Ford Mustang Forums banner

How many of you run carbs?

3K views 29 replies 13 participants last post by  fasterthangas 
#1 ·
I'm curious how many here run carbs and what your setups are.
 
#5 ·
my new 408 has an 1150 going on it...

we ran a "1350" on the old X nitrous motor.
 
#18 ·
I "throwed" the carburetor away a long time ago. Swore by them for many years (decades?). Picked up a used mechanical FI kit, bolted it on, picked up about a tenth over a alcohol carburetor. The FI is so simple that anyone can tune it, and it's also so simple that you'll second guess yourself in the tuning process-which is what gets people in trouble. But the simplicity also means that there's really not much to go wrong. Current setup has been on the car since 2006 or 7 and haven't even changed the jet (pill). I've cleaned the nozzles a time or two but they were never dirty, just PM. And it repeats ET's as if the slips were coming off of a copier. Others hate it but others also can predict it. The dial-in stays within a couple hundredths all season long; and actually the 5.8 is likely permanently shoe-polished to the window and I usually only change the hundredth either way one or two numbers depending on the weather and time of year. Love it, just don't get to go as often as I'd like to.

This mechanical FI is a constant flow type, meaning that if the engine's running, there's fuel flowing through the injectors (nozzles)-and it's "metered" by the barrel valve at low speeds. Real simple. One "jet" (pill) changes the mixture and if I need a big change, change the nozzles to bigger or smaller. The pill...it's backwards. Smaller pill=richer mixture. Larger pill=leaner. That's what gets folks in trouble in the tuning phase sometimes. Over-thinking it. It can be used with turbos and blowers too, in any differnet kind of throttle valve configurations from a 4 barrel spider manifold bolt-on to an individual port aka "stack" injection. There's a VW guy out here that runs an 8 second beetle (type II variant..all aftermarket) with mechanical alky injection, throttle body is mounted almost upside down, but it works great. Streetable too depending on how much you can put up with...but on an 8 sec turbo 4 cylinder beetle, "streetable" is subjective no matter if it's EFI, carb, MFI, diesel, whatever.

Even at work, we're seeing fewer and fewer carburetors and more EFI. I bought a new outboard for my little boat the other day and it's EFI. Didn't know if I was going to like it over the carburetor model that it replaces but it runs completely different...accelerates a little better, higher top speed, idles better, uses less fuel, simple to operate, etc. The only downside is the cost to repair vs a carb cleaning.
 
#19 ·
Where the heck did you find an old school mechanical fi setup? Those were all the rage in the glory days. It wasn't the best street setup but ruled at the track. I just Googled and couldn't believe that those systems are still manufactured. Hillborn to boot! You run this setup on your 2.3?

The pic below is from my buddy's hot rod shop. That's a real Ford Phaeton with a 289. A local guy manufactures and sells that stack injection setup. It's run by a Fast EFI computer. This car was featured in a Hot Rod magazine photo shoot in the 60's. It was yellow back then.
 

Attachments

#26 ·
I looked for you at the Pavillions about a 3-4 weeks ago. What rpm's are you hitting through the traps?
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top