[Richard230]

My son-in-law's 1986 Honda VFR700FII has 116 miles on the clock and its four carbs have never been touched. The bike still runs great - as long as its voltage regulators continue to function.  My daughter's 1981 BMW R65LS still has the original Bing vacuum carbs and while they do get adjusted during a tuneup, they never have had to had their parts, including their diaphragms, replaced. Her bike's odometer has rolled over at least once. Her bike even has the original wheel bearings, which have never even been greased since they left the factory. And her stock took kit, which has lived under the seat for the past 40 years, not only has sufficient tools to perform all major servicing, but they still do not have any surface rust on them. BMW really built some great bikes back in the day. 

However, I will admit that I have never had any reliability issues with any of my motorcycles with fuel injection systems, although only my BMW R1200RS has a system that works as smoothly as my motorcycles with carburetors, although I did own a 2006 Suzuki SV650 that also used a well designed FI system which seemed to function as well as a carb. Unfortunately, most FI designs and programming seem to be kind of glitchy when just riding around normally, likely due to governments mandating extremely lean fueling to meet emission requirements.

[suitcasejefferson]

A fuel pump for my B5 cost 429 Pounds from Hitchcocks, without the VAT (for export)

I just watched a video on a guy fixing a 2006 Kawasaki Ninja 600. The fuel pump cost $442.03 from cheap cycle parts

https://www.cheapcycleparts.com/oemparts/a/kaw/500b4577f8700223e4795884/fuel-pump

Those cheap parts from eBay come from the CCP, and if they work at all it will only be for a few days at most. They are NOT oem replacement parts.

You can get a CCP carburetor for a Yamaha XT225 (I have one) for under $50, while a new Mikuni costs almost $600 (because the bike has been out of production since 2007) Several members on the the XT225 forum I belong to have tried those CCP carbs, none of them lasted long. A brand new Mikuni (oem) made in 1992 (first year of the XT225) will last forever. I am not worried in any way about the carburetors on any of my 6 carbureted bikes failing. They will still be fine after the engines wear out.

But, for those who want to believe the EFI lies, by all means go right ahead. If you sell/trade bikes every 2-3 years, you might get away with it. That's why so many people lease cars now. They know that by the time the lease expires, the cars reliability is mostly gone, and in many cases it is not even worth fixing.

[dickim]

Now suitcase- EFI LIES! A sound a bit Trumpish and Anti-Vax Conspiracy........
Do some research and you'll find cars and bikes are FAR MORE RELIABLE except for the electronics being battery dependent, and subsequently that's what the vast majority of roadside assist is for.  As for leasing (I taught small business financing) it makes great business sense, the young like it for the ability to upgrade, just like phones, and others as it gives them fixed outgoings. I love leasing, because I tend to buy ex leased vehicles (Like my Isuzu was ex Fire Brigade) as they have been serviced & maintained without question of $$$
If cars are less reliable....our 2021 Camry Hybrid (efi) has 7yrs warranty and 10 in the battery whilst in the U.k Toyota now giving 10yrs.....

[dickim]

So you know I'm not anti-carb, I live semi-rual on 5ac I just did a quick count of I.C.E's (ride one's, fire pumps, slasher etc....) and above transport it's 12! 10 of which ar carbed. Some start & run easily others are bastards! the 2 ride ons have the same Briggs & Stratton motor and couldn't be more different, while my Robin (Subaru) fire-pumps always start 1st pull. Horses for Courses and Personal Choice👍 Best starting engine I've ever had 1975 50cc 2 stroke CARBED moped with Italian engine, just look at it and it fired😀 Moto- Minarelli (or something like that...getting old🤣)

[lucky phil]

1997 was a great time for carbs. Lots of engeneers worked on that. Complex but good. Masterpieces with several jets, accel pump and mostly with diaphragm. If you have to change it today, it gets really costly. If available at all. They tried to achieve mechanically what an EFI does easily with computer power.

Today you only get crappy and simple ones.

An EFi will work flawlessly for over 200.000 Miles. If you keep the rust and dirt out of the tank. It is simple and has much less mechanical parts. It is much more precise in gas and timing. The sensors and injectors are mass produced parts designed for longer than the lifetime of a bike.

A fuel pump costs under 20$ and is also a mass produced part. The price of royal enfield is a simple error: ´the dot switched one place to the right. So 400$ instead of 40$. Now they dont want to correct it.

For 400$ you get an high efficient Edelbrock fuel pump for high demand 8 zylinder 502 engines.

It is easy to install a EFi tuner. And get everything you want for Power and instant torque. In every driving situation on any elevation. And it saves gas. Over the lifetime more than than the complete EFi system costs.

The Amal carb is the throne holder for crappy and cheap parts.

And with a carb conversion you will loose your insurance in all civilized parts of the world.

Absolutely. Lets see I can be up to my arse in carb jets and needles and covered in petrol at the track/ workshop changing jets and slides OR I can connect the laptop and change the fuelling, ignition anything at the stroke of a keyboard. I'm continually amazed at people that ditch throttle bodies for carbs and there's really only 1 thing that wears on a throttle body and that's the shaft bushes and they're easy to replace in most cases.

