I have 1988 Toy truck body EFI with out an engine, a friend gave me a 1989 carb engine. Which should I change ? would it be easier to change body to carb?
If you have the original EFI engine to get the parts and sensors from, keeping it EFI would be easy and get the best results. The EFI 22RE and carb’ed 22R share the same block, and swapping over the intake and sensors would be easy to do.
If you do not have the engine, it is easier to change to the carb. You’ll need to track down the following components to upgrade the carb’ed engine to EFI: Intake system including EFI intake, plenum, and throttle body, fuel injectors, high-pressure fuel line and runners, EFI distributor, MAF sensor, Coolant Temp Sensor, knock sensor, oxygen sensor, and various other sensors required for the EFI system. These can be expensive to collect.
To convert to carb, you just need a carb version of the ignitor (ignition box under the coil), and a mechanical fuel pump. Hopefully, the fuel pump is still attached to the engine. DO NOT TRY TO USE THE EFI PUMP. It will blow out the carb. Make sure you pull the EFI fuse and disconnect the EFI fuel pump at the relay. The mechanical pump for the carb should be able to pull gas through the disabled EFI pump. If it cannot, you’ll need to drop the tank, and replace the EFI pump and sender unit with a carb version pick-up tube and sender unit. You can re-use the fuel lines that are in the truck without a problem. Everything else should hook-up OK. The accelerator cable should be long enough to reach the carb, maybe too long. Just find a way to secure it without it binding.
Excellent post, except that my '89 22R had an electric pump. Having said that, the fuel pressure for a carb should be much lower (I naver really had a reason to “go there”) and this detail needs to checked out when doing the conversion. Your point regarding the fuel pressure is an excellent one.
I could be wrong, but I think the last vehicle I had with a mechanical fuel pump was probably my '64 Fairlane…
Well, my beloved '90 22R, last of the carb’ed models, had a mechanical pump on it, mounted to the timing cover in front of the thermostat housing. The '90-1/2 models finally came out with EFI and 5-speed standard. So, I guess they had different set-ups for different models?
Are you sure that wasn’t the pressure regulator?
Mountainbike is exactly right about the fuel pump. If you go with a carbureted engine you will have to either change the fuel pump or resistor it down to a manageable fuel pressure.
An injection pump will sink a carburetor float instantly and cause severe flooding.
It isn’t easy and if you have all the EFI parts, you would be better off keeping it that way. You would need all the wiring and the computer to swap the car over.