The Awesomeness of the IDA

[Dick Mitchell]

I recently took ownership of my very first set of Weber IDA's.  These represent the one part that I have always wanted for my VW.  I remember flipping through the mags in the mid 90's and gazing at those carbs that would top big 2-Liter motors.  They were like icing on a cake and all I could do was dream about them.  Even after getting my car during the summer of 97', the IDA was still just a dream for me.  Out of league for a kid working at a bike shop.  Yet, for the amount of money i spent over the years on various sized IDF's and DRLA's , I'm sure I could have bought Two N.O.S. sets of IDA's.  But at last, with the reintroduction of the IDA and the fact that I finally have money in my bank accounts, The time finally came to get a set. 

I came home the other day to see a nicely taped box sitting in my living room.  I swear my heart skipped a beat or two when I realized what was inside.  I bent down and checked the lable just to make sure they were what I thought they were...and they were.  I calmly picked up the package and walked to my room.  I cleared off my bed and gently set the package down atop the mattress.  I stood back and took a deep breath as I pulled my keys from my pocket.  I slowly ran the key along the tape surrounding the box.  I then slowly pealed away the lid hoping to gaze at the treasures within.  Shuffling through the crumpled paper my fingers made contact with the last obstacle that stood between me and my destiny.  I firmly grasp the two objects and pulled them from their paper abyss.  I carefully lay them down on the bed, two small white boxes that can't seem to wait to be opened.  I go in for it...I pull the lids off at the same time to reveal both glorious gifts at the same time (that way neither one would get jealous either)  I pull them from their boxes and layed them on the pillow...and just stared.  I then sat down and looked them over, top to bottom, opening and closing the butterflies, gazing down the barrels and watching my wiggling feet through the other side.  I must of handled those beautiful bodies for a half hour. 

I realized at that time that (as bad as it sounds) I had treated those carbs better than any girl that I've had over.  I felt as if I had handled them with much more care and attention.  While NOTHING sexual occurred with my carburetors, It still made me really thankful that my girlfriend was nowhere around to witness this caring moment that I had shared with my new go-fast parts.   Later on that night, as I was holding one of the carbs up to a mirror and repeatedly looking through it like a pair of binoculars, I got to thinking.  Am I the only one that has thought of engine parts in this way.  I remember when my forged crank arrived, I was happy and took a good long look at it.  Same with my Porsche Fuch's and my Gene Berg shifter... but none of those parts had "an effect" on me the way the IDA's did.  I've never been so giddy over a car part. 

Anyone else share similar feelings or had a certain car part that made them feel like they were 5 years old again?

[Dave Rosique]

Yeah Dick,
I bought my first set of IDA's when I was 22 (28 years ago for anybody keeping score). My wife and I were newleweds at the time living in our first apartment... they were used, had been sitting for sometime, faintly smelled of old gas, but I insisted on them being displayed on my wall unit next to my stereo, no doubt within earshot of some Pink Floyd or Zeppelin. They sat high atop their tall manifolds for all of my gearhead buddies to gaze at over many a cold brew... Seems like they lived inside for about a month or so until I finished my engine.
I think they are the ultimate statement... I know turbo's make more power, but something about the way they look and that crisp WHOOOOOP when you stand on it says it all... 

~DR.

[Jason Foster]

First of all, This is a GREAT thread and story Dick. I too remember when I got my I.D.A.'s they lived inside for over a month also. I remember many a night coming home from work and pulling them from their box (which was brown cardboard from Pomona and still had the price written in sharpie) and just staring in awe at what I had I wonder what stories they could tell and where they have been in their many years of existence.

Jason

[Jim Ratto]

hahaha  you posted it Richard!

