Carburettor vs Fuel Injector in Bikes: What Is the Difference?

A bike carburettor is the component of your bike that is responsible for mixing the fuel and the air in the required amount and feeding it into the combustion chamber of your bike's engine. Sounds complicated?! To put it simply, a bike carburettor is a tube that ensures that your bike has just the right amount of fuel to accelerate or decelerate.

With the amount of air pressure generated through your bike's throttle, its carburettor determines the volume of the fuel to be injected into the combustion chamber, thereby helping you pick speed or slow the bike down. It is a simple yet effective mechanism, which has several advantages, such as:

• Low cost;
• Ease of repair and replacement;
• Ease of tuning and customisation;
• Long life.

Despite the aforementioned advantages of the carburettor technology, there are some downsides to it, which have prompted the innovation of the fuel injector technology. Some of the disadvantages of the carburettor technology are:

• Low fuel efficiency;
• Time lag between throttle and fuel injection;
• High wear and tear;
• Susceptibility to gathering dust and malfunctioning.

Having understood how a bike carburettor works, now let us understand what a fuel injection system is and how it works.

A fuel injector is a component of your bike that works through an intricate network of electronic parts and sensors to inject the right proportion of fuel and air into your bike. The primary element of a fuel injection system is a fuel pump that is installed inside your bike's fuel tank.

The fuel pump transfers the adequate amalgamation of fuel and air to the engine's combustion chamber through the directives of an Electronic Control Unit (ECU). Through a complicated algorithm that involves the calculation of several factors, including throttle pressure, engine temperature, and engine load, the ECU determines the optimal air-fuel ratio to be injected into the engine.

The advantages of the fuel injection system that have driven its selection over its predecessor, the carburettor, are as follows:

• High fuel efficiency;

• Optimal air-fuel mixture;

• Swift throttle response;

• Low maintenance.

• As efficient as the fuel injector technology is, like all technologies, it is not without its fair share of lacunae, which include:

• High cost;

• Complex software and interface;

• High repair cost;

• High chances of your bike breaking down if the ECU malfunctions.

Since the implementation of the BSVI standards has led to the transition from the bike carburettor mechanism to the fuel injection system, it is natural to wonder about the details of bike carburettor vs fuel injection.

The following table is a succinct summary of the way the bike carburettor technology and the fuel injection technology stack up against each other on various key parameters.

Although bike carburettors are a popular fuel delivery mechanism for bikes, the innovation of a superior engine fuel technology, namely, the fuel injection system, has led to them being phased out. The above table clearly showcases that barring the parameters of cost of purchase and repair, the fuel injection system outperforms the bike carburettor mechanism.

You can easily check whether your bike has a carburettor or a fuel injector by starting it: if your bike has a fuel injector, it'll get ignited by the mere insertion and turning of the keys. However, if your bike has a bike carburettor, you shall have to press the accelerator a few times after the insertion and turning of the keys in order for your bike to start up.

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