Flooding carb idea...FYI

[Aaron65]

Hey all,

I've had a heat soak problem with my '53 Special ever since I bought it. I've tried everything...lowering the float, closing the heat riser, rejetting, messing with timing...always a soggy hot start with black smoke. I think (knock on wood) I may have helped it. I made a carb spacer out of a 1/4 inch cutting board I bought at Walmart. I holesawed it out, sanded some of the grain out of it and slapped it on with 2 gaskets. In addition to a new hot starting technique of just touching the throttle once, letting go, and then just touching it again...it seemed to make a big difference. Hope this helps someone out there, even if my carb spacer is a little backwoods!

Aaron

[Guest ZondaC12]

yup you made a phenolic spacer!!!

i just know that term because of another forum i go to <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> its for 80s cougars and tbirds, and theyre all into hopping em up and its popular to get a "phenolic spacer" to lengthen the intake runners for more torque, but also for less heat transfer to the intake. apparently theyre often made of wood or particle board! so NO yours actually isnt that backwoods!

but even if it was, whatever works! congrats!!

[NTX5467]

By observation, many of the carb kits have a thin carb base gasket in them rather than the thicker insulator gasket that might have been OEM with the vehicle.

One of the racing engine parts vendors sells a carb spacer/insulator that is made of laminated wood, with a clear finish on it so you can see the wood itself. Wood is supposed to be an excellent heat insulator, but as mentioned, that extra thickness can affect the plenum volume in the intake manifold (effectively) for better performance. Phenolic can do pretty much the same thing.

Enjoy!

NTX5467

[Aaron65]

Hey NTX, I have a bunch of those gaskets sitting around, and the factory insulator gaskets were pretty thin (if they were indeed factory style). They were thicker than a usual base gasket though. Paul, I had an '87 T-Bird back in college that my Dad gave me to use. I still kind of like those cars when I see one (which is getting rarer and rarer--they seem to have all rusted away). It had the 302 and was a fun car...kind of miss it!

[Dave@Moon]

I had a similar, but much more serious problem with my '60 which I was only able to fix after abandoning the factory fuel pump for an electric one. It's detailed briefly in the spark plug cleaner thread.

I even trying to make a heat sink out of alternating thick gaskets and aluminum plates to insulate the carb, but to no avail.

There's an old thread from 2001 on this called Boiling fuel in 1960 Buick Stromberg 2 brl on the AACA side as well.

[Aaron65]

Hey Dave...did you try switching to a Rochester? Mine's a Stromberg too...maybe they are just not good with modern gas. My other old cars don't have nearly the problem this one does. When it's hotter than 80 or so, it would drip out the throttle shafts when shut off...not too much, but enough. We'll have to see with my new spacer...

[Dave@Moon]

If you read the second thread I posted you'll see that Rick Shick told me that most of these were swapped out in the later cars. (Buick stopped using Strombergs altogether in 1961.) I learned this only after switching over to the electric fuel pump and ending the problem that way.

I've considered the swap, but the car runs well and gets great mileage (17 mpg hwy) for a stock 1960. If you're interested, try posting the question on that thread. (It'll come right back to the top and be read largely by people who never saw it before.) You'll get a lot of feedback that way! <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

[Guest Straight eight]

You describe the cold starting technique. If engine is hot, the gas pedal is to be depressed to the floor <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />and held until engine starts. This is per the owners manual.

[Aaron65]

Straight eight...I know! That's what's weird about it. If I hold it to the floor, it doesn't start nearly as well hot as the procedure I described...but that's just my car...every one has a personality!