Toyota Carb'd Engines Upgrades?

[jimjimthehumanbin]

I have an 80's toyota. It's starts first time and I love how simple it is. My main question is how to get the best efficiency from a carb'd engine - this one is a twin barrel single carb.

The car cruises at motorway speeds easy and overtakes very well but I notice the power drop off when going up an incline. Hence looking at how to get the engine to perform a bit better,

I'm going to tune the carb but wondered about how to make it breath better. Hot rods have these circular edelbrock air filter houses that look very nice and I'm sure get more air to the engine - but this would mean pulling in hot air rising from the engine?

I like the look of them and fitting one would clean up the engine bay.

The other option is adapting the current air filter housing by having a duct running direct from a lower area. The only other carb'd car I have personally owned and tinkered with is a mercedes 190e which had a nice big air box running to the carbs and I thought of constructing something similar.

I guess the other alternatives I have seen are upgrading to bike carbs etc... but not sure about that. I think power ouput, and sound output, increases but mpg drops.

Any tips on carb maintenance etc... is welcome.

[obars]

I put one of those Holley Webber 2 Barrels that are available on eBay on my 1979 Corolla TE51 SR5, and that is the best carburetor I have ever had! It worked right out of the box, only needed small idle mix adjustment. Get 25-30MPG. They are great upgrades from the OEM carbs. I used to rebuild the OEM carbs in the 1970's, and they are good carbs, but have way too many extras on them.

[fastbob72]

Wow I cut my teeth on carbs particularly webbers and Fords.

What model do you have and engine size etc. There's allsorts you can do with carbs to improves performance. Am unsure. what engine you have or what carb whether it's a twin choke where the primary venturi is the main part that opens first and either by the way the butterflies are linked or on later carbs vaccum activated the secondary barrel begins to open as well with them reaching wide open together. These are great for fuel consumption as for much of the time it acts ljke a single barrel with the second starting to open at maybe half throttle to allow improved breathing when you need it.

You also get carbs with two barrels that open and close. together like two carbs in one body.

If you're after improving the power delivery you can fit bigger main jets or accelerator pumps to give you more fuel when the throttle is pressed hard etc.

You can change a twin choke carb for a twin carb so it's better across the rev range or fit performance carbs.

There's nothing like a pair of twin 40 DCOE webers or 45s on a 2 litre engine and they were so popular and still are for. older motors that theres bound to be a manifold that will allow you to fit them but they improve the air/fuel delivery significantly so bolting them on a near stock motor would be hard to make useable at lower, real world rev range.

As for air cleaner mods there is more capacity to draw in hot air but often warm air is part of the cold start running. along. with a choke but those pancake style filters like for instance a K'N that has the filter around the outside do flow a surprising amount, more than you'd think and carb'd motors are far less susceptible to the issues around breathing hot air than fuel injected motors. In fact the air being too cold and freezing the fuel in the carb is a genuine problem in a cold winter.

I love carbs and miss them for their finickiness setting them up in a modified motor but mostly for their cruder metering of fuel that can give you big globs of power in lumps at times. They are simple in principle with the metering by negative pressure through the venturi drawing fuel through different channels in the body.

What kind of carbs does it have, Mikunis??