Fuel Injection Systems

aircooled technology

RAT and EFI

Aircooled Technology has been producing electronically fuel injected engines since the late 1990s, long before it was cost effective or simple alternative to carburetion. While EFI is nice; it isn’t for all applications or everyone and you don’t have to apply it to create a great, daily driver engine. Never believe that simply adding a programmable EFI system onto a 50+ year old engine design will make it like a modern car- it will not!

With the super ability of EFI to manage your engine, it is possible to achieve more power, run cooler temperatures and attain better MPG. With all these benefits its pretty easy for someone to become somewhat confused about all the aspects of EFI and the fact that it’s not for everyone and isn’t as simple as we’d hope for it to be, even using the simplest systems available.

In short, ultimate tuning of every aspect of your engine’s fuel system is the best “pro” of a programmable FI system; unfortunately, that’s also the biggest “con” as each of those parameters MUST be manipulated for the engine to perform smoothly.Many people expect an engine with EFI to perform like their modern car, but it won’t and it can’t. I’ve learned this over time by interfacing with EFI in my personal cars and customer’s cars and engines.

If you don’t like advanced designs, aren’t looking for an engine that has wire harnesses and its own “Brain”, well then we can cover your desires with a Carbureted engine from our library. See more details here on our site.

As of late, our preference has been to outfit all engines with carburetion, then a few months later, after the purchaser has worked through the challenges related to the new engine we supply an EFI system with baseline tuning. This has proven to work very well. Outfitting the engine with EFI right away has proven to be a steep learning curve of near 90 degrees, and we avoid this.

I believe that the VW and Porsche aircooled engine must remain simple, even in the highest levels of output, so don’t make a huge mistake by purchasing an EFI system that is so “intelligent” that it can’t be easily interpreted/ manipulated. We see people make this mistake often and it’s expensive, to say the least.

Before going further I will state that IF you are an enthusiast that is considering EFI power because the headaches of carburetors have been a challenge for you; then you won’t be any more effective with EFI. Carburetion is simple, the concept is simple and the tuning is simple if you can’t master that, you need not move on to advanced engine management systems. Some will disagree with this, they always do.

We will build the engine that you need based on your application, your tuning skills, and your experience and we will outfit it properly. We won’t allow you to make a mistake.

Some general EFI information

Will your engine make more peak power with EFI??

More than likely the answer to this is NO. At high RPM and wide open throttle carburetors really work well; so well that it has been hard for us to make more power with EFI on the dyno than a well-tuned set of carburetors. The benefits to EFI occur at lower speeds in the form of drive-ability enhancements and torque boosts. This may defy what you’ve read somewhere else, but it is the fact concerning our own engine program.

How is it for power?

In the world of performance engines, timing is everything. With EFI you’ll benefit (after full tuning and optimization) from all the right things inside your engine happening at the right times. This provides more power at lower RPM and really helps with drivability and tractability in town. While most power benefits are most notable at lower revs up to and just past peak torque overall peak HP numbers are also complimented with the installation of an efficient, modern FI system. With EFI you now have control over the entire engine’s powerband for tunability, unlike with carburetors that typically have only low speed and high-speed adjustments, often leaving the most important part of the powerband incapable of being optimized. Plain and simple, EFI makes for a more high-performance engine- Period IF YOU CAN TUNE IT CORRECTLY.

EFI also makes for a more expensive engine with higher initial costs, higher sub-system costs, and higher installation costs. Once these initial costs are absorbed, the initial tuning completed and a bit of a learning curve is experienced the EFI equipped engine will finally begin to pay off.

Unicorns & Rainbows in “Mamby Pamby land”

Too often people buy into EFI for the wrong reasons, they have a perception that it’ll cure all their problems and that it’ll be easier to tune and work with than their current Carburetors. I hate to break it to anyone, but if you can’t understand or effectively grasp the Carburetor concept enough to tune them you certainly won’t be able to work with EFI. In closing, I’ll state that we have no preference for which means of induction your Raby Engine utilizes as we have well developed, versatile systems for either form of fuel delivery. Be prepared if you schedule a phone chat with me to hear all the pros and cons of EFI and I’ll be direct with them.

The goal of my program and my company is to exceed the expectations of all our purchasers, we can’t do that if any purchaser has an over-expectation of reality. EFI often leads to over-expectations that only can be found on the roads of Mamby Pamby Land at the end of a Rainbow…

All of that said, if you really want EFI and really have the budget for it, along with the understanding that the installation will be more detailed and the system will require in-car optimization, we’d be happy to create one of our EFI specific engines.

Here is a RAT Turnkey Crated Engine equipped with programmable EFI, producing 220HP of daily driver power.
Jake Raby’s 1968 Double Cab is equipped with a 2.8 liter, 220HP RAT EFI engine coupled to Sync-Link throttle actuation. It makes for an excellent daily driver.