FI or Carbs?

[TheBikerStig]

What do you bikers prefer and why?

I have fuel injection on my bike but havent ridden a carbed bike in ages. Apparently carbs are easier to service but I leave that shit to mechanics anyway.
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[thepeteh]

I much prefer riding a carb'd bike, FI feels too precise in a computery sort of way to me. Some people may like that but hey this is me.

[flumpy7]

I prefer the feel of a carbed bike but hate servicing carbs. I think a good FI bike should need less fiddling and cleaning but when they do go wrong they cost more/are more of a PITA to sort.
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[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

FI please.

More easy to tune, more reliable and the modern versions are no more snatchy than carbs. Even if they are, just be more accurate with your throttle input.
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[temeluchus]

Carbies need more maintenance but can be looked after with very basic tools. They can also be set up and tuned very simply once you understand how they work.

FI is generally very reliable, but can be more challenging to fault find. However a good fuel injection system should work faultlessly with minimal attention for many years. FI also has more scope for very precise control of fuelling.

properly set up it should be very hard to tell a good fuel injection system from a good set of CV carburettors.

The FI on my BMW K75 worked fine and didn't feel any different to carbs on the other bikes I have owned.
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[yen_powell]

I have an FI car and an FI bike. Neither of them run that well at low revs, very snatchy on occasion. I think this is more a problem with meeting EU emission targets than an actual problem with fuel injection.
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[Bezzer]

I've had FI bikes that have been no trouble but there's so much extra they need to function with sensors and shit I'd much rather have carbs that you can sort yourself. Not have to pay through the nose at a dealers having it plugged into diagnostics then them "guessing" what might be wrong, then fitting a new part in the hope it will fix it as I've known happen a few times to mates' bikes and happens all the times at car garages.
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[lihp]

[Bezzer]

[hmmmnz]

ill never own a bike with fuel injection,
if i had my way, all my bikes would still have points
don't get me wrong, i can wire fi systems, and they are really good, pretty reliable and better on gas, but i like it old skool, when shit breaks i can fix it on the side of the road with nothing more than a few screw drivers and a multi meter
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[temeluchus]

K series BMWs used an almost off the shelf bosch FI setup similar to what was used in several cars. One way to reduce RnD expenditure
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[Marmaduke]

[wiganwarrior1...]

I had this debate when looking for a bike a few years back. Not being much of a mechanic, I went with FI for the reliability factor as I need to it start first time every time to get to work each morning and don't like messing about with choke etc. It is a bit rough at low revs so needs some clutch but easy to get used to. Do FI bikes need warming up before setting off? can't find a definitive answer on this.

[mr jamez]

I once owned a triumph speed four, I assume FI improved since then
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[CarlosCBR]

FI for me any day please on a multi cylinder bike but on a single, havng a carb is quite enjoyable if you are into tuning.

No choke, no messing about setting it all up when you have to replace one/parts, far less moving parts to go wrong. I cant personally notice the difference between a well set up carb'd engine and my FI CBR6f.

FI just makes life easier.
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[MarJay]

Riding: Carbs.

Maintaining: FI.
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[J.M.]

I don't really have enough experience with FI bikes to comment, but I like carbs on my bike. If something mucks up, I know that I've got all the tools/equipment to fix it.

[stevo as b4]

They both have their place. On new bike's FI is almost unavoidable for achieving emissions limits, but I do agree that both systems can be very reliable, very precise and very user friendly if well designed use high quality componentry.

With FI bike's it is probably 85-90% of the time a cheap low quality ancillary part that is responsible for faults like a sensor, relay or switch. It's very rare for an ECU, High pressure fuel pump, or an injector unit to fail. Dirt in the fuel or the filters and lines can blight a carbed or FI bike equally.

FI is definitely easier to tune to suit a modified engine, if it's a modern system and you have access to the correct equipment, diagnostics and programing tools. Then you also need access into the ECU or a readable memory that allows changes to be made to the programs and stored. Without this your into the slightly bodge way of tuning by using little hack box's like the Power commander that allow signals from sensors to be intercepted and modified/altered before the ECU see's them. These add on ECU's or piggyback devices can work very well, but there is always the element of adding extra wiring and hardware into a system that is another potential thing to go wrong or a weakness.

Anyone who really understands how carbs work can tune them, and the only thing you need access to is the parts to change the fuelling like jets, needles and other carb internals.

An engine that has 3D ECU control over the fueling and ignition system should in theory be able to supply the perfect amount of fuel at every load and engine speed, and a spark at the best possible time to get the most performance from the engine. This should make the throttle response, and efficiency of said engine perfect. But a lot of FI systems are set up to favour other requirements such as very low emissions, best possible mpg, and low noise. They are also often set up to work with other electronic systems and make throttle response softer and less instant to improve smoothness and safety.

A carb cannot every give 100% perfect fueling at every possible load and speed, but they can be tuned to give a very good overall result for the majority of situations, and provide excellent response and performance too.

Lastly if a Carb is set up as perfectly as possible there is no reason why a Carburettor cannot give exactly the same peak power as an FI set up, so in pure power terms there is nothing in it between them.

For every benefit to FI there's a negative and the same applies for carbs. I would say that all the negative effects from this environmental nonsense, noise level control, and smooth delivery, can be dialled out easier with carbs than with FI, where in some cases to get perfect throttle response or safely run the engine with modifications, you need to go out and buy additional devices and have them tuned by specialists with the kit to do so.

I wouldn't trust FI on a bike that's likely to get plastered in mud and drowned in water regulary either, like a trials or enduro bike, and im sure there's many people who wouldn't want to go around the world in the most remote places on earth having to trust a bike full of electronics in harsh enviroments either.

[YBR Ric]

I'd opt for EFI over carb/s given the choice.

I've driven untold miles in various cars I've owned with EFI and not had a single problem,
likewise for the 40,000miles or so I've ridden on various bikes which came fitted with EFI.

But there's always likely to be the odd exception, the Kawasaki W800 for example.

[stevo as b4]

Would you trust a highly tuned 2stroke with EFI though? Not even HRC used EFI on the NSR500 right up to the end of 500cc GP racing, even though the carbs had plenty of electronic's fitted like TPS, electronic power jets, and air bleeds etc. There must be a good reason why Carb's were preferred?

On a std engine EFI is great, in your car it's great. My neighbour has an Mk1 Golf GTi with mechanical K-jet, and it sounds as rough as a badger's arse at times when starting up, but then my car with EFI also doesn't sound great as it's running a std ECU with a std map on a hybrid bastard of an engine with lumpy cams dialled in for max peak power, and is overfueling way too much pretty much everywhere, except maybe on the maxiumum boost setting at full throttle?

on a vehicle that's all std EFI can be the best idea ever and totally worry free for years and years, but on modified engine's as people have said a set of carbs will be easier to work on for the average person and less expensive to modify. You can buy a lot of jets and needles for the cost of a day's mapping and rolling road hire etc?