AMEN GEORGE!
I'm 65 years old. I can remember when all I wanted was a Dick Tracy wrist watch. I finally got one for Christmas one year but it had a darned wire sticking out of it and was conected to to another one about 20 feet away. I had to wisper so my buddy could hold it up to his ear and here me. It was a lot simpler just to yell at him. I got one now I carry it in my shirt pocket and I can talk to anyone any where now or even send them video it's a lot better than old Dick ever had.
I can remember back in the late 50's my dad got a Hilborn fuel injector for an old flat head Ford he raced in the modified's back in the day. It was the utlimate speed secret and it did light a fire under that old Ford, he just could not keep rear axils under it, it had a ton of torque.
When I raced quarter midgets in the 60's we had "floatless 7/8 Amal" carbs on Alky on the "double A cars" It was a controlled drip system. They were the hot set up back then, however we could only jet them for 1 speed "WOT", no mid range and no idle. On starts and yellow flag laps they looked like a bunch of bucking broncos out there going around the track banging and beating one another.
Electronic injection has come to racing in a big way. Next year NASCAR will be using them in the cup cars. Guess that spells the end to $10,000.00 carburetors. They will cry a little at first but then it will all die down in a few weeks. I would almost bet lap times go down and they will probably do away with 1 or 2 pit stops along the way. I call that an improvment. I thought racing was supposed to lead the way and not follow, you know rear view mirrors, safety belts and helmets.
Back to the old "Power Comanders" They are band-aids used to adjust electronic injectors. What they actually do is tie into the engine temp part of the ECM and fool it into thinking the engine is hotter or colder than it really is, thus making the injection pulse longer or shorter and adding or taking away fuel. That is why when racing these engine you should leave the thermostat in to keep engine temp. constant.
Bob is use to adjusting mechanical injectors with pills and springs and turning the barrel valve. This seems second nature to him. He is also used to adjusting go kart carbs on the track "screw it out till it blubbers then screw it back in until it clears out" Do not take your eyes off of the track. I did that only once!
To adjust a car with an Alky converted injection system and a PC that has already been mapped can probably be done the same way with the fuel pres. regulator. Raise fp up to about 70 or 75 psi. If it blubbers drop 2 or 3 psi and try it again untill it clear up then raise it 1 psi for safety. You can do this on Alky but I would not do it on gas The window is way too narrow. They will always run the best when Lean but you take the chance of turning your motor into melted junk. We always ran our gas motor about 5 to 10 psi over the factory setting, helps them cool.
I've noticed when tuning on the Dyno there are just a few places that require tweaking from factory settings usually because of free flowing pipes and the pipe's ram effect on the intake system. I would suppose a person could just install larger injectors and a stainless filter and tune with Fuel Pres. only and come out with a pretty good set up.
To tune with the PC and get it spot on you will need a Dyno and a way to check your Air Fuel ratio and somebody to hook up the computer and make your map. But race cars don't have to be perfect just "close enough for government work"
