By Tom (24.71.223.140) on Wednesday, January 16, 2002 - 02:20 pm:

I keep reading how great some guys think weber carbs are.
Are they really that great???
As I was wrecker shopping today I came across a 82 civic 4 door with a EM1 in it. This is one I have not heard of before but it has this nice looking Weber carb on it.
Will this fit on my EB3 or should I just stick with what I've got?

By Mike S (202.12.144.21) on Wednesday, January 16, 2002 - 11:10 pm:

There are Webers and there are Webers.

At one end of the spectrum are purpose built carbs that were made for baby Fiats etc which have fixed venturis and almost no scope for adjustment of jets. At the other end are out and out racing carburettor such as the DCOE side-draughts and IDF downdraughts (which were standard equipment on Ferraris, Maseratis etc) which are almost infinitely adjustable to tune them precisely to the engine they are installed upon though changing ventuirs, jets, emulsion tubes etc. They are also designed so that the centre of flotation of the float coincides with the geometric centre of the fuel bowl so that an effective constant fuel level is maintained irrespective of acceleration/braking and/or cornering.

In the middle are carbs like the DCD and DGAV downdraughts etc which provide a degree of tunability through some combination of replacable ventiris and/or jets, but without the ultimate power capability of the DCOE or IDF families.

The important thing is that a Weber has to be set up for the engine it is installed upon. You can have a 1200cc engine and a 2000cc engine using the same carb, however the venturis and jets would be completely different for each application.

A standard carb (in good condition) on a standard engine will give a fairly optimum result. Fitting a Weber to a standard engine will not make much (if any) difference to the power. However, once you start to modify the engine and allow it to flow more air (through extractors, increasing bore and/or stroke, more aggressive cam timing etc) then the parameters that the standard carb was design to meet will have changed, and a properly set up Weber will release more power.

The important thing is to make sure that a Weber is set up to suit the engine. If you are very paitent and have access to a supply of jets, emulsion tubes etc, it is possible to get reasonable results by tuning it "on the road" - making a change, then driving it for a while, checking plug colours etc before making another change and so on. There is, however no substitute for time spent on a rolling road dyno with an operator who knows what they are doing and a ready supply of jets, venturis etc to get it spot on.

Apologies for the long, rambling post, however there is so much BS around about "good" and "bad" carbs that I felt compelled to set the record straight.

By Zippy (Zippy) (64.12.103.29) on Thursday, January 17, 2002 - 08:21 am:

Apologies hell. Thanks for the time.

By Tom (207.35.16.162) on Thursday, January 17, 2002 - 09:20 am:

This is exactly what I needed to here. Excellent information.

By errol (152.163.197.83) on Thursday, January 17, 2002 - 09:25 am:

So go ahead and get it! I've picked them up from yards for as little as 15.00 with adapter!

By tedshred (63.224.195.169) on Thursday, January 17, 2002 - 11:44 am:

errol, you lucky dog!