Fuel injection or carborated?

[Z-Luke]

Old carbs can be just as big of a headache as installing EFI and getting it to work. If you're willing to send the carbs off to ZTherapy, then that route is going to be the least amount of hassle for the most amount of benefit. EFI technology itself is far superior to carbs. You get the exact mixture you need for the exact situation desired. Jay Leno recently converted his famous tank-car to EFI from carbs, then turbocharged it. The result was double the power for twice the gas mileage - no wasted fuel. Carbs will always waste a little, but they are so easy to slap on. You can take literally any motor and make it run with carbs. EFI not so much.

Since you have aged EFI components I'd stay away from that option unless you really NEED 30 mpg out of your Z, and you're willing to spend money on buying a bunch of new parts like injectors to refresh the whole system. That also opens up some turbocharging options for you.

As an added benefit, carbs are much more appealing on a vintage car. They also add that cool sizzling sound of unmuffled intake and combustion coming from the front of the car. Individual Throttle Bodies will get you that too, but you need to spend a lot more moolah and time to get there than you would just sending your carbs to Ztherapy.

I'm not advocating either, just make sure you know what you're getting into either way.

[Arne]

...the 280Z fuel injection is outdated and will be a lot of work to convert over to your 240Z.

OK, I totally missed that the original poster was considering adding the 280Z injection to a 240Z. I had thought he was talking about converting an injected car to carbs, which is a totally different topic.

My first 240Z had 280ZX injection swapped on to it when I bought it. My experience is that adding injection to a 240Z is expensive and difficult to do correctly. You would need a lot more than just the parts on the engine to do it right. While I'm very supportive of maintaining and using the original injection on those cars that came with it, I definitely do not recommend adding it to a 240Z unless you REALLY know exactly what you are getting into. For this application, I'd use the 240Z carbs on your L28 in the 240Z.

Edited April 14, 2010 by Arne

[Prest's Zcar]

Ok, thanks for the input guys, I really appreciate it. The thing is I think I already have all the parts for the fuel injected 280 engine. So for me the money and time thing is not really that much of an issue since either way I am going to have to put a new engine in the car. I'm just not sure which one would be better. So the 240 engine would be easier and less complicated and the 280 engine would be faster and more modible but also more complicated? Is that the general consensus? Sorry for all of these questions I'm just trying to figure everything out and learn about these cars.

[Arne]

You need more than the injected engine. Fuel tank, fuel pump and other electrical things that don't exist on the 240Z body.

It really doesn't matter which engine you use, either will work with the 240Z carbs. Lots of people running 240Z carbs on a 280Z (or ZX) engine in their 240Zs. It's a good combo.

Edited April 15, 2010 by Arne

[Z-Luke]

Yeah the block itself is rather irrelevant. Getting all the EFI gizmos to work is the biggest hassle. Like Arne says, you basically need the entire car to get EFI working properly. The ECU/computer, temperature sensors, return lines, gas tank and pump, high pressure lines, harnesses, wiring modules, intake manifold, etc.

I had to run new wires to the electric fuel pump in the gas tank of my old AE86 when switching to the twin cam engine from the carb'd 8 valver.

As for the block, I would go for the bigger displacement L28 for streetability.

Edited April 14, 2010 by Z-Luke

[Prest's Zcar]

Alright thanks guys.