[BOUNCE mgs@Autox.Team.Net: Non-member submission from ["Keith M. Wheeler"
<keithw@ARMAnet.com>]]
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 12:56:48 -0700
From: "Keith M. Wheeler" <keithw@ARMAnet.com>
Subject: Re: computers
Trevor wrote:
(lot's of verbage regarding the topic deleted)
> Anyone with an evening of free time can learn every
>component of an EFI system and how to test them. The only
>part you can't learn about in an evening is the computer
>itself, and failures here are EXTREMELY rare and easy
>to diagnose by ruling everything else out.
Rare in new cars. Go talk to the fuel injected TR-8 crowd and
ask them how often they fail. I think, to me at least, the
problem with an ECU's is the question of restoration. A carb
part can be machined and copied. What do you do in 2027 when
you're trying to restore a 1990 whatever and you can't get
a .hex file? Carbs seem so much more "fixable". Of course
technology may change that, more aftermarket ECU's and so
forth, but still...some metal carb bits could be made with a
file and some time...obsolete microprocessors aren't that
easy to copy. $1000 will put a cheesy but usable milling
machine in your garage. Somehow I doubt a couple of decades
of tech will bring the price of sub-micron lithography to such
affordable levels.
> It's just proving my point. Every person who stands up
>in this thread against computers starts their message
>with "Well, I don't really know anything about engine
>computers, and I don't know how to work on them, but
>I don't like them".
Very true, lack of understanding and frustration at authority
can cause such behaviour.
> How many people can you find that say "I fully understand
>both LBC mechanicals and modern car electronics. I am
>equally well versed and diagnosing and fixing either. There
>is no doubt in my mind that the old systems are better
>in every way"?
Again, I think they are better in only one way, the restoration
factor. ECU's seem so "throw away" and consumeristic as opposed
to a carb. I could see someone in the future (or even today, I
tried to talk the TR-8 guys out of a dead ECU) specializing in
restoring/updating "antique" ECU's.
And, I'm still trying to a find an ECU for my Rover engine. Plenty
of aftermarket carbs out there for it, but the only ECU's I've
been able to find are new, for $450, which is to me way too much
for an 8-bit processor and some EPROM.
-Keith
'60 Bugeye '64 MGB
'68 MGB '75 MGB (waiting for a 3.9 Rover)
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