CamarosRUS

ok i know quite a bit about cars but stuff i dont really need to know. i still dont understand the whole difference between fuel injected and carbeurated engines. why cant i take a crate engine designed for carb. and throw my tpi system on it? intake manifold and all???? especially if i have my computer hooked up. also whats the big difference between two piece and one piece rear main seals??? does it have anything to do with fuel injection and computers. id like a long discussion about these things so i can hopefully perform my own engine swap next summer!!!!!

RB83L69

Alot of engines designed for carbs don't have provisions for some of the emissions-control features that a car new enough to have FI would require in order to pass inspection. Also, a cam you'd use for a carb is typically alot more aggressive in certain ways than one you'd use for FI, especially for TPI with its limited RPM potential and its "tuned" (the "T" in "TPI") 3600 RPM torque peak and equally "tuned" torque non-existence above that peak. A cam that will make a carbed car haul will sometimes make a TPI motor go slower than stock.

The big difference between 1- and 2-piece rear main seals, is the number of pieces the seal is made out of. A 2-piece one has one half that goes in the block and one half that goes in the rear main bearing cap. A one-piece one is just a regular metal-clad lip seal like a front wheel bearing seal or something. It goes in a little seal carrier that bolts to the back of the motor over the end of the crank. The back of the crank has to be round in order for that to work, and the bolt pattern where the flywheel goes is different from teh older crank that has a flange on it. The factory changed because it's so much cheaper and easier to install, even though the older design seals just fine when properly installed. If you've ever installed one of each you'd know how much difference it would make.... probably a good half-hour of time for a garage builder, probably half that at the factory. A nice chunk of change when you multiply that by union contract rates with benefits and the number of times per year it has to be done.

Those 2 things have nothing to do with each other. There's no reason you couldn't put TPI on a 1955 block as long as the other components are chosen correctly to support it, or a carb on a 1-piece block.