Tbi to Carburetor

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98 Nitro

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Nothing comes with a carburetor these days, Even my zero turn mower has fuel injection. Must be a reason why
Not exactly, the John Deere riding mower I bought last year is carb. Most of the Deere and Cub models I looked at were.
 

PlayingWithTBI

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I have a carbed riding lawn mower/tractor (Craftsman Professional) that has printed in bold letters "NOT FOR SALE IN CALIFORNIA) LOL
 

Thor Conley

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I s3cond the standalone tbi from experience but understand the allure of the carb. Holley sniper for tbi or edelbrock proflow
Mpi Both will support high horsepower levels and are self tuning.
 

RoJo2

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I did a motor swap from the tbi in my 94 to a carbed stroker motor. God I miss the ease of the tbi. Have to feather the throttle for 5 min everytime I cold start is a PITA. Distributor has been mentioned but you’ll also need a fuel pressure regulator as tbi needs much higher pressure than your carb setup will. Also, you’ll need to figure out what to do with the emissions crap related to the return line like the charcole can. The tbi return is not necessary for the carb setup. You can delete the charcole or plug the line... either way, hope you like the smell of gas on hot summer days. Also, from a functional standpoint, since the swap, I’ve never been able to get cruise control to function with my double crapper. Good luck with whatever you choose!
 

MarkZ28

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Go with a Holley 4150 carb. Im doing the swap soon in my 89. TBI is not horrible but with the performance mods I doing, it wont work. Im going with big port, big valve aluminum heads, high lift longer duration cam, full length headers, etc. I prefer port injection on a fuel injected engine. Chevy went real cheap and went with a slightly better choice over a stock carb. Should have used port injection from the beginning. They had it on their 3.8 V6 cars and other vehicles. Ford and Mopar had it.
I wouldnt worry too much about drivability with a carb. I have always had good luck setting up my Holleys to where I wouldnt have to constantly mess with it to run. Most of mine had no chokes, never had a problem starting even in cold Iowa winters. Granted, it wasnt as nice as a fuel injection start up, but pump the gas twice and start it up, let it run a couple minutes and it was ready to go.
With a carb, you only have 2 reasons for a no start/run condition-no spark or no fuel. 2 very easy things to diagnose along side a road with minimal tools.
I prefer carbs on a car but hate carbs on a motorcycle, lol.
 

NightRunner

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I had a carb'd 454 in my old '85 C10. That thing was a blast to drive, I definitely feel like it was more fun to drive since it was carbureted but then again I've never driven a "performance" TBI truck/car before.

That being said, I'm an advocate for keeping the TBI. You could always do the basic TBI mods, swap a cam over and get a chip. Probably cost less and be less of a headache to get done vs. carb swapping it.
 

fancyTBI

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You can squeeze enough performance out of a TBI. Check out Gear Head EFI. It takes a little bit to learn the ins and outs of the ECU and TBI but it is worth it.
 

swb charlie

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I did the TBI swap to a carb last summer on my '88 C1500 short box. It took a lot of time to learn all the things I needed to address. Two important lessons I learned were I should have upgraded to a higher performance FI rather a carb. And Not to think it would be quick. I was a mechanic for 30 years but haven't been working on cars for two or three years. Health won't let me. Just my two cents worth.
 
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