Just a blurb about my carb performance issues that a short few might find some interest.....maybe as a flat six issue with 3 barrel Webers.
After a few short months, I am tiring of the slight flat spot in my carbs.....after much intense research about WEBER 3 barrel carbs and their origin(for Ferrari and NOT Porsche) and with discussion with Paul Abbott(WEBER GURU and purist) I realized that I need to fix this! Looking for smoother ride and rid that last bit of hesitation!
There is an inherent deficiency in the below 2500 RPMs in the Webers relative to many performance flat six motors. For the last 20 years, using the Weber as a starting point, Richard Paar, founder of PMO, essentially re-engineered every short coming of the Weber 3 barrel and enabled a variety of sizes of needles/jets/etc. to match any build profile.....clearly a far superior product with kudos to Weber for the initial invention. Paul Abbot, the self admitted Weber purist(proprietor of Performance Oriented), who remanufactures/reconditions old worn Webers, agreed that the PMO is a superior product, despite making his living as a Weber "guy". He, like many others, cannot let go of Weber "LORE" despite PMO being a far superior and applicable carb, would NEVER put a PMO on his car(full well knowing its a better carb). He even suggested buying the PMOs and selling my Webers to fund the purchase as a sound pursuit and he is busy: his next opening for remanu/recon is July 2018 and the full remanu/upgrade process approaches $3500 which is close to the PMO buy.
I had some initial concern about the Weber/original/historic factors when I realized that as a replica, having a 2.7 flat six with a 5 speed has already violated the 50s speedster heritage and I might as well upgrade. Truly, driving the car is amazing, so much so that with all that HP and torque in a 2300 pound car, the low RPM short coming was pissing me off as much of my driving is local, under 55 MPH stuff, and I would prefer smoother acceleration. Some might say spark is your problem, but the research and history clearly supports the carbs(especially old/tired carbs with its inherently weak skill set in low RPMs) is the problem although PMO recommends a recurve/rebuild of distributor(Barry Hershorn of Distributor Lab) to fully complement the new carbs.
The internet is chock full of guys who remove their old Webers and/or fuel injection for PMOs and the reports are 99% in the plus column despite the almost $4500 wake up call. In any case, the weakness in the low RPM range of many 2.7/3.0/3.2 is largely eliminated(theoretically) along with an increase in horsepower. The two things that create explosion are fuel and spark and each motor's profile has an optimum relationship with the two throughout the RPM range. Of course, fuel injection, with programmable crank fired ignition is most desirable although for some reason, greater horse power and torque are achieved with PMO carbs despite less efficiency and poorer gas mileage, although most Porsche guys looking for performance/MAX torque-HP do not give a hoot about gas mileage. I will trade mileage for performance and the much reported lower PMO maintenance needs and considerably higher predictability of performance.
Looks like PMOs right after the New Year with distributor rebuild and sell off the historic Webers to a purist. I did not come to this lightly without extensive readings on both/three sides of the aisle(Weber vs PMO vs EFI). I certainly will not be racing or need full mapping of my acceleration/performance profile but my carbs do need rebuild and the smart choice "appears" to be the PMO route. Time will tell and and will report back in a blurb to interested folks.
My mechanic, 3.8 crank fired/twin plug/PMO 50s/400hp/911, pointed out that it could cost me $5K to bring my car from 92% to 98/99% and is it worth it? I love this car and its the last car that I will buy outside of an 89 Explorer with 238,000 miles to get around town, should I need basic transportation. It IS worth it to me....(no scream intended in use of capitol letters)