Somewhere not too long ago I had heard that some V8 engines with Carter
4BBL carburetors would tend to stall out when warm during a left turn, and only when making a left turn. Supposedly it had something to do with the higher volatility of the current gasoline we are using today vs. the gas available back in the 50's and 60's. My 56 Sky Hawk does this from time to time. It occurs only when making a left turn and only seems to happen when the engine is running at or above the 180 degree mark. The carb is professionally rebuilt and otherwise works perfectly. Is there truth to this, and what would be the fix?????
The '55 Pres Cp. I used to have had that poblem. After rebuilding the carb. and doing the suggested modification (I think it was a baffle and a longer tube) I still had the problem. The problem was finally fixed with an Edelbrock 600 (which is too much for a 259 but I was too chea--er-- frugal to pay for a 500). Good luck, Jerry
Well, I would prefer to stick with the Carter carb, not that I love Carter 4BBL's but it's the correct original carb for the engine (no, I'm not going to be entering it concourse competition--I've learned my lesson with the GT......). But I am trying to figure out what the heck it is about left turns that screws things up on higher volatility fuels. One the one hand an electric fuel pump would increase pressure, and on the other hand an Edelbrock carb would be of different internal design, thereby completely sidestepping the basic condition causing the problem! What is going on internally inside the carb during a left hand turn that would cause the fuel mixture to suddenly rich-up?
As John said, verify the float level is correct. It's even ok to run it 1/32 or so low. No harm. Fuel pressure can also be the culprit. It needs to be 4 to 5 psi to be sure all is well. That's plenty of pressure for about anything but racing.
Hi fuel volatility.....? Fuel volatility has ZERO to do with fuel sloshing up and into the ventury and down the manifold! Sorry boys, this one's an old wives tale.
One thing I did "way back" (35+ yrs ago)...was to epoxy baffles into the bowls to help calm things down a bit. That worked too.
I had good success with the fix using a brass tube.
If it was also dying on quick stops I believe the floats may be hanging up. They can be hard to adjust for sideways wall clearance sometimes.
If you were making the left turn way too quick and the car turned over on its side that will also cause the engine to die. That was a safety feature that Studebaker built into the cars and the piece of tubing won't help.
As I recall there was a WCFB problem with flooding on left turns - the float levels were too high and I think there was a kit offered to correct the problem. We had that problem on our '55 President 259 with the WCFB and it was solved with a kit and proper adjustment of the floats.
A search with Google or other good search engine should turn up some tech help on this problem.
Did you notice I used 'you're' as a contraction for 'you are' and not 'your' (as a lot of my good friends on here do) because that would mean that the hoot is yours or maybe that you have 'a hoot'. I have also been told by an english professor that either can be used for a short 'you are' but I'm not buying that.
Ernie, I see you have never had a '50's Stude with a 4bbl. You're probably a good mechanic, but don't say the flooding on left hand turns problem is not a problem of flooding because I assure that it IS a flooding problem. Jerry
Thank you Jerry!! How many people use "your" when they mean "you're"? More years ago than I care to recall I was speaking with a Grade 1 teacher at a parent-teacher night. She told me my daughter had "done good" on a class presentation. I begged to differ and pointed out her error. Her response? "Oh well, the more you use it the more acceptable it becomes..."
A few years later at another parent-teacher meeting, my wife and I had waited quite awhile to meet with the one of our other daughter's English teachers. When we finally got to sit down with him we identified ourselves as parents of that daughter. The ENGLISH TEACHER said "oh yeah, her and I had a run-in". I excused myself and asked him to repeat what he had just said. Imagine my surprise when he said the same damn thing! So I said "...and you're teaching English?!" The meeting was 'brief' shall I say?
One last one - my youngest son handed in an assignment at the beginning of his social studies class. At the end of the period as he passed the teacher's desk, the teacher stops him and says "Steve, you did good on that assignment!" Steve said "that would be 'well', not 'good' sir." The teacher paused, got up from his desk and said "I'm the teacher here, get out!" Sure did build a sense of respect for Steve.
I was called once by a research firm (Ipsos-Reid) and was asked if I found any fault with education system, what would that be? I answered "creeping mediocrity". It's insidious, pervasive and long-term dumbing down of the population. The media does that to you - they report the views of government, industry, media & environmentalists as facts and the general population believes it.
Damn Brooksie I didn't mean to insinuate I knew a lot (not 'alot') about proper english. It's just that 'your' and 'you're' and 'a lot' and 'alot' have always been my pet peeves. I'm just a poor ole dumb ass country boy from Aladamnbama that graduated from high school with 2 credits less than what was required. How did I do that, you ask. The principle was so tired of seeing me in his office everyday for some minor infraction (different one every day) that he awarded me with 2 credits for taking Physical Education for two years, that I never took, just to be rid of me. Jerry
Ahh, tilting at windmills is my usual preoccupation these days (sitting around waiting for a new knee and wishing it was warm enough to work on my R2).
See, if you hadn't taken PE when you were in high school you probably would not be needing that new knee. I'm 63 years young and will probably never need any new joints. I don't move often and/or fast enough to ever wear anything out. I do wish that I was smart enough to get in on some of this political shit some of these guys love to argue about, but all I can do is sit back and smile. Like some wise ole man once said "It's best to keep your mouth shut and be thought of as a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt". Jerry
From what I recall from a long time ago one cause of the problem was fuel rising up and sloshing out the vent tube. The solution was a piece of tubbing bent like a handle:
------o-o-o------ | |
connecting the two vents with holes drilled in the middle (the o's in the illustration).
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