My Flathead has 3 '97's. I had them rebuilt, why I don't know by a local "expert". Now they starve at about 2700 RPM with Any air cleaner on. with no air cleaners, they pull great. I spoke to the shop and they say their just fine. So now I'm running just scoops and no filters, which I don't want to do. Any thoughts, no one around here can figure it out....
Starve? With air cleaner on I would think they would be a bit rich. Might have emulsion tube plugged, or floats set too low?
Perhaps you could help me, although I'm pretty good with Flatheads, I'm no expert on Strombergs. Emulsion Tube? adjust Floats. Any help much appreciated.....
Get better quality air filters, the paper element ones are **** and should be thrown in the garbage immediately. Get K&N filters with the same dimensions.
Doesnt work like that. Go back up to post number 8. Click on the red link in the post. Either start a conversation with him through the HAMB or go to his website. Dont wander around Lake Winnipesaukee yelling "Dr. Leo Marvin!"
These are emulsion tubes, they can be installed overly tight and those little round holes close up, esp the lowest hole. That hole adds a certain amount of air to mix with fuel, if the hole closes the fuel will be overly rich.
Uncle Max is the best. I tried K&N filters on mine but it still ran too rich. Now just running the air cleaners with no filters. Keeps out large sticks and rocks. Looking for some screens like they use with the frog mouth scoops or velocity stacks..
Be sure you are diagnosing correctly, too...starving may not be a correct interpretation of the poor performance. It really does sound like air cleaner disease if you have the little chrome ones especially. Most are pretty much chokes new, the few with decent filtering media remain too small (comparable to a lawnmower filter, really) and will clog up quickly due to limited area. Run the car a bit at the trouble speed and look at a plug...betcha you'll see soot.
I can get by running the air filter on my flathead, one 94 on it, motor is all stock. However, I have three 97's on a sbc, it cannot breath at all with one air filter per carb. It's a very mild 350, limited to 5500 rpm, but i have two K&N's on each carb that allows it to breath well enough. I did some dyno testing, still gets rich above 4500 with the air filters in place. Pulled hard to 5500 with them off and didnt get rich.
So what is folks choice on multiple carbs for air cleaners that have some style and filter well and flow well. Or is this too hard to combine the. "make three wishes"?
I haven't found a good filter for these carbs. K&N even. Been running nylon hose over the openings and changing regularly for many years.
What I did was convert an old Fenton four barrel air cleaner bottom to fit my strombergs. I then added a falcon air cleaner element and the louvered Fenton top. Thats what I drive around with, when we show my coupe I remove my Fenton hodge podge and slip on the frogmouths!