I remember all the scheming I did in my spare time to try to get a set. I had 44IDFs and after going to Phoenix Bug a Rama with sheep in 1990, well we saw Rhoads and Mason's cars run with each other, and looked over every square inch of these cars all day. We had two days of driving back to Bay Area in my Bug to scheme. Plus all the old cool cars in the Feb '75 Hot VWs ran IDAs. I was working @ Buggy House at the time, making $6 an hr. I was always looking for a way.... maybe some guy would bring his sandrail in and want 44's and trade me? Maybe we'd get a shipping error from Redline and they'd misbox a set of IDAs into IDF box? One day this guy from Vallejo calls in and wants a new set of 44's for his 2180 in his sandrail..and says "The 48's are too big"....HUH?....my 3hr of sleep of night suddenly didn't matter nor did my green habit, I snapped to attention on the phone "WHAT 48's?"
So that night, Sheep and I hopped in the X19 and delivered a set of 44's, hoping that I could trade the guy new 44's for "48's" and then I'd just pay my cost on the 44 kit. Turns out they were 48IDFs.... , so HE paid for 44's and the search was on again.
Mike Collins was a guy that did our transaxles, beams and other machine work and odd jobs. He had raced VW midgets in the past, and once in awhile he'd cock his head at an angle like only Collins could and run down some story to us kids about some SPG roller motor with Autocraft heads and Hilborn and running at Ascot or Antioch or Santa Maria..... and I'd always wonder "does he have a set somewhere he'd want to sell?" Finally I asked him "got any IDAs?" He'd just grin at me, with this smart ass look and say "now why the f==k would you want those pieces of sh=t?" And I'd say, like a total dweeb, "uh well they're uh, cuz they're like, cool....." and he'd just laugh and walk away. I kept asking becuase he never said "No I don't have any".
Finally, one autumn day, he asked me "what the f==k are you going to do with them anyway?" I said "for my Bug." And he sighed and made some comment about being a "f==king kid" and then said "come by my shop after work."
So I did. He took me up in his attic which was filled with cases, axles, seats, steering wheels, mills, drill presses, ring gears and boxes of who know what. We weaved through the maze of stuff and he walked directly to a box under some other boxes and cursed as he had to move stuff to slide it out.....muttering "still don't know why you want these pieces of sh=t...." and opened the box. Inside were a pair of dusty, but impeccable 48IDAs mounted to short manifolds and remains of some old push pull linkage. "These waht you want?" he asked.
I tried to act cool, but was tongue tied and shakey. I said "how much?" and of course, being Collins, he said "how much ya got?"

"Well I can go to the bank and...."
"Just give me $400 and get them the hell out of here"
The box came home with me. I was living at my parents. I walked in like I was God, and set the box right on the kitchen table like I owned the house. DInner was already waiting (huh sheep?). My mom said "no car parts in my house!" and I ignored her and lifted the lid to the box and even she shut up. My dad stopped chewing his food and stared. It really was like I brought the Ark of the Covenant home...all they had heard out of my mouth was "48's 48's 48's 48's 48's" for like a year. Now they were mine.

Mike passed on in 2001, and a lot of guys here on Lounge can attest, he is still missed. His personality was an acquired taste, but once you were his bud, he took care of you. One of the smartest and funniest people I've ever known. I still have his old carbs on my car, and I'll never get rid of them. I think I am so picky about making them run right all the time because it's my responsibility to do so... for Mike. I hope he gets a thrill still when I punch it and they scream like only a sorted out pair of IDAs can.

Long live the 48IDA and we still miss you Mike.... RIP buddy

[Kotten]

We were living the summer of 1979 and for the second year racing our Hitler's Revenge drag bug, together with Tom "Pommen" Lindholm. We had started the year before with a 69 x 87 engine with a single Bugspray carb and stepped up to 69 x 92 with double 40 solex PII during the winter.

We had been drooling over a set of IDA:s used in a 1600 rallye bug owned by Henkka Fellman R.I.P. And decided that we must have a set of those!

I was going to business school and was just starting my second year there and had applied for a bank loan for students with low interest. The day the amount for the first semester was available at the bank I took all the money and went to Motoral which was the source for Weber carbs in Finland and bought a brand new set of Italian 48 IDA:s.

That was the easy part. It seemed impossible to get a set of manifolds in Finland and internet not beeing available yet I started calling around and finally located a set in sweden from M.I.S.A.B in Gothenburg if i remember correctly. I regrettably have gotten rid of the manifolds during the years though!

The IDA:s have been used for Drag Racing only over the last 29 years and I still have them! They will probably be buried with me when that time comes..

Kotten

[Bewitched666]

Although i also race with IDA's i must say that i've raced with dells too and the 48 dells are up with the IDA's.
I found no real difference in performance but must admit that the IDA is a more race oriented carb

[Martin]

wait till you get your hands a Hilborn injection setup........ now thats the daddy!

