Firstly, I know nothing about carburetors. The carburetor in my Dodge V8 360 motor has some issues. It's dying at idle. It's probably something pretty simple, and I'd like to go down this road with you good folks if you'll have me. And I'd like to photograph and document the journey there. I don't want to do guesswork and waste time and money. So I'll try and tell you as much about it as possible.

Cold starting the engine, first thing in the morning, it fires up mighty fine. The choke plate is nice and closed, the yellow fast idle cam stair steps and the screw is on the highest step, and the engine gives good vacuum at about 18 in. Hg.

But when the engine warms up, like a slovenly beast waking from it's sleep, it demands it's debts to be paid. Angry and unforgiving, vicious and callous, the monster asks for its demands before he performs his duties. Warmed up, the choke plate slowly opens up, letting in more air, bringing the idle and the vacuum down significantly. Hitting the gas pedal releases that screw from it's high yellow steps, falling straight to the bottom like a violent accident, and the car dies and shuts off. It's sister, the second screw next to it, does little, though both of them be turned all the way in. It cannot hold the throttle enough, and the overwhelming power and hunger of the engine forces it quietly into silence.

Their twin brothers in the back, also screws, perform a mysterious job involving a secret ratio of air and fuel, hidden in the secret attics of combustion chambers and sacred mathematics.

I have sought to unravel it's secrets and it's mysteries. Hidden within hallways and chambers, airways and fuel ports, buried deep down inside may be something so beautifully simple and yet so crucial. Secrets of the carburetor men have unraveled and conquered. And shall our sons be any different, and forget this lost and forbidden art?

 

Begin with a forum that deals with thermoquads or Carter's .