Carb wedge plates

[MOP]

how many guys are running a carb wedge plate, just kicking it around. Most everything I haved worked on has them but they do not seem to be on any of the engines I see the guys post. It has always made sense to me to have the carb run level.

MOP

[Ed Donnelly]

My Pantera has one and I was thinking of trying it on the Criterion. Float level is important on a holly and I don't think it will hurt to try...Ed

[MOP]

Niether of my Donzi's have it but I feel getting the carb at the right running angle is important. I have to look at one on my shelf to see if it will fit the preformer manifold.

Phil

[rayjay]

was looked at as something shocking, now anything goes..."

I hope my humor doesn't offend anybody, especially someone with Phil's or Ed's years of experience, but times and equipment change. You may not need a carb wedge.

Carb wedges are used when the carb sits at an angle that keeps the floats from working properly. Think back to the old inboards and early v-drive boats where the engines sat at a pretty significant angle from level. The engine in our old dual cockpit Chris sat at something like a 10 - 12 deg. angle plus the nature of the boat was to run pretty nose high even on plane. We had to use a carb wedge plate on the SBC we swapped into it in the '60's. In an I/O the engine usually sits relatively close to level. Also, new center mounted float carbs (like a holley 750) are much more tolerant of their mounting angle and most manifolds already have a slight angle on the carb mounting flange to compensate for the slight nose up angle most car engines are mounted in their chassis at. Carb wedges are still used today, or the manifold machined to accomplish the same thing, but are not required as often as they used to be.

rayjay

[Ed Donnelly]

The trailor is jacked up in the shop and the carb is still pointing down at 20 degrees or more. Will wait til it is in the lake and I will put a level on it......Ed

[MOP]

100% agree carbs have gotten much better, my thought is the running angle. One bowl being full and one being low, maybe it makes no never minds but is worth concidering.

Phil

[rayjay]

Ed and Phil, if it's a Holley or Holley style (BG, Demon, etc.) with center mounted floats and is mounted north/south (bowl in the front and bowl in the back) the carb can run a fair amount of degrees off level without major problem. If the carb is mounted east/west like on some 2 x 4 ram manifolds this could be a problem but unless they are off level by quite a bit this is probably not your carburetion problem. I'm a stickler for detail so I understand both of your desire to have the carb running as close to level as possible. I don't remember anymore the smallest wedge that was available, but it was something like 7 deg. and that was many years ago. If you are only talking about 1 to 5 deg. you could have the manifold machined or have one of the metal or phenolic spacers available machined to adjust this. Read some tests on these spacers as some engine / manifold / carb combinations respond positively to 1" to 2" spacers, and some do not. Phenolic or heat spacers are from 1/4" to 1". Usually anything from 1/4" to 1/2" won't materially affect anything. You can look for the wedges in any catalog or shop that deals in old inline (as opposed to V or I/O) inboards, especially for those that have been repowered with a modern engine.

In the late 60's we ran an L88 powered V-Drive in APBA, but we used a nose drive instead of a tail or rear drive set-up. Had to do with the way the prop spun for tight left hand turns which most of the courses in the northeast had. This set-up tipped the nose of the engine down enough to where we had to correct the angle of the carb but only to get the carburetion response absolutely perfect for coming out of the turns. We built up the front of the manifold slightly and then had it machined to tip the carb the other way for our application. We ran a two-piece 2 x 4 ram manifold for fooling around with the garvey guys and ended up just flipping the top plate of the manifold front to back to get the angle right.

Also Ed, isn't your boat fuel injected?

rayjay

[Ed Donnelly]

Had some issues with the fuel injection and pulled it. After pulling, it we found the problem. I am going to run the holly this year. Next year, who knows, fuel injection, supercharger, turbos???...Ed