Downright Fuelish Carburetor Designs

05/16/2026

Been liquidating vintage Holleys traded in for new models or whatnot over the years, but not abandoning them! Just have too many for too many retirements, still doing them between racing builds. I need all these small vintage service parts and so do other builders I trade parts with. Here's a 13lb batch of pump levers, brackets, throttle blades, even choke parts (if it was on a half-century old Holley, I don't throw it away) going off for refinishing and corrosion protection. I sweat the small stuff! Whether a full resto or restomod, it's getting the same Anal-Retentive Chef treatment as a new custom billet racer that costs 3x more than your high school car did.

05/15/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DiEwbEhKp/ I like nice neat stacks of stuff. Cash, pancakes, tunnel ram base plates, if you're going to do something, do it right. Oh yeah!

05/15/2026

Machine Head Thursday Night! 131 Speed Shop precision machined a whole bunch of vintage 600 vacuum secondary base plates that’ll permit me to whip up truly trued tunnel rams for quite a while. My machining tonight was setting up old school 850 (modern 1050) main bodies for adjustable air correctors. They’ll be colored original; works for a restomod setup and also looks great with custom newer blocks, we’ll see what happens, either way the blocks will be adjustable, too. And looking to peruse parts a fellow AMC enthusiast has available this weekend and gaze upon some Rebel Machines, while buying some Heads…

05/14/2026

The 1974 Z-Code AMC Jeep Wagoneer shop truck with the 401 V8 is back together with the 1967 AMC Marlin (and it's even soupier 343 that I use to test carbs and friction). Kudos to Mr. Skiles for welding more than was anticipated! A lot of solid flooring now! And rocker panel, and a lower quarter section. And repairing and cleaning out the fuel tank. And throwing in a starter safety switch because starting it in park is cool. And sealing up the exhaust. Not that I couldn't get used to the fumes coming into the cab through the holes that used to be there, most my college cars were like that…

This rugged defender of the AMC faith came from Texas and spent its life in South Dakota until 2024. Saw it advertised on a Thursday and think I bought it that Saturday. Hell no, I didn’t think, just drove to South Dakota and bought it. That’s how me and my homies do it. Not a rusty Minnesota bomb for sure, but this thing was hanging out in tall grass and needed new metal. Well, let's see the Taliban blow a hole in the bottom of this thing now!

The 401 had a dreadful Autolite 4300 on there, emissions insanity. The goofball intake has the slightly spread bore, not the bigger spread other Autolites had, so a 600 double pumper will fit and be perfect. A 1-11/16 throttle bore is too big for the primary, so no 650 or 750 carbs will fit unless I throw on a Holley intake. The 600s I had needed building, was short on time, so pieced together a Barry Grant Road Demon 525 vacuum secondary, and good grief it couldn't run any better with this little weird spaceship looking character of a carb.

Time to order up a stencil kit for the doors or something. Or a logo with a QR code to advertise my rugged carbureted fuelishness. We’ll see. I better take it slow, otherwise I’ll have a car hauler quicker than you can say Jack Robinson and then people are really going to be pi**ed at how long it takes me to build a carb while I’m buying stuff I probably don’t need. That reminds me, know anyone with a 1967 AMC Rogue with a four-speed and a 343? The Marlin’s 343 is stroked up and still revs like da nutz but it’s only built for sustained 6K operation. A destroked 343… push that sucker over 10K, with how fast that would rev in a light car like a Rogue or say a Hornet? Gotta do ole Grumpy Jenkins’ deal except with an AMC. Chevy small blocks sure rev but not like an AMC, you’ll get to 10K quicker than a zongo Honda build. WTF, wasn’t I talking about the Jeep? Better hold off on the car hauler, you know me.

05/09/2026

Eight million oval track classes alteady... I knew these annular boosted saucers would be on the tracks before any of them allows an AMC powerplant in a car. Chickens!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1cUHKUPSMX/

Buster Fuggins of Uranus wins heat 1 in the flyin saucers class an picks up the 25$ bonus from Adams & Eve store. He will start last tonite thanks to the 150 car UFO invert we have at WVS.

05/03/2026

This is the Gopher State Buick Club Spring Extravaganza car show and swap meet at the Minnesota state fairgrounds. Uber nice day! I only do this show in Minnesota, best backdrop yet for carb components that go into race or street builds. Look at all that plexiglass! Makes me want to play hockey again but I don't think this guy will want me putting anyone through the boards, cool 1961 Impala!

