I recently purchased a '52 Vickie with the stock flathead V8. The car only gets 11 mpg on the highway at 65 mph. It has a 2 speed Fordomatic trans and 3.00 rear gears. The guy I bought it from told me that the carb has already been rebuilt several times and I should buy a new one. Will that increase my mileage to at least 15 mpg? Which company do you guys like better-Dennis Carpenter or Mac's? A new one from DC is $275 and one from Mac's is $331 plus shipping. Or is there another place to get one? Do any of you guys have a rebuilt one for sale? Any other suggestions? Thanks....
why not start with a good tune up and see where that gets you? 3.00 rear gears should get you 15mpg if everything is in tune. How does it run other than the ****py gas mileage?
The engine runs pretty good. It only has 5K miles on a complete rebuild and the trans was rebuilt too. Would disconnecting the electric fuel pump make a difference? When I was listening to the radio the other day with the engine off I could hear it kicking on and off every couple of minutes. Does it do that when I'm driving too? I hope not but how can I find out for sure? Can I byp*** it and see what happens?
you should check what pressure that electric pump is putting out . Your Flathead carb won't want anymore than 4 psi . If the electric pump is putting out more it will be forcing it to use more .
If you have a rear electric pump pushing fuel to a manual pump this is usually for two reasons,sometimes the carb bowl drys out when sitting and the electric pump works as a primer.The other reason is early Fords had a tendency to vapor lock and the electric pusher was used for that as well.You might want to run the electric pump through a switch so once the engine is started and running you can shut it off,hopefully the pump was wired up properly through a relay and not off the ignition accessory switch.
Like Jeff says, wire the pump through a relay. Then, check the power valve in the carb. If it has the wrong gasket, or is blown it will dump fuel. Then set the float level on the low side of the spec. Today's fuel tends to boil just after the engine is shut off, when the engine actually gets hotter. If your car has a three blade fan, change it to a four blade fan of similar diameter.
check your sparkplugs see what color they are, if they are black it is more than likely running too rich
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