gjewers Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 This may be covered elsewhere but have not found it.... Have a chance (if I hurry) to get a nice '86 low mileage GL with a carburetor. Have only had experience with 88/89 fuel injection models. Are carbs reliable? What are the major drawbacks? I keep hearing about switching to webers so is that an easy option if needed? Thanks. gj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
two85s Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 I have owned my 85 GL for 20 years and it still has the stock carb. Runs amazing. Front wheel drive (FWD) normally with a dual range, high and low 4X4 (4WD) 5 speed transmission on demand and I average 23 mpg. 4 cylinder, idles great, no smoke, quiet, great off-road to a degree limited by clearance. Sand, snow, mud, water, rocks, narrow desert trails ....no problems. Simple. No power options & no power steering. Fun to drive and agile. Once I had a shop put a new gasket in the carb ..or something I forget exactly. Everything emissions wise is stock on my wagon because you can't change it or change to weber if you live in a CA zip code which requires smog every two years. The CA smog laws are really pissing me off and I need to learn how to get a P.O. box/ mail box in a different zip code to avoid biannual smog tests. It's non-sense but beware of the CA smog bullshit. Last time it cost me $604 for Catalytic converter and time and labor to get it to pass. And my wagon is sitting at the shop again now waiting to "get it to pass". Hope this helps, cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveT Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 (edited) The SPFI has a little more power. Also, my 86 had taller gears than all of my newer wagons. Which compounds the lower hp from the engine.All of mine are / were EA82 w 3AT 4x4 wagons Edited February 21, 2016 by DaveT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l75eya Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 My 87 4wd was carbureted. It was slow, but it ran okay. Eventually I had an issue with the carburetor and that's all I needed as an excuse to put a Weber. The Weber job isn't hard to do, especially if you have experience with using a drill (I recommend tapping the intake manifold to accept the larger bolts that come with the Weber adapter plate than using the thin original bolts). That noise you hear when you're at WOT coming from a Weber is absolutely intoxicating. It's a little tricky to get a Weber running *perfect*, that is you have to play with different Jerry sizes, do lots of test drives, but the jets aren't too hard to change out at all. It's designed to swap them easily. Other than that, no issues. Not as economical or as powerful as a simple spfi car, but the Weber gets it close. Expect 20 second+ 0-60 times with a dual range 5 speed stock carbureted model. They are pretty damn slow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naked Buell Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Just about any GL with the carb that has been taken care always seems to run well. My stock Brat was soo reliable but I wanted more power. I love the older subies but they need the horsepower that the ej's put out stock and they would be perfect, other that ground clearance but that can be fixed too. I have a weber on an ea 81 that I have in my 88 Rx. 86 Brat motor with the weber and she runs really smooth and I just recently found a mystery vacuum leak that I fixed and she runs better than ever. I am still tweaked the carb settings but super easy to adjust and change, and this was my first carb tuning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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