They are more difficult to get the idle fuel level correct.
It would seem that Holley located the bowl sight plugs with the presumption that the carb would be close to level at idle.
If you look at the carbs with side mounted floats the primary and secondary sight plug holes are at different levels.
The correct fuel level at idle is that the fuel should be right at the bottom of the hole at idle.
If the carb is not level at idle then it will make the front bowl fuel level incorrectly low at idle and the secondary too high.
I have this problem on my GT350 with 2x4 Holleys. The carbs in that case are not the original application and are mounted backwards which is normal for the Ford 2x4 linkage.
This basically makes adjusting the fuel levels a little bit of guesswork.
The original 2x4v BB carbs have different fuel bowls with relocated sight plugs.
They are about as rare as hens teeth these days and twice as expensive as a Saudi oil well.
Incidentally, if anyone cares, the Ford Motorsport 341, Torker style intake has the carb pad cut on an angle.
This is in contrast to the tall spyder manifolds that are cut "correct" for a Pantera.
I had my tall spyder milled on an angle .375" to .000 to fit it under the roof.
It caused no problems that way with the Holley 4779.
I have since put the Webers back on the car and sold the "old" set up. That guy didn't like the height on his Pantera either and had it for sale again last year.
The problem with that intake is the height. It is high like a tunnelram.
It would seem that Holley located the bowl sight plugs with the presumption that the carb would be close to level at idle.
If you look at the carbs with side mounted floats the primary and secondary sight plug holes are at different levels.
The correct fuel level at idle is that the fuel should be right at the bottom of the hole at idle.
If the carb is not level at idle then it will make the front bowl fuel level incorrectly low at idle and the secondary too high.
I have this problem on my GT350 with 2x4 Holleys. The carbs in that case are not the original application and are mounted backwards which is normal for the Ford 2x4 linkage.
This basically makes adjusting the fuel levels a little bit of guesswork.
The original 2x4v BB carbs have different fuel bowls with relocated sight plugs.
They are about as rare as hens teeth these days and twice as expensive as a Saudi oil well.
Incidentally, if anyone cares, the Ford Motorsport 341, Torker style intake has the carb pad cut on an angle.
This is in contrast to the tall spyder manifolds that are cut "correct" for a Pantera.
I had my tall spyder milled on an angle .375" to .000 to fit it under the roof.
It caused no problems that way with the Holley 4779.
I have since put the Webers back on the car and sold the "old" set up. That guy didn't like the height on his Pantera either and had it for sale again last year.
The problem with that intake is the height. It is high like a tunnelram.
PanteraDoug, I am having the same problem with my buddies 427 Fairlane. I believe they are Holley 600's and I rebuilt them last year and finally got them dialed in. They were bad for fouling the plugs every couple of months and he had a stall problem under hard braking. Now the car runs the best it has ever run, but the engine still wants to stall and after adjusting the float levels several times I cannot seem to eliminate it. In my opinion the carbs being mounted backwards is allowing the fuel to slosh towards the metering plate when braking and then allowing the float to drop enough to let more fuel into the bowl and causing an enrichment flooding the car. When the stall occurs you have to throttle it a bit to clear, I would expect to see black smoke from the exhaust, but I don't thinking it may be a lean problem instead. So I need to concentrate on tweeking the primary float adjustments on both or just one of the carbs causing the problem. These Holley's are so sensitive to over adjusting it can take you from good to bad very quickly. Just my thoughts, Derrick
I can't quite get mine right either Derrick.
Because I've been struggling back and forth with other issues on the car, and trying to work on the Pantera,I haven't got it anywhere near where I would proclaim the carbs right.
Re-continuation Holley carbs for that application are available. I haven't had the cash for them but it is possible that they would help the problem.
The other possibilaty is to put the primaries to the front. Put the primary carb in the back?
I can't find anyone who knows exactly what to do with the dam setup. Everyone says well it should be this and it should be that but no one knows exactly what the problem is.
I don't trust the car going up on a very steep grade either. Maybe the volume of fuel in the bowls is insufficient?
Because I've been struggling back and forth with other issues on the car, and trying to work on the Pantera,I haven't got it anywhere near where I would proclaim the carbs right.
Re-continuation Holley carbs for that application are available. I haven't had the cash for them but it is possible that they would help the problem.
The other possibilaty is to put the primaries to the front. Put the primary carb in the back?
I can't find anyone who knows exactly what to do with the dam setup. Everyone says well it should be this and it should be that but no one knows exactly what the problem is.
I don't trust the car going up on a very steep grade either. Maybe the volume of fuel in the bowls is insufficient?
PanterDoug,
How do you like the Webers on the Cleveland? I have heard from only one Cleveland owner about their Weber experience. I would really like to have Webers on my car...any issues due to the large ports and the lack of a strong pulse?...Steve Wilkinson told me that that was the biggest issue when they are installed on a Cleveland. My car is a late December 72L build with low compression (I think) and I have thought about swapping to the Edelbrock head...Wilkinson said that would be a much better combination for the Webers?
How do you like the Webers on the Cleveland? I have heard from only one Cleveland owner about their Weber experience. I would really like to have Webers on my car...any issues due to the large ports and the lack of a strong pulse?...Steve Wilkinson told me that that was the biggest issue when they are installed on a Cleveland. My car is a late December 72L build with low compression (I think) and I have thought about swapping to the Edelbrock head...Wilkinson said that would be a much better combination for the Webers?
Hum? Quite a question that is.
OK, background.
