Carbs - the good old days

obi_waynne

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Who remembers setting up Carbs! Getting the jets right, balancing your Twin 40's. The burbles and purr you get when it was spot on.

Then there was the fact they wouldn't stay setup for long, cars would stall, judder and not start.

Do you miss carb engines and the mechanical simplicity of them?
Do you think we are better off without carbs and relying on tech to keep our cars running right?
 
I do miss the older style of tuning when one could fix most cars with a light bulb and a screwdriver! The induction roar of twin carbs has never been equalled for me. I only recently sold my last set of twin DCOEs, I brought these back from a business trip in Italy from a friend who had an Alfa Junior a few years ago. The last car I had running such carbs was my group 4 Chevette and twin 48s, the sound was awesome! I used to take that car to a chap still tuning such cars and classics, Tom Airey, proper old school tuner. Yes these days it is a case of drive and forget and seldom being as close to a car as I once was due to the complexity of the systems used.
 
Can't say I miss the carbs on any of my old cars. The least carb worry was on my old Rover which had SU's. All I had to do now and again was to top up the reservoir with some 3 in 1 oil. A webber twin something or another I had on my old Cortina 1600 GT was a right pain in the derriere to get right.
 
learnt so much from tuning my old r5gtt tuning carbs, and in fact earlier today i had someone inbox me on facebook asking me if i could rebuild and set up there r5gtt carb for 20psi why not gives me something to do one night
 
I don't miss the unreliability of carbs. Fuel injection (my car is GDI) is more reliable and gets more power from smaller displacement. Yeah those old Cara sounded great but newer cars sound awesome too. A lot of times I don't have music or anything in my car I just like the sound of my engine.

But I'm not the sentimental type either.
 
Although yesterday at work I did a jumpstart for a guy with a 57 Ford Fairlane with a 350, duel glasspack exhaust and a 4 barrel carb. It sounded awesome. We started it up and just idling I hopped in the car with the guy and he revved it up a few times and that really was a fantastic sound!
 
Carbs look awesome though. I loved the look of the SU carbs on my dad's old Rovers. And it was fascinating finding out how they worked

They don't look quite so awesome in little bits all over the garage floor
 
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With fully ecu controlled motors the norm now carbs are not an option - they just cant be controlled in the same way as injectors.

Shame cos they look and sound the biz.
 
I would love to convert my V6 to run carbs just for the noise but not worth the trouble or expense, plus loss in power over injection.
 
Let's develop an electronic carb then and get the best of both worlds! Is this even feasible?
 

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