[T3] The Notch and its Carbs...

["Park, Keith J (Research)" <parkkj@crd.ge.com>]

Well.. now Brian is listening if his ISP is fixed!

I FINALLY got a warm day and time to spend on the Notch So I took everyone's suggestions and tried a
few things and I think I have things set up as optimally as possible now.  First off... all the oil
leaks are finally taken car of with the final addition of Bolt on Valve covers... I decided to 'BALE'
out on the cheap aftermarket aluminum bale type!  The Bugpak header has a bad weld that is spitting
carbon all over the nice jet-hot coating  ( aftermarket stuff is just SO bad these days...) but a
little RTV and at least it isnt as visible now.
	 I had one side of the front end that had settled more than the other, so it was eather raise
one side or lower the other.. can everyone guess which I DID??  now it doesnt pull left slightly.
	The Carbs, as much of an FI advocate as I am I have still spent the time to learn them and
set them up properly.  Im confident that the main jetting is right now as the gas mileage is where it
should be and Im quite happy with how it runs over nearly the whole RPM curve once up to temperature.
I have the total timing advance at 35 degrees now and The only complaint I have once at temperature
is that the carbs dont pick up smoothly at low RPM's as the FI does, and the deceleration is more
jerkey... I think most people may just be used to this and you really dont want to be lugging your
aircooled engine anyway but in a slow creepy traffic situation I find it annoying.
	My main complaint, and what will probably be the leading factor to converting to FI is the
warmup curve... there are just physical limitations to what you can do with these chokes.  First off,
yes, i NEED chokes... even in the summer time... if your starting and idling perfectly without them
then your overcarburtated.  To me anyway, having to restart my car 6 or 7 times and keep my foot on
the gas for 3 minutes is unacceptable.  Maybe Im too fanatical about getting 10 years out of a
battery or NEVER replacing a starter motor but the FI keeps me happy in these regards.  I have
drilled a half inch hole in the choke plates  to compensate for the poor performance of the choke
pull offs and this helped greatly but it still starts too rich and stalls.  My other issue is that as
soon as you touch the throttle to keep it from stalling you knock off your high idle and it just wont
stay running after that, the stock solex's (at least through 1965)  will only set a high idle if the
throttle plate is completely closed... as soon as it starts to warm and open, or as soon as the
vacuum pull off opens it a little you lose the high idle or the ability to reset it if you touch the
throttle at all.  I seem to remember this being less of a problem with the 67 I used to have.. can
anyone confirm if this issue was worked out with a different linkage design by 67??
	anywho... SOME of the blame for a difficult warmup curve can be blamed on the slightly lumpy
cam, although its still considered mild. But this is why I want to go to FI...  while the D jet is
too archaic to compensate automatically for too rich a mixture there are several ways you can
customize the warmup mixture curve and the FI will compensate for vacuum changes within reason.  I
can have whatever high idle my little heart desires by adusting the auxillary air regulator and
whatever (within reason) mixture I want by adding or subtracting resistance with the Temp sensor with
resistors or thermistors.  the poor carbs can only have an adjustment of BOTH rate and amount of
choke at the same time... and this doent track well in my setup.

Anywho...enough said... I am still definately open for more ideas and suggestions with the carbs,
they will be on there for a while yet so Im willing to try any ideas that come up... Brian Fye and
others have been a GREAT help on getting me this far and it runs MUCH better than it did a year
ago... maybe he's still holding out on the golden idea that will give me the golden warmup curve??
At least my timing is correct now :)

Keith 

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