[speeder]

I was just thinking about carbs last night, specifically the twin down draft Zeniths on an old Mercedes M130 6-cylinder that I used to own and may get back. It has now been sitting quite a while and I dread starting over on them because I finally had them running great after a lot of tsuris the last time. When I bought the car maybe 6 or 7 years ago, it had been sitting for years in a driveway in the valley and I had to resurrect it. Now I have to do it again, if I take it on.

They're actually really good two barrel carbs but finding the right kit for them was a challenge before the pandemic and in the last year, the drying up of available parts for older European cars has really accelerated. They have leather diaphragms for the accelerator pumps, one was bad and I had to source one from the junkyard. They actually work really well when everything is right. Which dovetails into Holley carburetors and just about every other carb on earth...when all is right, they work great. I'll take a good set of carbs over old Mercedes EFI or Bosch CIS when crucial parts are NLA like they are now. A shop I know in MN. just paid $2k for a NOS Mercedes warm up regulator for EFI, (everything up to 1975 on most MB engines), and it's 50 year old plastic even if it's been on some shelf this whole time.

Sooooo, I'm no expert on Holley or Rochester carbs but the two things I know is that when you start getting creative and changing parts on any engine, everything needs to match up or you can have a 396 with an 850 CFM double-pumper that is slower than pig slop. I saw it back in the '70s all the time...guys who were not good "chefs" getting their clocks cleaned by someone with a bone stock 340 Dart automatic in someone's mom's car. The other thing I know is that carbs are a metering device and if there is a leak ANYWHERE, whether liquid or air, you can never get them to hold a tune. Shaft bushings are a common culprit on any old carburetor.