Carb or tbi

[K5Blazerboy87]

I'm going to be taking my engineout in about year its 350 tbi in my 87 k5 blazer and would it be hard to put a normal carburated 350 or should i just put back normal 350 tbi engine which one will give me more if headache what would be best option?

 

[CSFJ]

Depends what you want out of it. A lot of guys like the tbi for the drivability, others like the thought of not relying on sensors to make it run, and prefer the carb. I've had both, and can't say that the injection has given me any problems. Personally, I still like carbs though. It's a six of one, half dozen of the other kind of choice.

 

[gpmorgan]

Not hard to do a carb swap. Intake, carb, by-pass fuel regulator, and some fuel line mods. If you are doing a performance rebuild, I would do the carb or aftermarket tbi.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

I'd keep the TBI. It can get buggy when it's not maintained properly (neglecting SES lights/driveability issues and utilizing half ass remedies), but if it's maintained, it works pretty flawlessly. The only thing that carburetion has over Rochester TBI is performance capacity. In my book, it looses in every other facet. I still like carbs, though, and daily drive an old Quadrajet that treats me pretty good.

 

[Jrgunn5150]

I always recommend keeping whatever it has.

Swapping to a 4 BBL isn't going to unleash 100 horsepressures or anything, and it's kind of a mild hassle. Keeping everything same/same is simple and easy.

 

[SkinnyG]

I would keep the TBI, hands down, no question, from a driveability standpoint alone.

If the engine deviates from stock and the TBI ECM cannot deal with it, you can go MegaSquirt for less than the cost of swapping everything over to a carb and then have all the benefits of a completely tuneable stand-alone computer. If you can tune a carb, you can tune EFI.

 

[hiltijoe]

I vote carb for hp tbi heads are small

 

[RangRayy]

I converted my '87 from TBI to a carb and the swap was straight forward and easy. Finding the right deals on CL or ebay can save some $$. I spent a total of $150. Ask yourself what your goal is for your ride and then go from there. Do what is in your budget. If it aint broke dont fix it. I opted for the carb swap because I plan on going up in HP and my truck is not a DD so reliability is not my main concern anymore. But that is my $0.02

 

[4WDKC]

If you're not willing to put in the time and money to get a scanner so you can fix it should it have a problem get a carb and sell the efi stuff to someone that wants it. Without the scanner its like working on a carb when deaf and blind.

 

[Honky Kong jr]

Not nessesarily. You should be able to pull blink codes by jumping terminals in the DLC. I'm not sure but I believe @Cuba knows which ones to jump.

 

[Jrgunn5150]

Not nessesarily. You should be able to pull blink codes by jumping terminals in the DLC. I'm not sure but I believe @Cuba knows which ones to jump.

A and B lol, pretty straightforward.

 

[Honky Kong jr]

A and B lol, pretty straightforward.

For some one who fixes TBI stuff I'm sure it is im a TBI ripper.......as in rip it off

 

[Jrgunn5150]

For some one who fixes TBI stuff I'm sure it is im a TBI ripper.......as in rip it off

I merely mean as far as, it doesn't take a Cray Super computer or deep blue, just a paperclip and terminals A and B lol. No slight to you.

 

[Honky Kong jr]

I merely mean as far as, it doesn't take a Cray Super computer or deep blue, just a paperclip and terminals A and B lol. No slight to you.

I didn't take it that way. I have an All Scan if I cared enough to mess with them lol. I like OBD2 that's what I'm more framiliar with. I have scanners for them the codes can be misleading but once you wrap your head around if it's a lean code the system is rich and vice versa. I also like using wave forms to diagnose too and that old stuff moves to slo w.lol

 

[Cuba]

Yeah, as Jrgunn stated, jump A & B terminals. Looking at it, with the tab split on the top... A & B are the top right two terminals.