I have run them on two Clevelands. The first was a solid lifter (.500 lift, 297 advertised-probably 248 @.050 in todays terms), 11.8:1.
Iron 4v pig ports.
For the driving I did, I liked them. One of my Chevy friends begged me to let him drive it up the street which I relented to to stop the whining.
He comes back and says there is something wrong with this car. It has no bottom end. Well, he was actually correct. The wonderfull quality of the Accell distributor had stretched the advance springs and it had no advance.
But, the other thing was that this guy had never driven a Cleveland before. So how do I explain the idiosyncrosies (spelling is close enough, you get the idea) of them to him.
It also had the 42mm chokes in the carbs at the time.
The second engine is my current one. It has Ford Motorsport A3 heads, flat top pistons and a solid lifter cam. Same one as above actually.
It has 40mm chokes in it.
The nature of this engine is a little different. It has 180 degree heads, 2" tubes.
It has bottom end. It would make my Chevy friend envious.
Recommendations:
1) do not run Webers on a stock hydraulic ammed, big port, low compression engine.
2) do not run Webers if you want a no maintenence turn key car
3)run Webers if you want a no nonsense kick ass ultimate naturally asperated engine
4)do not run Webers unless you can do all the work yourself
5)do not do Webers unless you can throw $100 bills at the car like you are ditching your cigarette butts.
Conclusion:
Do I like them?
Yes. the performance aspect of them. They are not a joke, they work.
There is no waiting for the secondaries to open and kick in. The carbs are right there, right at your foot.
No. They have two thing that irk me. When they are really running right. The exhaust system sweats. It sweats like it was in the deepfreeze and you are thawing it out with a blow torch.
Presuming that was the extent of the problem, maybe I could put up with it. No. The water, condinsation, whatever it is, mixes with the nice black exhaut soot inside the pipes and is not happy to releieve itself through the tail pipe opening like a current cat equipped car would do.
Instead it needs to relieve itself through every gasket in the exhaust system. It's a black gook that splashes all over everythin in the engine compartment.
The intake manifold, the inside of the decklid, everything.
Now the first time this everhappened I thought I blew the engine. No, not at all. When the engineisoff and cool and you go to wipe it up, it is not oily at all.
It is washable with windex and a paper towel.
So what's the big deal? You have to wash the engine everytime you want to use it.
When I get my NY 95 degree, 95% humidity weather, park the car. It's a dog to drive and the exhaust fumes linger.
SoCAl may be a different animal though. I don't know.
Future plans.
Go to TWM EFI throttle bodies on my Weber manifold. Halteck E6X CPU.
If that don't work, the Holley 750dp is still here on the shelf with the 341A intake.
I'm sure that the IR EFI will work great. I pray that the exhaust sweating issue is a Weber only deal. If it doesn't work maybe I'll take up golf?
OK, background.
I have run them on two Clevelands. The first was a solid lifter (.500 lift, 297 advertised-probably 248 @.050 in todays terms), 11.8:1.
Iron 4v pig ports.
For the driving I did, I liked them. One of my Chevy friends begged me to let him drive it up the street which I relented to to stop the whining.
He comes back and says there is something wrong with this car. It has no bottom end. Well, he was actually correct. The wonderfull quality of the Accell distributor had stretched the advance springs and it had no advance.
But, the other thing was that this guy had never driven a Cleveland before. So how do I explain the idiosyncrosies (spelling is close enough, you get the idea) of them to him.
It also had the 42mm chokes in the carbs at the time.
The second engine is my current one. It has Ford Motorsport A3 heads, flat top pistons and a solid lifter cam. Same one as above actually.
It has 40mm chokes in it.
The nature of this engine is a little different. It has 180 degree heads, 2" tubes.
It has bottom end. It would make my Chevy friend envious.
Recommendations:
1) do not run Webers on a stock hydraulic ammed, big port, low compression engine.
2) do not run Webers if you want a no maintenence turn key car
3)run Webers if you want a no nonsense kick ass ultimate naturally asperated engine
4)do not run Webers unless you can do all the work yourself
5)do not do Webers unless you can throw $100 bills at the car like you are ditching your cigarette butts.
Conclusion:
Do I like them?
Yes. the performance aspect of them. They are not a joke, they work.
There is no waiting for the secondaries to open and kick in. The carbs are right there, right at your foot.
No. They have two thing that irk me. When they are really running right. The exhaust system sweats. It sweats like it was in the deepfreeze and you are thawing it out with a blow torch.
Presuming that was the extent of the problem, maybe I could put up with it. No. The water, condinsation, whatever it is, mixes with the nice black exhaut soot inside the pipes and is not happy to releieve itself through the tail pipe opening like a current cat equipped car would do.
Instead it needs to relieve itself through every gasket in the exhaust system. It's a black gook that splashes all over everythin in the engine compartment.
The intake manifold, the inside of the decklid, everything.
Now the first time this everhappened I thought I blew the engine. No, not at all. When the engineisoff and cool and you go to wipe it up, it is not oily at all.
It is washable with windex and a paper towel.
So what's the big deal? You have to wash the engine everytime you want to use it.
When I get my NY 95 degree, 95% humidity weather, park the car. It's a dog to drive and the exhaust fumes linger.
SoCAl may be a different animal though. I don't know.
Future plans.
Go to TWM EFI throttle bodies on my Weber manifold. Halteck E6X CPU.
If that don't work, the Holley 750dp is still here on the shelf with the 341A intake.
I'm sure that the IR EFI will work great. I pray that the exhaust sweating issue is a Weber only deal. If it doesn't work maybe I'll take up golf?