Ciao   

[Haggis]

How do connect your laptop up to an enfield.?
Without adding on PCV, you can do nothing with the standard ECU.
With a carb, you can do whatever you feel like.

[dickim]

I think the conversation/thread widened with the statement that "computers and I.C.E. are incompatible" hence so many other examples from both sides of the fence👍 personally I added the performance kit of pwr commander, K&N, and non cat exhaust and very happy 😀 I get what I want, and each to their own👍

[Haggis]

I have one C5 with PCV, k&n, big bore pipe, gas flowed head and valves and a second C5 with an Amal carb conversion.
There's something about a carb, its just feels right.
The PCV gives the efi bike a couple of more horses though.
I suppose to anyone not brought up with experience of carbs or carbed bikes, that they would be better in the bin.
I have nothing against either system but I do like the carb, which gives better power than the standard efi setup.

[dickim]

Agreed, NOTHING quite like tickling the carb on an early British twin, kicking the shit out of it is a whole different thing 🤣
At 60+ with knackered rugby knees I like to prod the starter and ride👍 You can do a Triumph injection conversion on my Big Healey, but wouldn't be right😣

[axman88]

Staying off topic for another moment: Something I haven't seen, is there any standalone electronic ignition kits available for the UCE? If you're going to the trouble of changing to a carburettor,  it'd be nice to dump that computer as well, and eliminate it's sensors and wiring.

I agree dump the ECU, this is no place for half measures.  I don't know of a kit, but I understand that this is done fairly regularly in India.  We can see this process happening in the videos that muezler linked to in his previous post:
https://forum.classicmotorworks.com/index.php?topic=30579.msg364469#msg364469

Some factory boxes with part numbers are even shown, if you are quick enough with the freeze frame, and sharp eyed enough.  It would also be helpful to understand Hindi. 

In the same thread AdrianII said, "Hitchcocks' early carb conversions for the EFI Bullets did use the AVL alternator rotor and TCI ignition. I think they worked out it was cheaper to adapt the bike's existing set-up after a while. If you wanted to follow that route, RE India carried on making carburetor-fitted UCE Bullets with TCI ignition until quite recently for the home market, so spares for these from India should be around for a few years yet. Or could an EFI alternator stator be rewound, with a couple of the cores having CDI charging coils?"

As I understand it, we are seeing the stator and rotor being replaced, and the ECU can then be discarded and a TCI ignition unit installed.

I wonder if 350 components could be substituted instead of 500 AVL parts, since these seem much more readily available, and appear to be quite similar?  I haven't chased down all the part numbers yet.  The following are 350 components that look to me like candidates.

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/393002996601?hash=item5b80cdd379:g:p6UAAOSw21pfo6ZY
    https://www.ebay.com/itm/393015068099?hash=item5b818605c3:g:nfcAAOSwwMJfrkcs

[gizzo]

I agree dump the ECU, this is no place for half measures.  I don't know of a kit, but I understand that this is done fairly regularly in India.  We can see this process happening in the videos that muezler linked to in his previous post:
https://forum.classicmotorworks.com/index.php?topic=30579.msg364469#msg364469

Some factory boxes with part numbers are even shown, if you are quick enough with the freeze frame, and sharp eyed enough.  It would also be helpful to understand Hindi. 

In the same thread AdrianII said, "Hitchcocks' early carb conversions for the EFI Bullets did use the AVL alternator rotor and TCI ignition. I think they worked out it was cheaper to adapt the bike's existing set-up after a while. If you wanted to follow that route, RE India carried on making carburetor-fitted UCE Bullets with TCI ignition until quite recently for the home market, so spares for these from India should be around for a few years yet. Or could an EFI alternator stator be rewound, with a couple of the cores having CDI charging coils?"

As I understand it, we are seeing the stator and rotor being replaced, and the ECU can then be discarded and a TCI ignition unit installed.

I wonder if 350 components could be substituted instead of 500 AVL parts, since these seem much more readily available, and appear to be quite similar?  I haven't chased down all the part numbers yet.  The following are 350 components that look to me like candidates.

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/393002996601?hash=item5b80cdd379:g:p6UAAOSw21pfo6ZY
    https://www.ebay.com/itm/393015068099?hash=item5b818605c3:g:nfcAAOSwwMJfrkcs

Yep, i remembered about the old H conversion. Even found it in my old catalogue from 2015. But it's not around anymore. A new forum member witha 535 cgt just posted the other day how he'd done the conversion with a bullet flywheel and $20 ebay cdi. That's kind of what i was thinking of: banggood does a bunch of cdi kits too.

[axman88]

A new forum member witha 535 cgt just posted the other day how he'd done the conversion with a bullet flywheel and $20 ebay cdi.

Did he share part numbers?  Can you point me to the post?  By "bullet flywheel", are we talking the old, six coil single phase stator with the rotor inside, or the 3 phase stator inside a rotor with a  single reluctor lump?

[gizzo]

  Can you point me to the post?  By "bullet flywheel", are we talking the old, six coil single phase stator with the rotor inside, or the 3 phase stator inside a rotor with a  single reluctor lump?

Sure

https://forum.classicmotorworks.com/index.php?topic=31154.0