The Cal-look Lounge

  Hey fellas,
  I'm having trouble with one of my IDA's. It is dribbling fuel out of the squirters at idle. I have put in new 3.00 needle and seats and set the floats to 5.5 with a BERG guage. My next step is to take tops off with the bowls full to see if the floats are a different boyency but I'm kinda at a loss for what to do, not enough knowledge on my part here. So is it a problem with the accelerator pump? I don't know please lend whatever thoughts or advise you might have.  Thanks Jason

There are a few things that could cause your problems. 3.0 needles are more sensitive to incorrect fuel pressure, so make sure your fuel pressure is set to 3 psi. If adusting your fuel pressure does not solve your problem take a look at the cam on throttle shaft of the dripping carb. Some new IDAs need to have the cam massaged because the pump lever sits slightly out of the trough instead of in the trough and vibration causes the squirting.

Pop the top of the leaky carb when these ideas fail and double check your float setting. Also, floats can colapse or have pinholes so inspect them. I do not know a lot about IDAs, but this will get you started. Good luck!

Thanks for the response Lawrence. I just put the 3.0's in It started doing it with the 2.0's I had before. These are Itallion carbs not new. I will check the cam though and compare to the non leaking carb. I also checked the float when I had the carbs apart for pinholes or fuel inside. The fuel pressure is a tad over 3 right now so I'll try lowering it a little although it was running fine before with the 2.0's untill this problem arose. I am fighting this problem and look forward to anyone else that can chime in with their knowledge or advise. Thanks Jason

Any particular reason you are using the 3.0 needles? I would bet that they are unnecessary in most cases. If the carb worked correctly with the 2.0 and the car ran fine I would switch back. IDAs can tolerate between 3-4 psi.

well this problem started while I had the 2.0's in and it did run ok with them. I used to run f11 emulsions with 37 vents. but switched to 42 vents. with f7 emulsions I did have problems at the track before with the 2.0's in at 3lbs or so pressure running out at about 3/4 track had turned up pressure to about 6lb to keep from running dry. I was hoping it would support the whole run without bumping pressure with the 3.0's. Really just worried about this setup for drag day and bugin so I can try and get in the 7's in the 1/8th and 12's in the 1/4. After these events I will probably go back to the smaller vents. and emulsions. It was more forgiving on the street that way, and better on gas. Just trying to get the most out of it for these two events. Pressure right now is a little less than 3 1/2 lb. Keep 'em coming guys. Thanks Jason

Your problem is from worn axelbearings or bad sync, maybe both. This puts your accspump in work. Good luck!

axlebearings?  but they are new....   I take it you mean throttle shaft? not looking for jokes hopefully someone can offer actual help. the out of sync make sense. It's been raining so I haven't been in the garage nearest I can tell so far is it might be different boyency of the floats or the cam deal on the bottom might be holding the acc. pump open at idle.

the out of sync carbs will make one side Dribble from the Squirters

thanks for the replys so far it's murder trying to get garage time these days with three kids in the house especially now that little league has started up. I will give this stuff a try as soon as I can. Any other ideas please keep 'em coming and thanks again. Jason

I´m really not joking, just trying to help. And if your throttleshaftbearing are fine chek your sync.

  No offense intended but I wasn't sure when I read that if you were joking by saying axlebearing or if you meant throttleshaft. I hope to get some time today to get into it I will check :
                     1 sync of carbs
                     2 float levels
                     3 accelerator pump cam
                     4 throttle shaft for play   
      Thanks for the help guys.   
                                          Jason
                     

  Well I worked on the car a bit today. Checked sync all good float level is right checked accelerator pump piston cam and I think its a bit off I tried tweaking it a bit but dont think it's quite right yet. I also stretched the spring a bit and this helped. It is running now with a slight dribble irradically. I will take the accelerator pump pistin and spring back out and try adjusting the cam a bit more i think that will do it. This will probably have to wait till Thursday though. Anyway thanks for the help guys. Jason

Your floats may be set too high, even with the Berg gauge. Pull the carbs off, drain the gas, then rotate the carb upside down and listen carefully, you may hear the float hit the carb top! Then obviously the needles aren't closing. I've seen it happen, and we just reset the floats a little at a time until they stopped hitting and dripping stopped. Good Luck

Thanks Trent I'll double on that. I think they are good though, I can run the pump with engine off and the carbs stay dry so the needles are seating. Thanks for the help. Jason