Found: Weber carb kit for 1988-89 Festiva (?)

[TominMO]

Did a search on "weber" and didn't find anything useful. Did some research. I went to www.thepartsbin.com and found two carb base gaskets for carbed Festys, to see what they look like.

Then I went to www.webercarburetor.com (Pierce Manifolds) and looked at Ford kits. No luck. Looked at Mazda kits. Bingo! The kit for the 1981 FWD Mazda GLC looks like it would work. I think they must have used the same or similar carb on the GLC and Festy, because the base plates/gaskets look very similar, possibly even a direct match with no machining at all on the aluminum adapter plates. I think that at the very most, a little amount of work might be needed on the lower plate, that fits between the intake manifold and the plate that the Weber attaches to, but it should be very minor. It is kit #K673, with a Weber 32/32 carb.

My experience with Weber carbs is that on the three vehicles I have had them on, they gave more power and better gas mileage. And of course they are tunable for power, mileage, and altitude, unlike the stock carbs with whatever compromises the engineers decided on. And you greatly simplify the engine bay; a lot fewer hoses will be in there after the conversion.

[quaddawg]

I have a Holley/Weber 32/36 on my 89, the previous owner made up a two piece adapter. Could use some refinement, but it works pretty darned well, and the carb runs great... plenty of power for the B6, and enough capacity for some more performance mods..

[TominMO]

Thanks for the input and picture. I think that a good machinist could even make up a one-piece adapter, with just the Festiva and Weber gaskets as templates. Does the carb say Holley-Weber? I think it's just a Weber. The only Holley-Webers I am familiar with are one-barrels, found on some old Subarus. 32/36 means it's a two-barrel carb, of course.

Good stock carbed motor, probably worth 10 more HP:
Weber 32/32 carb
FMS street cam
full FMS exhaust system
40,000-volt coil, such as Jeg's part #555-40105 (red, $19) or 555-40100 (chrome, $20); www.jegs.com; 800-345-4545
10% larger plug gap for more complete fuel burning
upgraded plug wires
advance ignition to the point that you need premium or at least mid-grade gas
racing stripes or flames

[quaddawg]

No, it's a pretty common carb. It's Holley's take on a Weber 32/36, same bolt pattern, same design. It was stock on at least some Vegas back in the day. It was on other cars too. It's a great carb and cheaper than the "pure" Webers... I don't know if it is as good or not, but I like it.

Mine has the choke removed for better flow, and the car always starts with a couple of pumps of the gas pedal.. a few seconds of keeping it running, and your off, no choke needed... further simplification..


Here is what I have:

http://tinyurl.com/25e5uu

[TominMO]

No, it's a pretty common carb. It's Holley's take on a Weber 32/36, same bolt pattern, same design. It was stock on at least some Vegas back in the day. It was on other cars too. It's a great carb and cheaper than the "pure" Webers... I don't know if it is as good or not, but I like it.

Mine has the choke removed for better flow, and the car always starts with a couple of pumps of the gas pedal.. a few seconds of keeping it running, and your off, no choke needed... further simplification..

Excellent info. Probably made under license by Holley from Weber. Far cheaper than a Weber kit, true. Purchaser would still need to get manifold adapters, and whatever hardware was needed to attach the carb to the throttle cable. And figure out the proper jetting. All these parts would be available from Pierce Manifolds, though, and at quite a savings over the Pierce kit.

Would you be willing to climb into your carb and tell us what the jetting is? There should be three types of jets. Here are sample sizes from a Weber jetted for an 1800cc motor. First # is primary barrel, second is for the secondary.
JET..................SAMPLE SIZES
Main................140, 140
Idle..................60, 55
Air correction....165, 160
1800cc / 4 = 450cc combustion chamber. 1300cc / 4 = 325cc combustion chamber. Here's a thought: go to an MG/Austin-Healy forum and ask what jets are in the Weber 32/36 used on Midgets and Sprites. Pierce has a single kit for these cars, from 948cc to 1275cc. (The other kit is for the 1500cc Triumph motor put in the later Midgets.) You might want to try changing your jetting to whatever is in the smaller motors.

[TominMO]

No, it's a pretty common carb. It's Holley's take on a Weber 32/36, same bolt pattern, same design.

Oh duh, I just realized I was thinking of the CARTER/Weber, the one-barrel on old Subarus.
Second duh, I just noticed that you have a B6! I will try to find info myself on the Weberized MGs.

[quaddawg]

Well, I might get into the carb this winter, but probably not too much before.

My car has a JDM B6 originally carbed, (1600 cc of course) and I understand that the JDM version of this motor had a bit higher compression. In addition to the compression, my car also has a header, ported intake manifold and 2.25" exhaust to a flowmaster, no cat. SO, jetting would be a bit off from a stock B3. I would still be happy to look at jetting, as I do feel mine is a bit on the rich side. I do intend to cam the car this winter also, so I was going to do that before I made any jetting changes, as it does run quite well now, and has dyno'd close to 100 horse to the wheels. Must be pretty darned close.

[TominMO]

My car has a JDM B6 originally carbed, (1600 cc of course) and I understand that the JDM version of this motor had a bit higher compression. In addition to the compression, my car also has a header, ported intake manifold and 2.25" exhaust to a flowmaster, no cat. SO, jetting would be a bit off from a stock B3. I would still be happy to look at jetting, as I do feel mine is a bit on the rich side. I do intend to cam the car this winter also, so I was going to do that before I made any jetting changes, as it does run quite well now, and has dyno'd close to 100 horse to the wheels. Must be pretty darned close.

Sounds very cool. 2.25" sounds a little big for a 1600. You might actually get better results with 2" pipe, to speed up exhaust flow. But I'm not an expert on this.

Probably you would only need to drop the main jets a little; if you have a 140 you might try a 135 or 130. Leaning it out will also help when driving at altitude, above 5000 feet, to keep it from running rich.

[TominMO]

Quaddawg, after doing a buncha research on the DG Weber carbs I have to reluctantly agree that they all seem to ship with the same or nearly the same jetting, and dialing it in is left to the owner. This surprised me; I thought they would take either stock HP or combustion chamber volume into account. But then again I've had two Webers on three different motors and they all worked great, so what the heck.

https://www.theautoist.com/weber_carb.htm

https://www.triumphspitfire.com/weber.html

Here are some links to some advice about setting them up, etc. There's loads of good info on the Web. Redline is a nice source too.

[gtx510]

lol, I've got one on my 510 with a L18, it'll rev to 6k with the stock cam. There's a nice DQ article on tuning the carb with different emulsion tubes. You guys might want to check it out? https://www.dimequarterly.tierranet....er_tuning.html

https://www.dimequarterly.tierranet.com/articles/tech_carb_tuning_guide.html

[TominMO]

Correction to post #1: the K673 kit is for a Weber 32/36, not 32/32.

[FestYboy]

talk about bringing suff back from the dead, but thank god you did!

[TominMO]

talk about bringing suff back from the dead, but thank god you did!

Yeah, didn't intend to, but had to clear up a typo in the first post.

[FestYboy]

would have never known about it if you didn't, and seeing that most of my cars are carbed, this info is like christmas early!

[drddan]

It is nice reviving some old threads as it brings it out for new peeps to read. Good job Tom. Wanting a weber, and now that i'm working again, it just might happen! I, too, would not have known about the weber if not for Tom.