Back when the emission tailpipe checks were on the horizon, there were stories around of instructor's vehicles (in this case, a '58 Chevy 6-cyl car) which had lower emissions than the newer standards were, which I found interesting, until you might realize that a low-lift, low-duration cam (as most were back then) with a short overlap period, were decently clean as is.
One day, at the local Chry dealership, while the CAP system was in existence, we'd gotten the '66 Newport 383 2bbl tuned-up. One of their final deals was to "Solvize the carb" and set the idle speed and mixture, toward the end.
"Solvize the carb" was a quick dousing of the carb and choke linkages from a nozzled can of a Acrisol solvent. Then the idle speed was set using a tach. Sometimes a mixture check with a portable/wheeled Sunn a/f ratio meter, mainly to see that at "cruise" that the mixture needle would swing into the 14.2+ part of the gauge, which it did.
I asked to see if the carb idle mixture could be adjusted to that, too, per CAP specs. AND it was possible to do that, but with a bit more quiver at idle, so it was set back to what it was before. Mystery solved, interestingly.
In John DeLorean's book "On A Clear Day, You Can See General Motors", he mentioned how that the GM accountants did not understand the need for the emissions system GM was using (A.I.R., and such, at a $40+ cost/car) when Chrysler could do it with less stuff and less money. At the time, I thought the Chrysler CAP system of engine calibration modifications was pretty neat and demonstrated their "better engineering" orientation. As things got tighter, everybody ended up with pretty much the same equipment, though. And they had to warranty any issues for 50K+ miles (later 100K miles to match the CA regulations). Still, Chrysler's approach to things seemed more high-tech to me than GM and Ford's more crude (to me) items. Although in this case, "more crude" seemed to affect the driveability less, by observation, and when THEY did kaput, the customers seemed to give Ford and GM "a pass" as they were not happy at all with Chryslers (especially the newer Chrysler owners).
Now, what DID surprise me and make me smile was that Fenner Tubbs C-P took some of their new-car demos and did a mileage check, about 50 miles or so, with the cruise at 55mph (the national speed limit of the time). They filled the tanks at a Shell station across the street from the dealer, then drove the cars south to the edge of the Caprock, turned around, headed back north to the same Shell station and filled the tanks. The '74 New Yorker returned 20.66mpg, the '74 Newport returned 20.33, and a Gran Fury 360 2bbl was 19.__mpg. They had some results printed up on company letterhead and then had them all notorized . . . as handouts at the dealership. Owners of Oldsmobile 98s, for example, who obviously might question the results, were given a New Yorker to drive for the weekend. On Monday, they bought the New Yorker for fuel economy alone, almost every time. It was a good cotton crop that year and it was time to trade.
I CAN related that when GM went to cat converters and their "re-tuning" of the engines to seemingly earlier calibrations, letting the cat do the work of cleaning the exhaust, those cars DID run a bunch better than the '74s. '74 Chevies which allegedly needed to have the spark plugs changed at 6K miles (!!!) to maintain emissions compliance. Rather "cleaned", but most techs changed them anyway. Guess how many times those mileage intervals were extended to what they used to be???
Think of how many gallons of fuel might have been saved IF Chrysler (and their Bendix EFI associations) and GM (with their Rochester products division) had gone EFI in the middle 1960s. Sure, Chrysler had some issues with radio frequency interference (which might have easily been shielded against!), but the Rochester systems were mechanical. Only "problem" was their additional cost and training techs to work on them. And nobody wanted to give Ford a cost advantage back then OR spend hundreds of dollars on something a $30 cost carburetor could do and such. But when it became necessary, even for the less expensive TBI units, as the cost of the cars also increased each year, too, it was easier to hide those additional costs in the basic price of the car.
The Imperial 318 EFI system had ONE big fault. The mass air flow sensor was located (logically) in the air cleaner snorkle. Problen with that was that when the air cleaner top was removed, the TBI got its air from the newly-openned area, so air flow through the snorkle stopped, so the system figured the engine died,k so with no MAF signal, the engine DID die. Plus, not getting the air cleaner top and band clamp back on correctly could cause driveability issues for the same reason.
Consider, too, that when Chrysler Aerospace designed that system, Chrysler HAD to do something and quickly, plus with little time OR money to design a "normal" system, with little additional assembly cost/complexity. So that system was basically an underhood "bolt-in" replacement for the Carter BBD carb, with some extra supporting hardware. But seemingly like some other Chrysler issues of the time, they tended to seem to not source things for the best durability, which caused problems as the cars aged. One friend who had one of those Imperials was looking to get rid of it by 20K miles, to get ahead of those "problems", for example.
To me, the Chrysler ELB system was a better way of doing things, which took cat converters out of the mix, which was an "advance" for 1976. But it seems that component issues started to happen. It seemed that if any sort of problems came up, the Chrysler "computer analyser" indicated the need for a new computer. A simple fix, usually, as it was. But later versions, which evolved into the "Electronic Spark Control" system in the later 1970s and earlier 1980s, seemed to be better, by observationl.
As with many OEM "problems" and what those might be, it usually gets back to how much money they were willing to spend and how long they (secretly, seemingly) wanted the components to last. Plus what the failure rate might be and how that might impact warranty costs, regardless of the OEM. And, by observation, in hindsight, as Chrysler's financial issues of the later 1970s and earlier 1980s got to be worse, some of their decisions seemed to covertly parallel those issues. Possibly one of the worst was the Carter carb base gasket on the Slant 6 Aspen/Volare cars. A part that NEVER had caused any problems suddenly did . . . AND it got coverage in the newspapaers, too!
Chrysler tended to "break ground" for new technologies back then, got "talked bad about" by some of the customers, but then Ford and GM had the same things (seemingly dumbed-down a bit for lower costs), which ALSO caused customer issues, but Ford and GM did NOT seem to get hammered by their customers nearly to the extend that Chrysler did, as I recall.
Just the things I observed to have happened back then, fwiw.
CBODY67