I'm old enough to remember them first time around, prices in Pounds, Shillings and Pence. They seemed very exotic...Fuel Injection"!!! Er well, not really. There seemed to be no mechanical or electrical connection to pressurise the fuel and us know all youth summised it was basically a big tap connected to a throttle valve. More throttle, more flow. It simply drip fed more fuel with increasing throttle opening, and the metering system was basically gravity powered. Not the sophisticated load/airflow/throttle/fuel pressure electronic metering precision of today.
So yes it seemed to offer the potential for ever greater horsepower from our 150cc Lambretta Two Strokes, but the more you thought about it there was also great potential for fire, poor mixture control and no doubt high fuel consumption. When you earned £10 a week, this seemed more of a gimmick. We kept well away. Instead, changing the crankshaft oilseals stopped the gear oil disappearing and improved the performance (we thought). The motors ran with far less smoke.
Then we read "Tuning for Speed" by Phil Irving and filed ever increasing amounts off the bottom of the piston skirt.That made the bikes faster for nothing. This has got to be 1966/67, mags from this era will carry ads for Wal Phillips Fuel Injector. The ad copy makes interesting reading with the benefit of hindsight....all this technology for 22/11 or was it Three Guineas? In the right situation they offered a performance advantage over the standard Dell'Orto, but for ordinary road use, not worth the risk.
Thanks to Mr Google, all you ever want to know of the Man, his Machine and its more modern applications is out there.
Happy days
Swarfy
