I have a ####ty (actually very nice but totally plane) Honda civic which I drive as a daily car. Its the 1500cc twin carb motor and Ive been told that the reason Honda stayed with carbs far longer than other companies was because of their ability to get more horse power and economy than any other company. Recked civics are everywhere here and I was wondering if it would be worth matting the carbs off one to a a14 that will be used as my new daily driver. good HP and economic sounds good to me!! but would it be worth it?
ideas?

Early Civics used the Hitachi 306 -- same as the Datsun 1200.

Quote:Unlikely -- EFI will develop more hp and fuel economy than carbs. More likely, they were able to keep emissions down due to Honda's engineering prowess, and they got a cheap price on the carbs.

It's not a bad plan. The civics he's talking about were "squarer" 80's model.

I remember thrashing my mates one at school, it went ok, but after a "wrap around the block", I remember the smell of petrol fumes, that's how I realised it was EFI at the time..

It'd just be about making up an adapter.

the model Im talking about is the late 80s early 90s and come with TWIN carbs ( sidies, im pretty sure) and Im aware that NOW EFI is better than carbs but into the 80s while it was being developed it was crap so Honda stayed with carbs. So (not based on any research so feel free to correct) it would be fair to say they were one of the best (economicly and hp wize) carberated car made.(?) if this bold assumption is correct then I would like this setup on my fuel thursty underpowered Datsun.

It's very possible Honda made one of the best carbureted setups ...

In the early 80s EFI was already more or less perfected, at least as far as economy and power went. Bosch had EFI in the what, the mid-1970s? Later came mass-produced tuned port manifolds and sequential injection (mid-to-late 80s). I think they probably mostly were waiting for the Motorola MCUs to come down in price before they put 'em on every econobox.

Remember, the 1957 Corvette had (non-EFI) fuel injection, and it made more power than dual-4 barrels even back then.

The Civic we got with twin carbs was the 88 model (vin jhmed) they were reliable when new but later in life the auto choke gave quite a bit of trouble.
Honda dabbled with many different setups over the years-early on with the 74 civic you could get what is known as a Yoshimira kit a hot set of quad mikunis and a ####load of other bit's.
They also had the CVCC engine that was way ahead of it's time.
But with all manufacturers it boils down to production cost and why fix something that works.
If you have a bit more info on the model Honda I will try to help a bit more but as NZ got hammered with imports I will make no promises
cheers Ade

hey dd I believe you but why is it then so many cars from the early to mid 80s still had mechanical fuel injection eg vw golf mk1s and BMW E30 or carbs like the hondas and toyota was it the cost or the fact that EFI was to unreliable? I dont think it was cost because the E30s came with a computer (or as close to one as they could make then).
Im not trying to be a smart ass but rater learn something.
What carb(s) would you run on a street a14 for comfort, grunt and afordability?

I've been re-thinking my comment. While early EFI was reliable, had good fuel economy and was smooth, it wasn't (usually at least) more powerful than carbs. All the examples I can think of other than Bosch L-Jetronic were simply "carb replacement" units, like Ford's 2-barrel CFI and the infamous circa 1982 Chevrolet "cross-fire injection". The 83-85 Mustang automatic 180hp engine had CFI injection, while the 201hp 5-speed models had a 4-barrel Holley carburetor. The manufacturers apparently wanted to keep using the old inlet manifolds for cost reasons.

Why did VW and BMW continue to use mechanical injection (e.g. Bosch K-Jetronic)? Why did so many engines of the 80s use computer-controlled carbs? I can think of two reasons:

- Carb suppliers offered a product that worked for its purpose that year (cost and emissions control). Not necessarily the best solution, but one that worked
- Some customers shied away from EFI and the marketers were only glad to keep selling what they knew

makes sense.
cheers you have enlightened me a little, thank you.
Quinn