats been their experience and they all run Ken Jones' set ups.

ok.........school me on a "Ken Jones" set up. never heard of it.

Ken is an awesome alcohol carb builder that believes that an electric pump rear mounted with cell is ok. Some builders and racers are of the thought that the cell and pump should be up front as you have stated. His stuff runs and wins races.

Race Ready Fabrications wrote:

cool40 wrote:

Race Ready Fabrications wrote:

richter69 wrote:James Monroe at www.killerons.com is the man on the Ron's stuff, he knows more about Ron's injection than the Ron's guys do lol.

I'm calling James tomorrw and see what he thinks. Naturally I suspect he'll say go with the injection. More than anything I'm concerened about the extra initial cost. As long as the cost pays for its self thats cool.

The five guys I know that run rear mounted cells have had no issues in atleast two seasons of racing, lucky maybe but thats been their experience and they all run Ken Jones' set ups.

ok.........school me on a "Ken Jones" set up. never heard of it.

Ken is an awesome alcohol carb builder that believes that an electric pump rear mounted with cell is ok. Some builders and racers are of the thought that the cell and pump should be up front as you have stated. His stuff runs and wins races.

rear mounted is OK.it will run and win races.the front mount works for me best but i run enderle belt drive pump.lots of good ideas,pick one lol.

Brian ,I've always ran a BG280 pump and a carb(4150QFT) on my Mustang (rear cell) you know the results I've had with it. I ran a BG400 and a 1050 QFT on the Tbird with a rear cell until I wrecked it and messed up the pump. I put a magnafuel300 on it then. It a good pump,it's on the Mustang now.I only replaced 2 seals in BG pumps in 10 years. I really like the Injection on the Tbird now, BUT,it uses about twice as much fuel as the carb did. As far as being more consistant than the carb....I don't see it happening...I won at Louisville a couple of years ago in the Tbird. 1st time run was @ 2pm ,the last run was after midnight. 8 passes @ 5.55. But , I will say the injection is deadly consistant too, and the throttle response is insane. You'll like either one.If you need any help with it ,give me a call.

I think one of the best advantages with injection is you can tune individual cylinders fuel needs. I think consistency is in the hands of the tuner and this goes all the way to suspension tuning not just the type of fuel you are using. I have ran just as consistent with a carb as with injection. I personally did not experience these 2 and 3 tenth gains you hear about going to alcohol from gas way back when I switched more like about 7-8 hundreths at about 6.50 et level. I have seen 4-5 hundreths quicker with alcohol injection over carb at 5.15 et level. The reason I mention the et level is because it is very important a few hundreths at a faster et is harder to get and takes more power to get.

I would recommend enderle fuel injection I feel their pumps are of much better quality than rons, I do not like the dead head fuel shutoff on rons units (its the main reason for their pumps needing service regularly). You can get an enderle 5" throttle body setup in the $900 range, pump in the $480 -500 range, shut off and cable $175 range.

I have ran one of Ken Jones carbs and I think he does a good job on them. I will disagree with him on the fuel cell in the rear. The cell in the front requires less plumbing and adds efficiency to the fuel system.

You guys aren't making my decision any easier....lol.

KY, the Ron's shutoff is not a dead head, it bypasses when in the closed position. My buddy with the fairmont just had his pump serviced, but he bought his system over 15 years ago. The bigger 1.0 and up pumps need an additional idle bypass over what comes standard to keep from damaging the pump after lifting the throttle in the lights, but unless you are feeding well over 1000hp you dont have a need for a pump this big.

The worst thing I have seen with the Ron's is the pills and nozzels are not very precise, getting a system flowed will resolve the issues.

And yes individual cylinder tuning can be done with injection, just understand your gonna need some sort of datalogger for this, which aint a bad thing.

where does it bypass to ?

i think the shutoff in the b/v will put the fuel to the return line.tell us Fabio!

The Ron's BV has an internal idle bypass passage that bypasses the unused fuel into the main return line. Works great when used with a "0" or "0 1/2" pump. When you go over 975 hp or so the 0 1/2 becomes marginal. The "1" pump is the next step up. When you step up to a #1 most will need to add an extra external idle bypass. The pump moves so much fuel at WOT the internal bypass in the BV can't handle it all without causing a pressure spike when you snap the throttle shut.

It really should be called a "pump saver" bypass instead of an idle bypass. With the engine at idle the internal bypass is more than enough.

The old style "gold" or "billet" vane pumps are no longer sold as part of the kits. These did need service on a regular basis. The black "gear" pumps are preety much identical to an Enderle pump. Many of these pumps parts will interchange with Enderle. They will go years without any type of rebuild or service.

KY JELLY wrote:where does it bypass to ?

Like David says its internal to the BV, when I run mine on the primer plus with the shutoff in the closed position the the fuel runs out of the return line.

I will admit I have not studied the internals of Rons barrel valve distribution block, but I have been involved with a close friends that used them and they had lots of fuel pump issues and a lot of times were running borrowed "back up" enderle pumps that were 10 - 12 year old pumps.

If the units bypass through a set size passage like that they will always be limited by the leak down % the barrel valve is set at which would cause very high pressures when dropping the throttle.

running one dry is about the only way I know to kill one lol.

KY JELLY wrote:I will admit I have not studied the internals of Rons barrel valve distribution block, but I have been involved with a close friends that used them and they had lots of fuel pump issues and a lot of times were running borrowed "back up" enderle pumps that were 10 - 12 year old pumps.

If the units bypass through a set size passage like that they will always be limited by the leak down % the barrel valve is set at which would cause very high pressures when dropping the throttle.

I just pulled my fuel shut off spool out of my spare Ron's barrel valve assembly, and you can see that it is either straight thru or dead headed when shut off. I see no diversion or internal passages in the block where that spool was. I did get a new high flow barrel valve from James at Killerron' about a month ago as he said mine was over 10 years old, maybe it has an internal by-pass, I don't know. I went to the by-pass setup in the pictures with a 2 way valve, which diverts the fuel back around to the inlet.