carbs = power loss?

I know I've been gone for a longtime but I've been lurking late at night reading what you've all been up to. I opened a new place in Sept. and it's been absolutely insane busy so I've been a little too beat to chime in and follow up on threads.
That said, I'm in a bit of a situation here; It all started mid summer when I started messing with my Solexs. I found the main jets to be too rich so they were replaced which led to an ongoing list of adjustments etc... which led me to where I am now, with new Weber 34 ICT's. The car starts, idles and runs better than ever except I seem to have lost power. When my Solexs were in it the car had some umph, when I hit the gas it went. Now with the Webers it seems to be flat through the mid range, it takes longer to get through the gears and I don't have the throttle response I used to have. My wrench buddy has suggested a little MSD 5 but the search I did indicated that there really wouldn't be any increase in HP with an ignition upgrade. I have no problem putting one in (it's only $130) because I can't see it hurting anything but can anyone make sense of the loss in chutzpah? I only have a little 1600cc and I know it isn't much but now I have little confidence driving in traffic because I can't do anything with the car anymore. When I step on the gas it slowly creeps up in speed but there isn't any power. My Speedie has turned into a Granny car! Help!!!! The nice days are running out!!!!

So what do the plugs look like - black and wet (too rich) or light grey (too lean)? Ensure valves (adjust and do compression check) and timing are ok before doing much else. Do the check for leaks (vacuum/air) are recommended here in other threads. All plugs firing? Are they synched or just running on one?

Wolfgang brings up a lot of good points, and more than enough to keep you busy for an afternoon, but what happened to the Solexes??

Solex/Kadrons are THE best carb combination I've ever seen for a stock 1600 engine, and sure.....it may not be breathing (flowing) as well with the Webers as with what you had on there originally.

Can you put them back? The low budget website can certainly help you to sort them out.

gn

I'm with Gordy on this one.
Years ago I replaced 40 solexs with 40 webers: big expensive mistake! I run 44 webers now mainly because of larger engine needs. $ for $, IMHO, there's nothing better than that Kad set up.

Wolfgang, Gordon and Ernie,
It all started with a carb rebuild last year. The carbs worked fine until this summer when I took it on a road trip. After I got home the car started to sputter and lag so I checked one of the front plugs, a nice wet black sweater on it, obviously running too rich. My buddy and I check the main jets, too big. New smaller jets go in along with new plugs and now the plugs are OK but the rear ones are looking lean, all the while the car still has some lag issues in the mid range though the sputtering is gone. So we consider the Vacuum Advance from Lowbugget and double check to see if the check balls are in place and the fuel pump is operating correctly, which they were. Now the car starts to back fire on acceleration so another friend of mine (restores vintage Porsches) suggests taking a look at the manifolds. Turns out I have crappy Empi manifolds that the ports don't align properly. So we replace the gaskets to insure no air leaks, better, but still the lag in mid range and misaligned ports (approx 1/8").
That all said, I guess I could put the Kads back on and get the vacuum advance but there is still the poor linkage issues the Kad/Solex's have as well as having to buy new manifolds. Those items would probably total the same amount as the Webers so I chose that route.
It's not horrible to drive. It gets off the line fine but it just feels a little "flat" in the mid range now and it feels like it takes longer to get throught the gears. I can attribute that to smaller carbs not delivering the same amount of fuel I guess? I have no problem giving up a little power for better reliability. I'm not much of a tinkerer with my car, I have a friend that has an auto repair shop and he is very helpful however I hate to take advantage, not to mention I like driving my car so whatever I can do to improve the reliability and minimize the time it's down is worth it to me.
It's just hard for me to determine what my car is supposed to behave like now. I liked the pep it had but if that was from big carbs dumping more fuel that I guess I may have to sacrifice it. My car is a stock VW 1600cc with no performance enhancements at all. I'm not looking for anything other than a little fun car. So I'm not sure if my car is just performing the way the way it's supposed to or if I'm missing some of it potential? Thanks, Mickey

Hi guys. My car was popping on excel. only. The car was burning way to rich. Comp. is fine and just gave it a tune up. Still popping on excel. So i just took the carbs off (solex} and sent the to be rebuilt by low bugget. I will let you know how things turned out............

Tony Chiusano

This is going to sound really stupid, but check your plug wires before you do anything else.
It's also colder out now than it was a while back. Are you running it for a few minutes to warm it up before you drive? Let the heat from the idling engine (which is why you gotta let it warm up for a few looong minutes in winter) soak up through the manifolds and into the carbs.
Either could be a no-headache remedy.
Same symptoms kicked my butt in October, and I was looking for a complicated answer. I pushed a plug wire on a little more snugly and fixed it right up.

Listen to brother Cory....a friend of mine went through the same predicament with his dune buggy. Turned out to be a defective plug wire. Changed them and the problem went away.

Mickey:

Did you guys ever re-set the accelerator pump for a more potent stroke?

Your flat spot sounds like classic "not enough accelerator pump squirt".

gn

Gordon,
The speedy is asleep for the winter; stored in a nice warm barn at my buddies intil spring arrives.
Anyway, to answer your question - My wrench friend and I were messing around with the accelerator pump stroke when the solexs were on it and I'm pretty sure he adjusted them to where he felt comfortable when he put the webers on. It's hard to say because I only drove it a few times before I put it away for the winter (we got a stretch of cold rainy weather and then it just got cold). The plan is to put an MSD 5 in it this spring to see if it helps. Then, of course, we'll check everything again.
I still am a little suprised by the considerable difference in the responsiveness between the big solexs and the webers? Should it be that much different? My little 1600cc was never a rocket to begin with but it's for sure lost a little spunk with the webers.