04/29/2026

Even better photos of the Fireball 650 Double Pumper, heck yeah! The ladies went to Schlafenland a few hours ago, so back to carbs before I get up in a few more. Got bored of modding metering blocks, and this crispy carb critter was just eyeballing me, like I’m resisting that. No, the guy whose car incinerated didn’t have a mullet. This is what can happen when your “carb guy” can replace gaskets and not much more. I was anal-retentive about fittings and the small stuff when I was a teenager, but I’ll say with factuality that most my buddies did not care about the smalls – nope, I was outnumbered and therefore the hoser! Well, all big problems start small, don’t they! For example, at the secondary bowl inlet fitting I figure. The bowl is a $40K piece of garage art now. Form AND function, now you have two ways to adjust the float! Man, that metering block had too much to drink, lay off the Windsor!

This is the second one in a year that a kid of a guy’s friend did for a high value classic car and torched it like a pyro. The last one was an accelerator pump blowout. If you swap a pump cam, sometimes you need to bend the lever, lest you bust up that diaphragm. Please don’t cheap out on the carb with your classic car. There are enough folks out there with enough experience to help you out; I’m not the only one by far. Find someone who knows how to properly soup up your fueling so you can get to felony level speeding territory in a safe manner. Unless you’re John or Brittany Force, you don’t get to be on fire and be cool at the same time.

04/28/2026

Wow, a third of the way through the year and still haven't shown off the new logo yet, still as useless at marketing as ever, damn new millennium was supposed to fix that...

My rendition of the NATO map symbol for what would be (auf deutsche) the good old flammenpanzer! That's right, an armored fighting vehicle that spits fire, pretty much my work mode! The "M" represents a bridge, though M for your uncle Maurizio works, too. The oval by itself is a tank, so throw an oval around the M, and you have some enhanced engineering capabilities. A square around that to NATOer done, and THAT is marketing. I be hopeless.

04/27/2026

Holley 750 Classic that cost $600 new and ran...poorly. Keanu says whoa! Hot Clod magazine told us vacuum secondary carbs are supposed to run perfect! They sure go when I build them, but I also don't install a bent throttle blade, just not creative enough, I'm such a flatliner! The guy didn't do this, arrived like that, ridiculous. Check the photos for some more illustrative info.

Fuel good this week everyone!

04/13/2026

Fun weekend with vintage carbs and test driving in warm weather! A fiery finale was necessary after cleaning up the shop since that's no fun. Fireball here is a 650 double pumper off a motor that ended its career on fire. No, not mine! The primary vent baffle melted and drooled down the metering block and made its way to the float bracket. No idea what the aluminum chunk on the throttle blade is that's wedging the blades open because I don't think that caused the fire, pretty sure a crappy fuel line at the secondary inlet, but for sure not a factory application 😁 My guess is an aluminum spacer, four-hole variety, it dunlapped up the throttle bore when things got a little toasty. The main body and secondary block and bowl may be fused, that's ok because the bowl has a hole in it and you can see the float, like 3D carb art. It's in the shop, I'll need to get some photos, it's neat. Fire bad!

04/12/2026

Back after a few days out of commission! Seventh day and finished a Holley Seven hundred double pumper that is super! Gotta rev through the week! Got a flu and out three days like Marvin Hagler put me down, learned I got a chopped and screwed rotator cuff from a boungered flu shot, took Friday afternoon off, better doctor visit with better news about knee surgery, Little Nero’s with the pretty ladies, French bullpup post-racing yard nap with Chapi, and back to fueling good!

This 4778 700 cfm mechanical secondary is from 1980, seen some things, a lot of racing things, and some parts wore out, you know the drill. Going on a streetable Ford 460 in a Lincoln cruiser. The bell-shaped boosters look like those in carbs that could be installed on Ford Cobra Jet motors, so even looks Fordish for a Holley. New baseplate assembly, 30cc accelerator pump levers with stronger springs for improved pump shots, and new pumps. I wasn't joking around with this one. Installed a custom secondary throttle speed assembly to aid tuning. Took way longer than usual to get this done but runs fantastic now, I'll dare to say better than it did in its racing days.

Crispy weather, about 40 and rainy. But warmed it up and got some snap, crackle, and pop to go with the ice crispy weather, very nice! Check out the little vids! Tomorrow it’ll be over 70, so rubber stripes are forecast. Threw the microphone at the rear but the rain tamped down the sound a little. The Pypes Race Pro mufflers are downright quiet at idle despite their name, but let it rip and it's a different deal.

And got the carb testing machine’s new plates! Just like downtown!