Switching a vehicle from a carburetor to EFI used to be a hassle as a DIY project, which led many drivers to either opt for professional installation or skip the upgrade in favor of a performance carburetor design. That is no longer the case, however, and new EFI upgrades make installation a fairly consistent operation across most vehicles.

Find An Easy Start Kit

There are a few choices out there, but the key is finding a fuel injection upgrade kit that is designed to make your life easy. That means the assembly of the unit itself is simple, the changes for fitment are minimal, and the computer does not need custom programming. Luckily, that is most kits that are widely marketed. These kits avoid issues like retrofitting old linkages by making use of everything they can from the old system.

This leads to a bolt-on design that works across manufacturers. When shopping for a kit, you need to make sure it works with your engine size and cylinder layout. Some kits are universal to all V8 engines, for example. The most popular upgrade kits work for a variety of engines.

Fitment Compatibility

Simple upgrade kits tend to rely on a vehicle intake having 4150 style (Holley) square bore opening, which is very common. Most engines wind up being able to skip any special fitment or intake replacement as a result, which cuts a lot of cost and labor out of the project. The throttle body for the EFI system should work with the old throttle linkages for the carburetor, too. These design choices are what makes the conversion to EFI simple now, at least physically. The other change to the process that makes life easier is the development of auto-programming electronics.

Fuel injectors rely on a sophisticated system of sensors and calculations based on their data to calculate the ideal fuel/air ratio and then deliver it to the engine. As your demands on the engine change, the program adapts. It also adapts to environmental changes like temperature.

Setting up these electronics used to require manually programming information about the vehicle and testing the results a few times to get things in line. Now your ECU can gather data and self-correct. Instead of spending a whole weekend making sure your new fuel injectors are tuned up, you can throw some camping gear in your rooftop cargo box and let it sort itself out on the way.

Upgrades To Complement Electronic Fuel Injection

Electronic fuel injection provides enough benefit to your vehicle’s power and gas mileage to be worth doing on its own, but as a performance upgrade it works best with a few other additions. A bigger intake and upgraded exhaust can ensure you move enough air through to fully take advantage of the EFI. Upgraded spark plugs deliver better engine efficiency on each cycle.

To really get more power out, though, you need to start browsing for a supercharger for sale in your price range. With performance upgrades to all your basic engine performance components, the next logical step is to get that extra boost beyond your engine’s original capacity. Start looking at your options today.