Sorry for the double post... but

Yes and no. Carburetor are easy to work on and tune if you are familiar with 'em, and while a carburetor will rarely run as well as EFI (especially across the entire rev range), it will almost always run. And there are many situations in which I'd prefer a carbureted engine running poorly to an EFI sitting cold because the program isn't quite right.

For something like ATVs that I love to run around on, they definitely have their place.

Not for long. Most of the major brands have already switched to fuel injection. (450cc)

^^^^ this is true^^^^

High power, high compression engine, + shitty gas = nice excuse to run a carb. True story.

:laughabove: true true

I'm suprised most car enthusiasts have yet to see the article/investigation about this, along with most normal people.

Toyota's have had 'black boxes' of a sort for a few years now, and Toyota, or someone, has looked into these and found the data they record. It shows that 99% of the reported 'accidental acceleration' issues are driver error. ie. drivers pressing the accelerator instead of the brake. The boxes showed a normal pedal position, and then an increase up to (usually) 100% on throttle, with absolutely no increase of the braking pedal before an accident... The only reason you probably don't know about it is because of the American media pulling the wool over people's eyes. They don't want people to know about this as it shows they're wrong. They would rather put the blame on toyota.

The same thing happened with Audi in the 1990's, a few people spoke out about an acceleration problem, and everyone else followed suit, when those people didn't really have a problem in the first place.

This just leaves Toyota stuck... they can't exactly blame the crap drivers, how would that make Toyota look? So they say they are looking for a fix to a problem that isn't there, and making it look like they are doing something by shaving people's pedals down, etc. when there really isn't anything to fix. That has been Toyota's policy for ages, they figure people would rather know if something is wrong with their vehicle and have them bring it in to get fixed than do what so many other manufacturers do and don't tell anyone about it until they bring their car in with the problem...

Yeah, what's up, nice mkiv, bpu?apu?

nice comment... but what's that gotta do w Turbo or NA?

My original topic for this thread was the DBW incident. But like most of our threads, it was derailed. hard.

Oh~ I forgot... My bad

It was in reply to the OP :D

BoostJunkie, thanks, it's almost BPU I suppose. Has EBC, FMIC, and a modified downpipe (removed cat convertor), no exhaust yet, though I want one. :P

I still need to do quite a lot of work on it to get it to the standard I would like, so these things will come before the exhaust. I'll just say it's a little rough around the edges.

Yours is nice too. I've always wanted a red MKIV! And it's a late model too by the looks of it?

The DBW Fear is funny to say the least. Cable throttles stick too especially after many miles of driving leaves the throttle body chock full of gunk. I've checked the throttle body on both my mom's van and my grandmother's ('96 Ford Windstar and '01 Toyota Sienna respectively) both are cable operated v6 minivans and both were oozing with carbon deposits. The Windstar which was higher mileage actually had almost a half pound of ooze in the intake since it was lower than the throttle body.

The problem with the runaway Prius is even if the throttle did stick wide open no amount of braking stomping will slow them down as they rev to 4-5k and hold that RPM. At low RPM, braking might stop the engine but at peak HP > braking power. The only solution is to toss it in neutral and let the engine blow. They have a CVT but even an Automatic there is no Clutch to stomp down and let the engine blow or to at least slow down enough to get it unstuck. And traditional Automatics will jump into lower gears to increase RPM under full throttle so brakes might not work in that case. I consider clutches safety devices :happyanim:. har har anyway [/joke][seriousness].

@Snaps
It would be ironic if having an auto with the MUCH larger brake pedal that people still committed acts of unintended acceleration. I believe you but please share the link.

Hold on a second, I'll just try and dig it up. :)

Edit: Got it: http://www.autoblog.com/2010/07/13/b...pplication-in/

I've even bolded the important parts for you. :) Spread the word so we can get Toyota's reputation back! ;)

Brakes are made to stop even with run away vehicles...

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/saf...6/article.html
they also have videos as well

the jist of it is, even with wide open throttle, the brakes will slow down and stop the vehicle

"In other words, even if the driver of a runaway car (well, a Camry, anyway) doesn't think to put the transmission into neutral before hitting the brakes, it is still possible to stop the car within a reasonable distance if sufficient pedal force is applied."

other sites have tested this as well, and Im pretty sure the DMV has as well