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OK. '89 Festy - carbed.
I bought a new Weber DGEV, made my own adapter plate and installed it. Once I got all the vacuum leaks corrected WOW! What a monster! Almost felt like a race car!
Over the next few months I had been fighting hesitation issues with it during the transition phases under light acceleration. At first it was just under very light throttle - just off idle. I tried drilling out the jets, I tried filling them in... nothing really seemed to help. After further investigation I discovered that the progressive circuit wasn't feeding fuel soon enough - almost like that port was too far above the plate.
I filed down the lip of the plate which seemed to help some but never corrected the issue. I finally decided to "go for broke" and tried "tweaking" that plate (I know you're not supposed to bent them) but I somehow managed to put a dimple on the edge right at the progressive port. This did two things. 1> It raised my idle (no biggie I was able to adjust to compensate) but most importantly 2> It made my progression circuit come to life! At idle nothing is coming out of that port but even the slightest bit of gas brings it to life! NO MORE HESITATION! (or so I thought).
I decided to put a few miles on it before jumping to conclusions and now while under light acceleration it runs great but now I had issues with cruising. At about 20-40% throttle it wants to cut out on me and lose power. If I give it a bit more gas and then slowly let off the throttle it comes to life and runs great until I give it a little bit of gas again. Under hard acceleration it works great but cruising down the highway can be a real PITA.
With the assistance of a wideband air/fuel gauge I was able to get it dialed in pretty good. Idles at about 14.5:1. Full acceleration (secondaries at full blast) I get tons of power at about 12.5:1. Cruising is about 15.5:1. I wanted it tuned so I was a bit lean at cruise (I kept my EGR intact to help prevent detonation) for fuel economy but a but rich at full acceleration for power. The numbers all look great EXCEPT when it's acting up.
When I get it to hesitate I can watch my air/fuel jump... 14.5:1, 16:1, 17.5:1 (this is where it starts to lose power), 19:1 then it pegs out at 22:1 or so and I might as well have the key off. If I feather the gas a bit it drops back down to 14:1 and power is restored.
In the meantime I got tired of dicking with it. Before I decided to "tweak" my throttle plate I managed to pick up an Escort Carb (looks like it's off of an '81 - 32/32 Weber?) for $12 and another $15 for a rebuild kit. I had it rebuilt and ready to go just in case I made my DGEV unusable. Anyway after doing this and trying that I threw the Escort Carb on and WOW! What a difference! Yes it does run a bit on the rich side (jet tweaking is in my near future) but wow it runs so smooth it feels like it's fuel injected! I don't quite have the power I had with the DGEV but wow! The smoothness almost makes it worth it!
So anyway my plan is now to completely disassemble my DGEV and try to find the problem. I've seen rebuild write-ups and all that but I'm a bit concerned.. I bought it brand new! I believe there may be an internal problem with the carburetor itself. Can anyone give me any hits as to what to look for and how to fix it? Like I said on the jets I tried bigger.. and smaller and no matter what I did I couldn't really help the problem any. Yes I re-adjusted the float many times - tried adjust it to spec.. even tried raising it and lowering it a bit.. nothing there really seemed to make much of a difference either.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated! Or maybe I'll just sell the damn thing... recoup some of my losses!
I think I was pretty clever mounting the Escort carb. I just "notched out" the two bottom holes in the carb's housing and also in the thick gasket I got for it and installed it (with larger washers) onto the weber adapter. The width is identical but the Escort carb is just a bit "shorter". That worked out great!
Then I modified the factory air cleaner by cutting it open and forming the proper shape using 3M Window-Weld. That stuff is awesome!
I bought a new Weber DGEV, made my own adapter plate and installed it. Once I got all the vacuum leaks corrected WOW! What a monster! Almost felt like a race car!
Over the next few months I had been fighting hesitation issues with it during the transition phases under light acceleration. At first it was just under very light throttle - just off idle. I tried drilling out the jets, I tried filling them in... nothing really seemed to help. After further investigation I discovered that the progressive circuit wasn't feeding fuel soon enough - almost like that port was too far above the plate.
I filed down the lip of the plate which seemed to help some but never corrected the issue. I finally decided to "go for broke" and tried "tweaking" that plate (I know you're not supposed to bent them) but I somehow managed to put a dimple on the edge right at the progressive port. This did two things. 1> It raised my idle (no biggie I was able to adjust to compensate) but most importantly 2> It made my progression circuit come to life! At idle nothing is coming out of that port but even the slightest bit of gas brings it to life! NO MORE HESITATION! (or so I thought).
I decided to put a few miles on it before jumping to conclusions and now while under light acceleration it runs great but now I had issues with cruising. At about 20-40% throttle it wants to cut out on me and lose power. If I give it a bit more gas and then slowly let off the throttle it comes to life and runs great until I give it a little bit of gas again. Under hard acceleration it works great but cruising down the highway can be a real PITA.
With the assistance of a wideband air/fuel gauge I was able to get it dialed in pretty good. Idles at about 14.5:1. Full acceleration (secondaries at full blast) I get tons of power at about 12.5:1. Cruising is about 15.5:1. I wanted it tuned so I was a bit lean at cruise (I kept my EGR intact to help prevent detonation) for fuel economy but a but rich at full acceleration for power. The numbers all look great EXCEPT when it's acting up.
When I get it to hesitate I can watch my air/fuel jump... 14.5:1, 16:1, 17.5:1 (this is where it starts to lose power), 19:1 then it pegs out at 22:1 or so and I might as well have the key off. If I feather the gas a bit it drops back down to 14:1 and power is restored.
In the meantime I got tired of dicking with it. Before I decided to "tweak" my throttle plate I managed to pick up an Escort Carb (looks like it's off of an '81 - 32/32 Weber?) for $12 and another $15 for a rebuild kit. I had it rebuilt and ready to go just in case I made my DGEV unusable. Anyway after doing this and trying that I threw the Escort Carb on and WOW! What a difference! Yes it does run a bit on the rich side (jet tweaking is in my near future) but wow it runs so smooth it feels like it's fuel injected! I don't quite have the power I had with the DGEV but wow! The smoothness almost makes it worth it!
So anyway my plan is now to completely disassemble my DGEV and try to find the problem. I've seen rebuild write-ups and all that but I'm a bit concerned.. I bought it brand new! I believe there may be an internal problem with the carburetor itself. Can anyone give me any hits as to what to look for and how to fix it? Like I said on the jets I tried bigger.. and smaller and no matter what I did I couldn't really help the problem any. Yes I re-adjusted the float many times - tried adjust it to spec.. even tried raising it and lowering it a bit.. nothing there really seemed to make much of a difference either.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated! Or maybe I'll just sell the damn thing... recoup some of my losses!
I think I was pretty clever mounting the Escort carb. I just "notched out" the two bottom holes in the carb's housing and also in the thick gasket I got for it and installed it (with larger washers) onto the weber adapter. The width is identical but the Escort carb is just a bit "shorter". That worked out great!
Then I modified the factory air cleaner by cutting it open and forming the proper shape using 3M Window-Weld. That stuff is awesome!
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