First of all let me start out by saying I HATE fuel injection. Yes, there are a lot of benefits to fuel injection. For instance, lately here in Michigan it has been 100 degrees and 90 plus humidity. Fuel injection can compensate for these conditions. Also it can compensate for elevation levels, which are pretty much the same thing. High humidity and high elevation both mean less oxygen in the air. If you want to spend a lot of money, you can tune fuel injection very specifically for the conditions in which you live and ride.

However, I am a motorcycle builder. I like to keep things simple, especially when wiring a motorcycle. Fuel Injection not only costs a lot of money to tune, when you want to change exhausts or when you want to modify your engine, it requires an extremely bulky wiring harness. It’s ironic that you are reading this on my website, because not only do I hate fuel injection I also hate computers. And that’s what fuel injection is, a computer that also requires a computer to tune it.

I guess you can call me old fashioned, but I like to be able to physically modify the carburetor to suit my needs with tools like a screwdriver and my hands. There are no wires involved with a carburetor, and overall you can make a bike run great with a nice carburetor for about $500.

What is the first thing that people want to do when buying a new bike? They want to change their exhaust. There are hundreds of styles of pipes and retuning can be very expensive for fuel injection. For a carburetor it is simply a little bit of time and a few dollars in jets. I personally think that carburetors also bring you closer to the motor. You pay more attention to how your bike reacts to the environment (temperature and humidity) and how it affects the performance of the motorcycle, allowing you to become one with the bike and its surroundings. Basically, carburetors have quicker throttle response and perform better than fuel injection.

Unfortunately, fuel injection is probably here to stay. Everyone always complains about government intrusion and the way I look at it, fuel injection is just the government’s (EPA) way of controlling emissions. But rest assured, there will always be a way to rebel and override the man, and make your Harley run as good as it can. Even though it doesn’t have a carburetor on it.