FI will "pay for itself"
Fuel injection will be thousands more expensive. But... If you go with fuel injection and operate it
effectively, the system will "pay for itself" within about 1000 hours. At least that's what I calculate according to today's crazy gas prices.
There is higher acquisition cost up front for the FI $y$tem and its supporting component$ (i.e. high pre$$ure boo$t pump), but I believe it's well worth it. That's just my perspective.
So given that it's more or less a wash cost-wise, it just comes down to whether or not you
want fuel injection! What do you want?
What's the down side? Hard to hot start sometimes? I guess. If that's the worst of it, it ain't bad.
What's the up side? Precise fuel metering to each cylinder -- which by itself isn't all that enthralling of an advantage. But it does allow you to run LOP. Couple that with an electronic ignition, and you've got the ability to run extremely economically. And you'll never have to deal with problems where "swap out the carb and see if it goes away" is the best answer. I follow the Lycoming list, and I'm amazed at how often that is actually the best course of action!
FWIW, my 200hp IO-360-A1B6 RV-7 burns less fuel when side-by-side at any speed with all other RVs I've flown with. This includes lots of 180hp O-360 RV-6s, and 160hp O-320 powered RV-6s, even when I'm "throttle jockeying" in formation and the O-320 RV-6 is in the lead with a steady-state best economy power setting. Somehow I manage to take on less fuel at the pumps. Slightly less -- it's not a huge difference. But I personally believe fuel injection + electronic ignition is the
ticket (albeit with an up-front price) to better economy.
If economy and "precision" aren't the long term goals, then maybe it's not worth it. The difference is definitely not huge by any stretch. It's almost picking nits. Just depends on what you want out of your powerplant.
)_( Dan
RV-7 N714D
http://www.rvproject.com