[181]

Great stories, great morning coffee reading. Now I´m impatiently waiting for my NOS set of 48 Trijets that are in the mail from UK...and I believe I´ll be stoked for hours when they arrive 

[Fastbrit]

wait till you get your hands a Hilborn injection setup........ now thats the daddy!

Yeah, the kind of daddy that gets home late from work on a Friday night smelling of booze, yells at the kids, beats the wife, goes down the pub and drinks away his wages.

[Dick Mitchell]

wait till you get your hands a Hilborn injection setup........ now thats the daddy!

I came into an N.O.S. Hillborn set-up for a small block Chevy a few years ago.     Opening that box and seeing all those nicely wrapped velocity stacks, linkage, fuel block, and all those hoses was a pretty cool experience too.  Just not as much as the IDA's because I didn't have a motor for the Hillborn to go on 

[Dick Mitchell]

wait till you get your hands a Hilborn injection setup........ now thats the daddy!

Yeah, the kind of daddy that gets home late from work on a Friday night smelling of booze, yells at the kids, beats the wife, goes down the pub and drinks away his wages.

hahaha! 

[wolfswest]

My first goal was to built a 1914 with 44’s or 48’s (idf’s)  That was around 4-5 years ago.  I walked in the shop were I decided to let my engine build and was looking around.  That it had to be a 1914 was obvious but for the other parts like rockers, muffler, clutch… I didn’t had a clue what to do.  That’s why I passed in the shop to talk about the last specifications for the engine.  I was standing near the counter and watched around in the shop, on the right of me the carbs were presented in the shop, I watched them from small to big…  a 36 set, the well known 40’s, 44’s and the 48’s…  Then there they were, next to the 48 idf’s, those two big bastards smiling at me.  The enginebuilder entered the shop and I said, those weren’t here last week!  He grinned and saw the sparkles in my eyes…   I was sold, they weren’t available before and I never thought I would own a pair…  He ran ida’s on his dragbeetle so I always considered them above my league.  Sorted out my budget and told the guy, DO IT, install them.  I left the shop like I was god, nothing could fuck up the day…

Two weeks later,  I got a phonecall, picked up the phone and all I heared was an engine running, barking and high reving, then the sound stopped and this guy said to me:  it’s ready and hung up the phone.  I was trilled.  Next day I decided to go check out my engine.  A friend of mine offered me a ride in his ricer mobile.  So we took off…  30 minutes later we arrived at the shop and we walked in the machineshop…  There it was, a freshly build 1915 topped of with a pair of ida’s…  It looked impressive!  He said to my friend, what you got there? (drove a civic)  So he started telling, well it’s 16v lsi engine with a simota air intake and he just interrupted my friend and said: that ain’t shit boy and fired up the engine.     The workplace was really small so even if you fired up a stock 1300 engine it would sound like hell…  Imagine the ida monster engine in the tiny room, he revved it a couple of times and trough the exhaust the engine spitted a few flames on my friend his pants…    there we stood, blown away by my first “go fast” engine…

All my friends drove gti’s, vr6, vtec cars around that time and I drove a slow ass rabbit with 75hp.  This ida engine would turn the tide.  It turned out to be one crappy engine, so I ended up later with the 2179 I have now.  Still with the same ida’s and still happy about the way they bark.
All my friends are also gearheads but they prefer other cars, they just don’t understand the magic about those carbs…

[Martin]

wait till you get your hands a Hilborn injection setup........ now thats the daddy!

Yeah, the kind of daddy that gets home late from work on a Friday night smelling of booze, yells at the kids, beats the wife, goes down the pub and drinks away his wages.

hardcore daddy!  lol

 

[Neil Davies]

I remember getting my IDAs too. It was before the new ones became available, so a slightly rarer sight. I was just into my teacher training course, but I'd saved up some money during the previous year working so that I could buy more bits of race engine. These came up for sale and I decided to go for it and arranged to meet at a race meting. They were taken apart in front of me and I remember being amazed that something so simple could be so effective!
Paid the money for them, took them back to my student house at the end of the weekend and had them pride of place in my room either side of my stereo! When I next went back home to my parents house I took them back to store there, and showed them to a few VW friends - without fail, every single one of them was blown away by the sheer awesomeness of these monster carbs. I still think there is no one piece on a car that has the same effect as an original IDA.

