Twenty years ago, computers stared their integration into automobiles, attached to carburetors and vacuum sensors, and shade tree mechanics looked at them with trepidation. They couldn't be adjusted, the settings were made by accountants in Detroit. The dawn of a new age was starting, and some people aren't morning people, it takes them a little while, a few cups of coffee to get moving. These early days had those feedback carburetors, 150 feet of vacuum hoses, and ever tightening emissions requirements. As the requirements grew more stringent, the demands on the carburetor grew too much, the inherent inefficiencies and perpetual compromise led the manufacturers to start putting electronic fuel injection on cars.

Far from an exotic option on cars like the early Corvettes and Mercedes, FI was now being put on cars that were being mass produced, and still, the shade tree mechanics stood back and cursed that 'little black box' and wished to have a good ol' 4 barrel on there that would no doubt make so much more power and be easier to tune.

Of course, fuel injected cars didn't need tune-ups now for 50000 miles, chokes didn't stick on a cold morning, would start in the most extreme weather, and ran the same going over mountain passes as they did cruising at the beach, without a tune up in the meantime. Gone were the days that you had to stop at the rest areas going up the mountain passes, fiddle with the mixture, then stop at the rest areas on the way down the pass, fiddling with the mixture once again.

People tend to forget those days of constant and annoying maintenance. Ask anyone who has 40 year old car with stock everything if they could drive, right now, to a city 2000 miles away and back, in 5 days, without opening the hood. Honest people would give you a 'maybe, but doubtful'. Anyone else would be lying, not counting the case of oil, the set of plugs, points and luck they'd be packing in the tool box. Now, your trunk can be devoid of scroungy toolboxes, put a 6 disc CD-changer in it instead.

Part of the backlash against the 'New' Fuel injection (now 20 years in mass-market) is the younger kids running pumped-up Hondas, Nissans and Audis. It's a realization that the days of being 18 and driving a 2 year old hopped-up Nova are now 20 year old dreams, and the guy doing that dreaming hasn't kept up. His Nova, no doubt running in 'the mid-12s' back then was in reality a 18 second slug off the lot, and all his modifications (an exhaust, removing the air filter, air shocks, Cragar mags, and maybe, if he was mechanically inclined, a '3/4' race cam) got him in the high 15's. A 4 barrel got him in the mid 14's, and cut his mileage to 12 mpg. Inside, he put a Craig stereo with Jensen Coaxials, 6x9 on the back deck. He has to adjust the carb every month or two to get the idle to set right. Plugs foul every 5-6 thousand miles. Winter hits, and he has to plug it in, or it won't start.

The equivalent car now, a Civic, runs high 16's off the lot, and with similar modifications (a cat-back exhaust, Oz Wheels, lowered springs, K&N filter, and a chip) will run low 14's. A cam will get him into the mid 13's, and keep his mileage in the low 30's. Inside, a 400W amp with two 15" subs in the hatch. It's winter, and it starts like it did in July, the last time he opened the hood to check the oil.

You hear, in talking to older car guys, about how the modern kids don't know what they're doing, there's nothing mechanical they can do, yet the majority of modifications that any generation makes to their cars are limited to air filters, exhaust, wheels/tires, a stereo and a camshaft. The rodders of the 70's, as a whole weren't driving their Darts and Volares around with blueprinted engines with 6-71 blowers, they did what they could afford, and what was easy for the result, hence, air filters, exhaust, wheels/tires, a stereo and a camshaft. Rodders today, be they in an Eclipse or a Civic, do the same things that they can afford.

Fear the new wave of hot rodders, or shun them, and either way you lose out on what we all do: modify cars because we like them. The aftermarket exists, and is poised to become much larger for tuner cars than for classic musclecars. Kids getting their license today were born when feedback carbs were gasping their last breath, giving way to the new progeny. Don't let yourself become someone who stands around in his garage, drinking a warm beer, muttering about how it all used to be better back in your day when you could modify it yourself, you still can. Learn, embrace new technology, make it work for you, be a modern hot rodder, even if you're well past retirement, it's never too late to be young. I'll meet you out in the garage with a laptop, some fuel and spark maps, and a cold beer.