Ok, switchy to carbs

On my GTI 8v Now which is easier to tune. I have been around these carbs my whole life, so I know a little bit about tuning but I figured you guys know a lot more than me......in a sense. I was just wondering what you guys think that are running them. I will be using a crossflow head. I was thinking maybe 45 DCOE or 40 IDF.

Weber? Mikuni? Dell'Orto?

IDF's 44's? 40's? DCOE's? IDA's

Thanks for the help.

NO REAL EXPERIENCE HERE. But when i was looking into running DCOEs on my corolla, weber was the way to go. Easier to find parts for because they are still manufactured. And ive seen on a friends car that Dellorto's seem to be more finicky than webers.

Haven't thought about it for any of my VWs, but I had Webers on a couple of my old BMW 2002s (a 2bbl 38/38 downdraft on a standard M10, and two 2bbl DCOE sidedrafts on an E12 head). If I ever have to abandon fuel injection for carburation, I'll stick with Weber.

I'll second cxhb's comment. That company hasn't survived for 70yrs by standing still...

If you're going to the expense of Webers, I'd look into throttle bodies + MS or similar. The latter gives you far better control, even though the Webers are pretty good for a carb.

If you insist or are stuck with carbs, I'd check if any of the local rolling road/tuning shops still deals with Webers - you really, really don't want to buy an assortment of jets and chokes in various sizes to be able to get to the optimum setup.

I would think a carb conversion would cost around $2k, for that much you could just swap a whole ABA 2.0 into it, and probably have enough for a used supercharger and end up with a better result for the money. I think webers are cool, but I dont think I would put them on something newer than 60s or 70s.

With modern motorcycle throttle bodies being cheap and easy to work with and readily available fuel injection options (megasquirt) you'd have to be a hard core carb guy (or afraid-of-forward-progress guy) to go with a pile of carbs instead. Just my $.02, if you haven't messed with megasquirt it's worth looking into.

Bryce

M/C throttle bodies are very popular over here for this sort of conversion. There's even a company here that specialises in fabricating the necessary inlet manifolds so you don't have to play with the spacing (which is a bit problematic otherwise).

my vote is for a set of DCOE throttle bodies...

A set of bike TBs sound pretty interesting as well.

fiat22turbo wrote: my vote is for a set of DCOE throttle bodies... A set of bike TBs sound pretty interesting as well.

Warning thread de-rail.

fiat22turbo, more details on your 924 please. I've looked through the readers ride's pictures and it looks great. I neeeeeeeed more specs, what have you done to the engine, what power and weight are you aiming for and what are you going to use to for once done?

thanks

Adrian

NickF40 wrote: On my GTI 8v Now which is easier to tune. I have been around these carbs my whole life, so I know a little bit about tuning but I figured you guys know a lot more than me......in a sense. I was just wondering what you guys think that are running them. I will be using a crossflow head. I was thinking maybe 45 DCOE or 40 IDF. Weber? Mikuni? Dell'Orto? IDF's 44's? 40's? DCOE's? IDA's Thanks for the help.

If you have your heart set on carbs vs. EFI, you are better off using the ones your local shop has a lot of jets for. To tune it well requires a lot of inventory.

That does go for which carb version, although I suppose that many carbs use similar jets.

But unless you are willing to buy a box full of jets, emulsion tubes, etc- your local shop will be key to your finishing the tuning well.

Or, MS, and have all the "jets" at the will of a keyboard.

Eric

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

fiat22turbo wrote: my vote is for a set of DCOE throttle bodies... A set of bike TBs sound pretty interesting as well.

Warning thread de-rail. fiat22turbo, more details on your 924 please. I've looked through the readers ride's pictures and it looks great. I neeeeeeeed more specs, what have you done to the engine, what power and weight are you aiming for and what are you going to use to for once done? thanks Adrian

Adrian,

The 924 is basically stock at this point (wiggles hand a little). I have a slightly ported head and a more bumpy cam. I did pick up an automatic adjusting cam gear that uses centrifugal force on a set of weights to alter cam timing slightly allowing for a wider power range (think steam punk VTEC, yo!) Think closer to a centrifugal distributor.

Of course there is the MSDS header, MegaSquirt and EDIS to go along with the relative lightweight of the car. The fiberglass bodywork and lack of interior helps but it is probably still at 2400lbs, I'll either borrow or build a set of scales as I'm curious myself, plus the corner weights need to be adjusted. Unfortunately they aren't the quickest sports cars around as most get killed off the line by stock Honda's.

The big piece is that I want to build a plenum for the TB's and hook a turbo to the end of the header to take advantage of the relatively low compression of the motor and the general strength of the bottom end (diesel motor essentially)

As for plans, since I didn't get it finished for the $2009 West Coast, I'll drive it work (provided I have a job), autocross it and do some track days with it. I want to add a roll-bar eventually if not a full cage. Without the TB's I could probably get it under $2010, so who knows. Pop and I were thinking of putting it together for the local SPU class and do some racing, we'll see how my first race goes with the ChumpCar on Halloween.

or if you really insist on carbs, maybe check out bike carbs... similar to what PRI has been doing with Spitfires for a few years now.

www.prirace.com

Bear in mind, his costs include the years of development time in selecting jets and tuning and adapting and whatnot. If you can do that on your own (and for a VW, you'd have to), I understand the raw parts costs are substantially less.

+1 on the motorcycle throttle bodies. They can be had very cheap in a number of sizes.

In reply to Ian F: Maybe, maybe not. Some folks on Spitfire boards have complained about 'no support' getting their purchased PRI carbs jetted correctly. I have no personal experience, just passing on the comments of others.

Wow, hey thanks! That engine is sweet!

I was thinking ITB's in the beginning but wasn't sure, ITB and turbo and Megasquirt would be insane. Twin charge?

ITB and supercharge would be SICK I think that is what i'll do, get the sick sound of induction siren.

I always loved Webers and such with growing up going to hillclimbs and vintage races and these just look and sound so cool on these engines and I saw a couple that ran good and looked even better but I was just going to get a MKIII 2.0 head and run a set of 40 DCOEs.

My only experience with Carbs is the Atkins Diet.

I'd say that if you want to set your engine up so that it is giving itself the wrong ammount of fuel at 99% of the time, then get a carb.

Y'know, I think Travis_K is right. For the amount of money it would take you to convert and tune a set of Webers, you could go Megasquirt with all kinds of intake options.

Aside to fiat22turbo: Dude, that thing is beautiful!

Thanks. Now to actually here it run, instead of making engine noises (complete with induction roar) in my head whenever I walk by it ;)

BTW, I bought those TWM units for about $600 years ago when eBay was worth something. The intake was $75 I think and of course MegaSquirt 1 is pretty cheap Thanks John Brown!). The injectors, regulator and sensors are recycled off one of Turbo-Dodges I parted out.

So it wasn't too expensive since they aren't all worn out like so many Webers can be. They flow slightly better and they don't care about mounting angle, etc.

ignorant wrote: I'd say that if you want to set your engine up so that it is giving itself the wrong ammount of fuel at 99% of the time, then get a carb.

holy E36 M3, i agree with something ignorant just said.