[Sam K]

Great topic! I bought my first set of IDA's in the swap meet of the Las Vegas Bugorama in 2001. I think I paid $1000 for them with no linkage or manifolds, but I had been looking for a set in Denver for a couple of years with no luck, so I was glad to have them. They rode on my lap most of the 800 mile ride home!

[Mike Lawless]

wait till you get your hands a Hilborn injection setup........ now thats the daddy!

Great stories! I especially liked yours Mr Ratto, maybe because I was a lot like that back in the early 70s. IDAs were the stuff of dreams and remained that way throughout my youth. Dreams of IDAs eventually gave way to dreams of Holley Dominators.

Some may find this hard to believe, but I've NEVER owned a set of IDAs.

The Hilborn stuff on the other hand......pretty dang cool!

EDIT...

I was wondering tho, when I saw this topic. Do you guys think the VW scene would be where it got to without the IDA, or even the IDF and Dellorto?

[67worshipper]

what are you running then mike? 48s in idf or dellortos are still pretty cool and just as performing!! my friends look at my engine bay and say look at those carbs and laugh!! people that dont understand the flatfour look at it and say what are they? i.e. carbs................. then i say theyre the NOISE!!

[Tony M]

I have bought and sold many sets of IDA's - just wish i still had one set - Jim one of the best stories to date about Mike - all of us in the area still miss him - I know you will allways have those carbs and if not YOU WILL SELL THEM TO ME  Keeping Mike in our heart

[Jim Ratto]

I have bought and sold many sets of IDA's - just wish i still had one set - Jim one of the best stories to date about Mike - all of us in the area still miss him - I know you will allways have those carbs and if not YOU WILL SELL THEM TO ME  Keeping Mike in our heart

Sorry Tony.... those carbs are like my children. They only need one daddy.

Seriously, I think of Collins every time I work on them. Kind of keeping Mike's spirit going... you know? 

[louisb]

I have a pair. They are on the top shelf in my garage. Late at night, after everyone has gone to bed, I sneak out into the garage and fondle them. Sitting around them is most of a 2332. One day they will scream again.

--louis

[Jim Ratto]

Alright.... enough of us new kids on the block salivating over IDAs... let's hear about when Sarge, Kirsten and Mahaffey got theirs

[Mike Lawless]

Dang Jim, I think we'd have turn the "Way Back" knob on the "Way Back Machine" WAAAAAY back to the time Sarge got his. I'll bet he got one of the first prototypes.

[Harry/FDK]

Cool stories, and yes Richard me too. 

[Sarge]

I hate to say it, but I don't remember much about my first set of IDA's.  I ran 40P11-4's for a long time and enjoyed beating up on lesser tuned IDA equiped cars.  What I DO remember is how much harder my car pulled when I finally got the IDA's and the fact that it ran cooler.  Sold a butt load of those working at Auto Haus... seemed like $125 ea back in the day.

[Brian Silva]

I remeber getting my set of IDA's almost 10 years ago, I was 15 . I remember seeing them through a glass case at the local vw shop and just started drooling. Not to mention they are polished. They looked like pieces of art through the glass. Eventually I saved all my pennies and was able to get them after about 6 months of scraping by. Life hasn't been the same since. Sometimes, the time and effort spent on aquiring such things make them worth more down the road. Not to mention great stories!

[lawrence]

I bought my IDAs a few years ago while gathering go-fast parts for the 1914 that I planned to assemble. I went online one day where I was constantly searching the samba for deals. This guy in San Leandro, which is about 15 miles from my house, was selling a brand new pair that he needed to sell. I called him immediately and the deal was done. Those carbs rode home in my Beetle before they were even on an engine and they sat in my room for months. I would break them out every so often and just admire their beauty. What a bunch of perverts on this thread

[Sarge]

I remeber getting my set of IDA's almost 10 years ago, I was 15 . I remember seeing them through a glass case at the local vw shop and just started drooling. Not to mention they are polished. They looked like pieces of art through the glass. Eventually I saved all my pennies and was able to get them after about 6 months of scraping by. Life hasn't been the same since. Sometimes, the time and effort spent on aquiring such things make them worth more down the road. Not to mention great stories!

Ah, the awesomeness of GLASS CASES    I remember loads of droolers at Auto Haus!

