Reply to "Weber IDF's and Panteras"

Cory, love the write up on the Webers and the manifold. Wish you lived closer....I'd love to do the IDF also. That maifold is very nice. Whats the costs? The VW crowd uses the 48IDA's a lot. I have a few friends that have a VW Bug and Carmen Ghia that do 12.20'S and 11.25 in the quarter both using two IDA on 2300cc motors. They've figured out how to make them work.

I'm trying to visualize the routing for the throttle cable to IDA's or IDF's on a Pantera. I had a set of 48 IDA's on a small block chevy that was a right hand drive mid engine CanAm car. The linkage is definitely the the #1 or #2 issue. You can get the IDA's to work on a V8, and they can be made to transition from the low to high circuit pretty well even without the additional transition hole. I will say that I have had no experience with the IDF's but would think that that would be a better way to go based on some of my experience with IDA's..

The linkage on my car came back from the driver (right hand drive) along the right side of the drivers seat, then once past the firewall started to to make a gradual up turn to the outside of the car, then back toward the center of the car and then connected in middle of the front and back IDA on the right side. It was attached with a tripod like mount that connected at the top and bottom of the two IDA's...the cable angle worked well and because of it's location didn't take any fancy bell cranks or other mechanisms....the arms on the IDA's throttle shafts were all the same length and the way the linkage was set up pulled identically on all four carbs. Even with that the linkage was finicky...it tended to need a frequent adjustment to keep all the carbs in sync at idle...once they were there it ran great, but seemed to get out of adjustment often, possibly because there was a decent sized spring to keep eight throttle butterfly's closed and could have been too strong therefore pulling too hard on the linkage which could pull it out of adjustment. It was a stiff pedal, but there is no way around that. I remember distinctly saying to myself I'd love to have a nice four barrel carb to eliminate the constant adjustments. Not sure if there is a way to stop an individual runner carb like this from the need for constant adjustment. By nature with four separate mechanism working on two cylinders each, they all must be spot on to work well at idle and just off idle. Visualize four two cylinder engines working together with the same crankshaft, but separately when they are out of adjustment. Possibly the Pantara throttle cable is a light enough cable that you don't need to have such a strong spring to close the throttles. Mine was a solid cable that was about 3/8" diameter on the outside and required a fair bit of oomph when bent to make it actuate. I've seen these cables used a lot in marine usage for engines and transmissions. A heavy pedal is also not the best thing for gentle throttle modulation in a road car during cornering.