How did you find yourself in the Speedster World?

Everybody under 60 years old hates carburetors.

There.  I’ve said it.

It’s not that they are bad (well, some of them are), but more that they can be complicated and difficult to tune, what with so many internal and external influences, like jet and Venturi sizes, accelerator pumps, float adjustment, engine timing, ignition glitches, engine valve operation, fuel pressure, et al, causing them to act up.  

Everybody around 60 years old remembers when all cars had carburetors and we all somehow managed to live with them - Two pumps to get them started, a couple more to get them to idle without stalling (this might entail several “rinse and repeat” cycles), anticipating a dead spot on minor acceleration and pushing through it, stomping to the floor and holding it there to start after leaving the super market, how to properly set the thermal spring on a choke system (even fewer knew how to use a manual choke), and on and on.  

Carburetors were finicky little things (unless you were dealing with a Quadrajet - They could be pretty big).  Some of us even got good at reliably rebuilding them, back in the day.  

After 1980, everything went to fuel injection with far fewer things that effected it.  Everybody loved it, except for those good at rebuilding carbs.  So much so, that we mostly forgot how to live with Carbs, except for a few people who still studied them and kept alive the ability to reliably rebuild them.  Those people aren’t Druids (as far as we know), just people who studied the things and patiently bring them back to their design specs and, as Danny P knows, once you get them there and don’t mess with them, they tend to stay in that state for a long time.  Those that have been painstakingly set up run very similar to fuel injection and if you run them dry starting the Winter hibernation season, they (usually) start back up in the middle of Spring when the road salt is finally gone.  

Compared to boring fuel injection, carburetors certainly give us all a lot more to b!+ch about.

"Compared to boring fuel injection, carburetors certainly give us all a lot more to b!+ch about."

Yeah, without carbs we'd have little to talk about except oil and pie.

I am 58 and I do not hate carbs. In fact I was just idly musing today about that very thing: the satisfaction one gets from synching a pair of Webers just so.

I don't think "people under 60" really hate them. But often-times people express "hate" for things they simply do not understand.

Carburetors are truly simple devices designed by people WAY smarter than all of us. I simply understand and have a feel for how they work. Synching is one thing, but it REALLY helps to have a wideband O2 sensor for tuning. Honestly I don't think I could do it without one.

And it also helps to have a clear order in which one does things to get to the Swiss watch state. You don't start off swapping main jets, do you? Nope, you start with a cold valve adjustment and spark check and only then move to the carbs.

There has to be an organized method. That's all I do, follow the same steps each time.

I'd love to teach younger ones that want to learn.

@edsnova posted:

I am 58 and I do not hate carbs. In fact I was just idly musing today about that very thing: the satisfaction one gets from synching a pair of Webers just so.

When you truly understand what a carburetor does, it’s hard to deny it’s one of the most fantastic contraptions ever invented.

Feed an IC engine from 900 to 10,000 rpm, sea level to 10,000 feet, in weather from -10 to 110°, all based on gravity, barometric pressure, and airflow.

From the simplest single throat piston/needle Amal or Dellorto to double/triple Webers, I think they’re amazing.

Agreed 100%, @dlearl476.

It's not amazing that they work well, it's amazing that they work at all. That they work as well as they do, under almost every imaginable operational condition makes them otherworldly in their operation. They're very nearly miraculous.

I really do think they were the absolute high-water mark of pre-digital civilization.

Then there's also this: aesthetically, carbs are almost always superior to fuel injection.

Dual Carter AFBs atop a Weiand tunnel ram? A Winters cross-ram on a small block chebby? Tri-power GTO or 'Cuda? That flathead '32 Deuce with 3-4 Strombergs on a log? Or this:

To my eyes, even a pedestrian Quadrajet under a stock air cleaner looks cooler than

Now...ITBs are another matter. But still.

As to the wonderment that they work at all, one must also appreciate that gasoline is very flammable and will burn under a wide range of circumstances given a little oxygen to mingle with.  Optimizing that process to deliver the most heat for the least fuel is, of course, a matter of tending to the details.  But one starts with a system that is just itching to explode.

"But one starts with a system that is just itching to explode."

That sounds a lot like my Turkey Deep Fryer.....

@DannyP. I would like to learn!  I will send you a DM to enroll!

Randy

Randy, it's more of an in-person thing.

I did post a long blurb on Carb synch that is in resources at the top of the page.

Danny's article is very good.  That, and patience, are all you might need.

Here's a link to it in the "Knowledge" section for supporting members:

https://www.speedsterowners.co...-adjustment-and-sync

Thanks, Gordon. Before I submitted that, I had Max proofread and edit it. I'm quite sure he made it better.

Yeah.....

Now it's been "Maximized".   🤣