[bugnut68]

It was a cold, rainy Eugene, Oregon evening the night I was winning bidder on a brand spanking new set of carbs-among-carbs.  My daily driver, a trusty '68 Bug with a mighty midget 1200cc 40 horse under the deck -- laden with a drooly, throbbing 30PICT1 Solex, no less-- sat out in the misty night as I perused Ebay.  And there it was.. Buy It Now.

Yes, my friends, we're talking about the Cream of the Crop Carbs for broke-ass poorboys like myself: brand new, in the box 40mm Solex/Kadron carbs, complete with shitty Taiwan (the best EMPI could muster up) linkage that feels like you're working out at the gym when working the gas pedal) and aluminum shitty taiwan manifolds.

From the spray paint-like finish of the manifolds to the ridiculously complicated air filter mounts that make synching carbs more of a pain than it's gotta be (c'mon, why don't they just come with clamp on K and N style filters?), I drooled silently onto my keyboard.  For $300, I could become a Dual Carbite.  Sweet.

My finger inched to the mouse.  My right pinkie finger stood poised, ready to click the legally binding Buy It Now function. Praying a silent prayer, I clicked.  Congratulations!  You're the Winning Bidder!  Woo hoo!
 Though it would be a week or so before I could fawn over and cradle my Brazilian made beauties in my own hands, I knew I'd made the right decision.  A week or two, maybe a month of eating mac n cheese and drinking from grocery store water fountains would be worth it for the micro dual carb roar that I would soon enjoy.

And it was worth it.  When they were strapped on to my massive 1776cc Engle 100'd mill, they snapped and barked to life, my Magnum straight cut gears whirring petulantly and my Bugpack steel pushrods clattering away with annoying, loose-zero lash induced furor. The lacsidaisical sigh of my single quiet pack muffler huffed and chuffed at idle as I sat enjoying the fruits of my low-budget labors.  Yes, I had arrived.

To date, my dinky little beauties have carried me to a best of 11.19 ET (in the 1/8 mile) and a screaming mile per hour trap speed of 61 miles per hour.  I'm a flying, baby!

My dream is realized.












No, I don't have IDAs now nor will I any time soon.  I just have a very good (to me anyways) sense of humor in my poverty-stricken portion of the VW hobby.

[nlvtinman]

As the details of all ways we came into possesion of our IDA's were read, I don't feel so outta place sensing the lust we all have.
Being an old guy, I recall Gene Berg sharing with me that "48IDA were NOT street carbs..but these 42's are perfect. Being young and poor I followed his sage advice(well for the time) and bought the 42's for my motor. This was all in the mid 1970's when a new IDA from Autohaus wasn't much more than a couple hundred dollars.

Fast forward to 2007. My buddy Larry was going to sell at the toy and lit show before the Classic. We head to the OCTO show and he put's some stuff in the trunk of his car. He grabs a box in the trunk and says to "have a look at these"...and out come a NOS set of early Italian 48IDA's.  Heart palpatations!! I told him then and there to "put those away, they're SOLD!"

Seems he found them at the Long Beach swap meet a couple weeks earlier...some guy who had nothing VW-only these Webers.
So nice, yet they are SO NICE I hate to run the first drop of fuel through them. But what a long overdue trophy.   Love'm!

[Dick Mitchell]

As the details of all ways we came into possesion of our IDA's were read, I don't feel so outta place sensing the lust we all have.
Being an old guy, I recall Gene Berg sharing with me that "48IDA were NOT street carbs..but these 42's are perfect. Being young and poor I followed his sage advice(well for the time) and bought the 42's for my motor. This was all in the mid 1970's when a new IDA from Autohaus wasn't much more than a couple hundred dollars.

Fast forward to 2007. My buddy Larry was going to sell at the toy and lit show before the Classic. We head to the OCTO show and he put's some stuff in the trunk of his car. He grabs a box in the trunk and says to "have a look at these"...and out come a NOS set of early Italian 48IDA's.  Heart palpatations!! I told him then and there to "put those away, they're SOLD!"

Seems he found them at the Long Beach swap meet a couple weeks earlier...some guy who had nothing VW-only these Webers.
So nice, yet they are SO NICE I hate to run the first drop of fuel through them. But what a long overdue trophy.   Love'm!

I can only imagine how sweet it would be to get a set like that.  Hell, you read how I feel about mine and they're just the new ones from Spain