Oh, and Cory - Sorry I never got back to you guys. Business is nuts and I was trying to get my kart ready for the US Kart Grand Prix at VIR. So between all that and shopping and holiday insanity, etc.... plus I was out on location doing some stunt work for a new Richard Gere movie (wink, wink).

http://www.observer.com/files/imagecache/article/files/Transfers-RichardGere1V.jpg

Tell me I'm wrong, huh? I'm not sayin' ... I'm just sayin' ...

I'm thinkin' more a younger Alice Cooper.

Ditto, Alice Cooper look alike.

...did someone say 'School's Out for Summer'?!!!

I'm thinkin' "Welcome to my Nightmare"

Geez, what a short attention span we have!

OK, I think if the fellow in Cory's foto had dark hair he would be a ringer for Mr. Nichols. You know, the guy with the killer knees! :)

~WB

You're saying Gordon looks like Richard Gere?! Lord, now he's gonna be impossible to live with!

Well, sorta. You have to have a creative mind.

Shhhh....maybe he'll overlook this thread!

Not a chance....

Years ago, I had been away on a business trip and got back to Boston really late (like, after midnight after a flight delay). My car was in a Park N Fly lot, so I rode the shuttle over, picked up the car and pulled up to the ticket/pay window (it was now about 2am). The lady opens the window, looks at me, her eyes get really wide and she excitedly says: "OHMYGOD!! YOU'RE RICHARD GERE!!!" I thought for a second, and then it registered and I said; "No, not really, but thanks for telling me."

"No, No!!", she said....."YOU'RE Richard Gere!!" Now I'm thinking she's about to leap out of the window. "Honest", I said, I'm NOT Richard Gere.....here.....look at my driver's license."

She takes a look, then holds it up toward the light and says; "Oh, I know. THIS is one of those FAKE licenses, isn't it Mr. Gere?"

"Oh, Well....you caught me" I said. "Guess you're pretty sharp! Just don't tell anyone.....So why don't I just pay you and sneak off to my hotel?"

She processes the ticket, takes my money, hands me the change and says: "So, which hotel are you staying at?"

Getting back to Mickey: Big, single-throat Solexes seem to flow better than similarly sized Webers. As mentioned up above, to get similar performance from Webers, you usually have to go up 4mm or more (I've seen as much as 10mm difference to get similar performance) and THEN you get all of the other Weber joys like clogged idle jets. I've had one clogged idle jet on a Solex - just one. That was a piece of crud the size of a cement block (well, it seemed that big to me.)

Gordon, I know what you mean. I put 50,000 miles on my 40mm Kadrons (70 VW beetle), without a hiccup. I put 5,000 miles on my 40 and 44 Webers (on my IM) and had 3 clogged jet problems.

I second what Ron said. When I put the 1835 pistons/jugs on my Speedy I re-synched my Kadrons and haven't had to touch them since, 40K miles ago!

FWIW - I drive my Speedy as a daily beach cruiser, not a go-fast racer!

I have contended for some time that Webers make their own dirt. I did so slightly tongue in cheek... however a recent rebuild of a pair of Webers suggests that may not be off the mark.

Specifically, a couple of us in the area with Spyders have had dirty jet problems fairly frequently, just like you all. Now this is strange as we both run big and effective fuel filters, one at the engine and another at the tank, as well as air filters, run only premium fuel not brand "X" from convenience stores, keep the cars in tune, change plugs etc.... yet we have reoccurring problems with dirty jets.

The recent tear down showed the diaphragms in the accellerator pumps were breaking down. The rubber coating was crumbling off the cloth backing. Strangely enough, one of them was red rubber and the other one was black rubber, and they were both shedding rubber like crazy and those particles were getting in the jets. My guess is they don't get along with the 10% alcohol fuel we all get these days.

Even more odd is the rngine ran fine, the pumps were still working when you hit the throttle, just kept crudding up the idle jets in particular.....

Jim,....Thanks for the heads up on the Alky/Pump problem....Thought I was going insane here on the east coast...Now I have a Probable Cause for my carb trash problems.....

In the for what it's worth column, I usually carry an extra set of jets with a larger bore (winter driving or track stuff), a bread tie wire and a pair of postal tweezers.
The bread tie is pretty close to the bore diameter of the smaller jets, so it works for both sets. The postal tweezers are just the type that stamp collectors use, nothing fancy, and they work very well to lift the jets out without having to fat-finger them in. That probably helps to keep debris from collecting in their sockets.
Anyway, I can remove, clean and reinstall pretty durn quickly. Handy stuff to have onboard.

So there we were on the infamous "Tail of the Dragon" in the heart of South East Tahn-ah-see. We had just gotten into the actual Tail part (the pre-cursor section of road is gorgeous, but has these long, sweeping turns around the shore of an artificially created lake - just beautiful) and had slowly motored through the "RADAR Trap from Hell" and were waiting for our illustrious tour leader to catch up with the pack, which went just "up the road a piece" to a turn-off at the top of a long, windy grade to wait for him (terrific overlook there, BTW).

As we waited and were talking with the bikers and photographers huddled on the turn, I look around and there is Cory, wrenches and bread-wire in hand, pulling his jets out and cleaning them (just one of several such incidents during our trip that day). We waited, probably, 15 minutes, tops, but by that time he had pulled, cleaned and replaced all of his jets.

The man is a "Jet Cleaning Machine!!"

gn