First why they stuck fuel injection (FI) for so long: They banned FI after the 1957 Chevy came out with it (FI was not standard in the '57, but enough were pro

First why they stuck fuel injection (FI) for so long: They banned FI after the 1957 Chevy came out with it (FI was not standard in the '57, but enough were produced with FI to qualify as "stock") and dominated NASCAR. One should note that even with a carburetor, the '57 was really good. They kept the ban for tradition I think more than anything else. When the banned FI, it was still rather exotic, but by the 90s, essentially all new mass-market cars were fuel injected. Carburetors are rather finicky; they rely on basic physics to maintain a proper fuel-air mixture and doing so over a wide range of temperatures and RPMs is hard. Since fuel-injectors are electronically controlled you can do a lot more with them, so they can maximize power and fuel-economy over a broader environmental range.