jim beam wrote:
> Tony Harding wrote:

<snip>

>>> a lot of this "complication" is not that expensive. well, it is at
>>> the consumer end, but not for the manufacturers. at their kind of
>>> volume levels, a complete fuel injection package, with catalyst and
>>> all sensors, is probably less than $500. that's not exactly a
>>> significant burden on a vehicle retailing for over $15k.
>>
>> Guess again, Detroit's cost to produce an entire V8 engine was $150 in
>> the late 60's/early 70's (I'm remembering this from an old Car &
>> Driver article), so $500 just for the FI system is decidedly non trivial.
>
> that might be a useful comparison if you used this century's money
> values, not last.

<ignoring the snark factor> Not too hard to adjust the dollars - suppose
the $150 in 1970 dollars is $500 in 2008 dollars, it's still a very
significant cost factor.