Featured Technical Intake icing…

What’d ya say

 

Haha. Things sure do get loud inside a garage with an uncorked flathead.

I have that same intake and I've been thinking and planning of a way to be able to run water to it without it looking, well, bad. My buddy picked up an old Piper Cub carb heat controls that we're going to try and fab up. I think with some polished copper tubing, it may look have decent.

 

I've seen some manifolds that have had icing problems from before they were sold...have coolant water wrapped around the carburetor flange, to help warm things up a little.
One had a reservoir as "part" of the manifold (below the carburetor), for warm water to circulate.

Mike

 

I’ll be keeping an eye out on this thread.
A good friend of mine just picked up this motor with all original speed parts from a local hot rodder in his eighties who decided it was time to let go of some treasures while he could see someone else use and enjoy them.
It’s going in this tub in place of the small block Chevy.

 

I thought the Elmers had something worked out on some of their cars but I’m old and may be dreaming…

 

Stupid spitballing
Convert a governor into a heated base

remove the butterflys and plug up the holes



There’s some electric applications for aircraft.

 

Alcohol injection may help
May want to take snort too

 

I can see it being a problem when the engine is cold but I’d of thought it would go away after it’s fully warmed up. Seems like the warm air blowing back from the radiator would be enough to keep it from frosting.

 

AvGas !!!!

 

windshield defroster, possibly, couple of wraps around each leg of the intake should do it, and nearly invisible from a few feet.

https://frostfighter.com/catalog.htm

 

Are there any sharp edges in the flow path through the manifold? If so open them up and round them off. Had that on a tractor once.

 

Wonder if an add on style motorcycle/generator carb heater could work

 

I used to drive a very rusty 6 cylinder Nova. The manifold heat passage was completely crudded up. Carb ice in wet weather. An old mechanic said, try a bottle of Heet. It worked!~ It's basically alcohol.

 

Not familiar with this partticular intake.

Over the decades, have seen, or customers have reported, icing intakes that iced simply because the carburetor(s) was/were calibrated too rich.

Not saying this is the issue here, but pretty easy to check.

Jon

 

The intake in question is pictured in my avatar. I'll try to get better pictures. It's a two piece design and has a provision to allow hot water from the cooling system to circulate (send and return) around the top carburetor base. When racing, there were block off plates so you could remove this heating from the system.

I guess the thought was that when running your gow job at Muroc or El Mirage, carb heat wasn't needed. If you ran on the street, there was a provision to add heat if you wanted.

Later on, they just added heat to their post-war version of their two piece intake seen in the pictures above.

 

Circulating hot water would certainly help!

Jon

 

I'm guessing my Eddie Meyer intake was different from the one you're trying to run...I never had an icing issue. It ran pretty strong, albeit on the rich side of the scale.

 

Had a friend with an inline motor that would ice the carbs pretty fast as well and ended up fixing it with a copper line from the exhaust to the carb spacer. Basically a heat riser.

I’ve also seen it done externally running from a dry heat source through a copper line - think flexible fuel line not plumbing - and it coiled around the carb base a few times.

seems like you may have a manifold source of heat or or headers get hot enough that I’m curious if you’d even need exhaust gas heat in the tube or if simply butting up to it would produce enough heat.

just something to chew on that could be simple for an ugly mock up to see if it works and the devise a better looking solution

 

All just old memories. I grew up around private pilots in the Seattle area. Icing was a combination of temperature and humidity, but typically up there well under 93. I was told the ice formed in the Venturi. Even in light thin clouds I remember the pilot pulling the carb heat just in case. But those small air cooler engines were set up to duct air off the exhaust manifold for the incoming air. Had a loss of power, but better than no power at all. So maybe an aircraft guy would have an idea. I can’t imagine a way to duct hot air to the carb on a hot rod.

 

Terrible crop of a photo but you can see at the time the center carb was the only one being used. Copper line from the exhaust to a blind hole drilled and tapped into the carb adapter. You can see the blank spot on the other adapters where it was drilled. I believe the spot is there to threw drill for a vacuum source.

 

Yes. The center "leg" of your top is mated to the base which is open to provide heat from the two small center ports on the block. The Eddie Meyer that Ryan and I have does not have that. Look at the picture for my Avatar, you'll see what I mean.

 

Homemade intake on my straight eight. I had problems at part throttle until I installed water heat. Part throttle, high, numerically, vacuum allowed the gas to condense and puddle.

Ben

 

I remember from when I was involved in home-brew alcohol fuel circles that a lot of guys were rigging fuel-heating devices, be they exhaust-based, coolant-based, or electrical, in the fuel lines close to the carbs — because E96+ is less volatile than most fuels. I'm not sure how that would transfer to this situation.

 

It’s like a mad scientist trying to find a cure for VAPOR LOCK, but he went to far.....

 

Hot air is easy on a non crossflow inline - slant 6s do it with a casting on the exhaust, or tube headers have a sheet metal riser that brings hot air to the intake plenum. The 4bbl Solex carb on my Mercedes has a water jacket and is heated with engine coolant. On a flathead, I wonder if a guy could make a hollow carb riser & pump coolant through it from the sensor bungs by the water outlets on the heads to heat the carb base.

edit- quick google found some for Holley 4150s so I know I'm not crazy. Didn't see one for strombergs but maybe one is out there..

 

I had water heat to the intake on my six, still took a while to warm up. Then it would get too hot and boil the gas in the carb. I had an inline valve to shut it off but the heat from the headers kept it too hot all the time. Took it all off and it runs much better. After it warms up.
An open engine compartment might be different than my closed one, but I would still want a way to regulate the heat.

 

Hey Ryan, the problem you're having is an issue with those carbs up top and no way to heat them. The hot-water version would probably help, though you may need to regulate the water flow (maybe even with a thermostat of some sort?). I'm running the EM manifold with the heat riser in the middle - it works perfectly which is probably why EM switched to this approach. I happen to have a spare original EM with the center heater - if you're interested in going that route, might consider letting it go.