Reviving Dead Cobra

[Tom Wells]

two,

I agree with the points you make above :-)

As a survivor of two impossible carb misadventures I'd like to add another point: with today's gasoline, which it is in name only, there are vast differences in that fluid as currently produced compared with decades ago when carbs were king.

Short answer - boiling point of gasoline in 1960 was way higher than it is after 2000.

EFI can deal with today's alcohol-laden gasoline substitute mostly because it operates well above atmospheric pressure. Something like 43 psi or more. This keeps the alcohol component from evaporating. When it does boil it can sometimes be spectacular.

When the carb's float bowls are above roughly 120 degrees F, if I stopped after a 10 to 100 mile run, the bowl vents looked like Old Faithful. This resulted in flooding the engine, leading to instant shutoff.

Tried insulators, heat shields, carb fuel return systems and more I don't recall at the moment; finally gave in to the the laws of physics and went to EFI which solved that problem. The only thing I didn't try was aiming an air conditioning vent at each float bowl LOL

The altitude compensation, cold starting and other items are lagniappe, not the main course for me. Have over 50K miles on two Holley EFI-equipped engines and wouldn't think of going back.

My 2 cents,

Tom

PS: The only other thing I'd like to have tried was no-alcohol gasoline. Sadly, it wasn't around enough years ago to be practical. If I had a carb today, that'd be the first thing I'd try!