16v 4age + bike carbs = any good?

[jh86]

I'm not too sure on where I should have put this in here or in technical but here we go.

Yeah as the title would suggest I'm wondering whether anyone has any experience with bike carbs on a 16v 4age?
It's not so much a what do I need as a what is it like? Power? Throttle response? How does it drive sort of thing.
This goes for anyone who maybe has ran 20v throttle bodies on a 16v also.
Any help/info/stories of triumph or woe would be very much appreciated, there's only so much pictures and YouTube videos can show you

[Kev]

With most bike carb conversions its all in the manifold design. I've seen cars run bog standard power but others seem to get half decent results. The silicon joiner pipes dont help. I know a company that do bike tb conversion manifolds for peugeots and they machine all the parts to fit without silicon and they get nice power gains.

[Chaycore]

If you plan on daily driving your car, stick with EFI. thinner head gasket, advance the timing slightly and get an adjustable fuel pressure regulator. Carbs sound good but on part throttle and for economy they aren't ideal. If you set them up on a hot or humid day, they won't run as well on a cold or dry day.

20v bodies on 16v do work well, but you'll need standalone management to control it. May as well get cams at the same time.. and then the slippery slope of spending begins!

[Bagpuss]

Unless you're putting in a set of cams over 264 degrees each you wont really see any gains from running your car on carbs. The only advantage comes with them removing the need to set up a standalone ECU and pay to have it properly mapped. Also they do sound awesome...

[N2AE86]

If you want set and forget then don't bother with carbs – endless buggering around. When the botched wiring / ignition set up on my old car worked the Carbs ran sweet but performance was up and down like a whores drawers. The car also made significantly less power on the carbs than it did on a stock 4AGE.

Carbs sound great but they are also a PITA – one moment its overfueling, the next they are out of balance and spitting. Retaining the EFI is the way to go and that means ITB or keeping the standard plenum.

If you were feeling creative and didn't want to spend the money on 20vITB's then you could always use the bike carbs as ITB's, retain the stock injection set up and make your own manifold. But for the hassle its probably easier to spend out the few hundred and get the 20vitbs and the manifold to match. You would also need an intake plenum and stacks which bump the cost and of course some sort of EMS.

Personally reckon ITBing and 16v is a better & cheaper option than going for a 20v.