Date of last mass produced car with a carburetor?

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Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
My generation of the Honda Civic with a 3-barrel carb and a cat but no air pump ran from 84-87 and I think the next generation of Civic's starting in 88 was FI. Ancient history yes, but its a car I still drive

The only downside on my 84 Civic is that carburetor with all those vacuum lines and valves. When everything is hooked up and working it works well and my fuel mileage ranges from 37-41 on regular gas and it runs very smooth and never needs adjusting.

The secret is to set everything to factory spec's. Don't "fix" or "improve" anything and no golf tees (lol).



It is nearly impossible to keep one of those mid-late 1980s carbs running at factory spec for very long. I'd say that some of them didn't even run correctly when they were brand new. The Weber carb conversion kit was the best thing ever for my old Mitsubishi Mighty Max. Two screws to adjust idle and mixture, one wire for the choke, and one cable for the throttle. No more pile of spaghetti vacuum lines.
 
Originally Posted By: nthach
I think GM used carbs up until 1990/1991 and maybe the Geo Metro/Suzuki Swift until 1993?

GM made their QuadraJet go for as long as they could.


I have a 1991 Metro 3 cylinder and it has a throttle body fuel injection
 
Originally Posted By: eyeofthetiger
Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
My generation of the Honda Civic with a 3-barrel carb and a cat but no air pump ran from 84-87 and I think the next generation of Civic's starting in 88 was FI. Ancient history yes, but its a car I still drive

The only downside on my 84 Civic is that carburetor with all those vacuum lines and valves. When everything is hooked up and working it works well and my fuel mileage ranges from 37-41 on regular gas and it runs very smooth and never needs adjusting.

The secret is to set everything to factory spec's. Don't "fix" or "improve" anything and no golf tees (lol).



It is nearly impossible to keep one of those mid-late 1980s carbs running at factory spec for very long. I'd say that some of them didn't even run correctly when they were brand new. The Weber carb conversion kit was the best thing ever for my old Mitsubishi Mighty Max. Two screws to adjust idle and mixture, one wire for the choke, and one cable for the throttle. No more pile of spaghetti vacuum lines.



I purchased my Civic new and the carb has never been a problem as far as the tune of the engine and the running. For the first 20 years or so I never touched anything other than filters air and fuel. The only problem over 34 years has been this last go around when one of the vacuum switches failed. If you set it up per factory spec's and leave it alone it works great. In those 30 some years I've adjusted the idle speed only a couple of times. Its mechanics that do things without knowing what they are doing that is the problem. Then they charge the customer for all they messing around.

The same is true of VW square backs with fuel injection. I made money buying them not running and setting the FI back to factory specs, cleaning up all the grounds and replacing the battery. They run great when you follow the instructions. I had a mechanic that was buried in one pay me $20 to take it away. After a couple of days getting everything back to specs it ran like a new car. I taught my daughter how to drive in it and we used it as an extra car for 10 years. It was an ugly orange and that with its reputation probably made it theft proof.

Don't ever buy an 84-87 Civic unless your willing to follow instructions. The same goes for Squarebacks, too. The Weber conversion by Redline is great if your state allows it. California is protecting the world and so they don't allow it.
 
I tried to re-vacuum hose a mid-80s Civic once, about 10 years ago. This was in Vegas and all the original lines had likely dry-rotted to dust. Someone had been in it before trying to re-hose it and totally screwed it to the point it would barely run, if at all. The tiny graphic on the hood was very hard to follow however, and I figured out enough to know pretty much everything was connected wrong, if it even was connected. But when I started trying to get it put back together correctly, I only made it part-way before becoming unable to figure out several critical lines.
I looked and looked for a better graphic, but eventually had to give up. What a nightmare. I think the car got taken to the wreckers sometime later.
 
Some of those cars continued to be built with carburetors to be exported to countries like Mexico and South America where they don't have an EPA.
 
I know it's a bit off topic, but mass-market motorcycles with carburetors were sold right into the 2000s.
 
iirc rochester quadrajet.
with an mcs and tps.
latest one i have seen is in a 1990 caddilac with olds 307.
Originally Posted By: fonecord2
The real question is the last production four barrel.
 
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Last edited:
Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
Sorry, scanned the first page of replies, but missed your post. Guilty of BITOGing on the cell foam.


It happens. Just blame DealerTrack.
 
Originally Posted By: Silk
The Mazda B2200/Ford Courier were points and carb in 1995, and that's when we stopped assembling them here.


What about Ford Telstar Wagons, they kept selling them for years, not sure if they eventually got EFI.

Fiat Uno base model had a carb up to circa 1994

Continental Cars Auckland had a 1997 reg Fiat Fiorino van that was carbd. It was probably the only one registered in NZ, possibly an evaluation model.
 
Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
Sorry, scanned the first page of replies, but missed your post. Guilty of BITOGing on the cell foam.
no worries man.
 
Originally Posted By: bdcardinal
Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
Sorry, scanned the first page of replies, but missed your post. Guilty of BITOGing on the cell foam.


It happens. Just blame DealerTrack.


lol.gif
It did crash my browser this morning, closing every tab with it.
 
Originally Posted By: supercity

What about Ford Telstar Wagons, they kept selling them for years, not sure if they eventually got EFI.


I had a '93 Telstar that was carbed. But like the Courier, when we stopped assembly here, the carbed engines stopped. Our locally produced cars were low budget, no air con, power steering or windows etc. With the cheap used imports people got a taste for luxury, so we won't go back to no frills.
 
My DD is a carbed Mitsubishi 4G15 bought new in 1994 running around fine.
By mid-1995, this carbed version was replaced by EFI 4G15 model .
 
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Originally Posted By: nthach
I think GM used carbs up until 1990/1991 and maybe the Geo Metro/Suzuki Swift until 1993?

GM made their QuadraJet go for as long as they could.


The Olds 307 ran with a carb to the last ones in 1990.

Some truck and motorhome chassis used carb'd 454s with basically no smog controls (no cats, no EGR) until at least 1990.
 
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