[T3] Bad day at the (FI) office

[Bobsnotch at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/15/2016 9:58:09 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
d.nohejl at gmail.com writes:

We’ve  been chasing FI problems on and off from the moment we got the car 
as a roller  in June of 2012, so we’re coming up on 4 years now. I can’t 
help wondering if  daily driving FI is a bad idea. Everyone says it should be “
set it and forget  it” reliable but that’s never been true for us for more 
than relatively brief  periods. I’ve put 1100 miles on it in less than a 
month and I wonder if in  driving it like this, we’re pushing the “issue 
threshold” of these old  components. In other words, maybe those who drive a lot 
less see fewer  problems simply because they drive less and ask less of 
their 47 year old  electronics? Of course I say all of this after having to wake 
up 45 minutes  earlier, triple my commute time, and all of that on account 
of the  car!
 
I don't really think that the age of the FI electronics is the problem, or  
it being a daily driver, as there are a lot of VW's running around in SoCal 
as  daily drivers. Granted most of them have carbs, but the FI system is 
really just  an electronic carb in a type 3 (ducking under the table now), as 
it doesn't  change the timing, or adjust the fuel mixture to an O2 sensor 
reading. It's  basically running on whatever the programing in the ECU tells 
it to do. Modern  FI does change both spark and fuel, which is why quite a 
few people are  switching to MegaSquirt FI systems. I mean my 88 Astro is 
still EFI (that Ray  says has the absolute worst in the world connections), and 
it's only 19 years  newer (or 2 years shy of being 30 years old), but it's 
also more complicated.  Same can be said of my 92 Geo Prizm, and it's 
Japanese electronic FI (has a  Toyota engine in it), with some weird things of it's 
own, that aren't found in a  lot of the older vehicles.
 
If you really think daily driving an FI vehicle is bad, then maybe you  
should convert to carbs. Keep in mind that most of them are at least as old as  
your FI system, and parts are available, as is throttle re bushing 
services, and  adding screw in fittings for the fuel inlets to replace the swaged in 
brass  fitting (fire prevention). But, needle and seat replacements are 
sketchy these  days, and are more of a problem than a solution.
 
Sorry for kind of rambling on, but...  

Bob 65 Notch  with sunroof

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