Nevermind, for some reason it started to flood the first time. Then I tried again and it was fine... False alarm.

The regulator was all the way out. Whatever, it's all good now. After cranking ALOT I got it to catch and now it purrs like a kitten. I didnt get a chance to take it out tonight (no insurance, dont want to risk it). But I'll take her for a drive tomorow and let you guys know how it is. I'll make a couple runs with my G-Tech to get an idea of the power increase, and to try to set the fuel pressure. (old school with no gauge) So far it feels amazing.

 

With the regulator all the way out, you will be set at the minimum pressure. All the way in will give you the max. Since your target is 2.5 - 3 psi, you want to be a little more that halfway in (theoretically). I'm going to have to find a good pressure gauge and get it installed if I'm going to do this right I suppose, but so far she's running great no matter where I set it.

 

yeah, I turned it in to about half and took her out for a drive. No fuel shortage here. It ran beautifully. I couldnt get my G-tech to work right though, so no numbers yet.

By the way, kentetsu, theres a thread in here right now for a group buy of really accurate 0-5 and 0-10 psi gauges. go check it out. Its the only place you'll be able to find a good gauge for this setup.

 

Thanks man. I'd be all over it if I could find it. lol. Any chance you could dig up a link for me?

 

Holy Crap! Is THAT what my Sterling would have looked like if I hadn't asked Carl to keep all the doodads attached? I must have 10lbs of hardware tacked on to mine
Never mind the G-guage reading, just give us your Seat-O-Pants rating on the difference! Hope to get mine in this spring too-
Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

Sorry I havent been around lately. Too much going on. Anyway, so you got the no return thing solved. Its not needed with the FPR . No we dont normally remove them. Thats part of the boost prep. And thanks for the compliments.

Ken, thats backwards. Try to visualize what Im going to write.

The fuel comes in and has to overcome a spring to open the diaphragm to get past it to the outlet. With the screw backed out all the way its only fighting the spring on the other side. As you crank down the screw, you increase the pressure of the spring, making it harder for the fuel to open the diaphragm. Thus lowering the outlet pressure.

LOL yes Stu, Sterlingcarbs also fit in a smaller box for shipping LOL.

 

So where does the fuel GO?

I still don't get how you can be constantly be putting 2.5psi worth of fuel (with a certain flow, we'll estimate 35gph, half of what my pump can do) into the carb, and not have any come out?

If it's not going into the engine (say we're at idle, barely burning fuel), and it's not turning around and going back to the tank, why doesn't it build up until it overflows into the intake? Is it pushing *back* against the fuel pump? Is that good for the pump?

Or is there something I'm missing completely?

Jon

 

That's called dead-heading. Some pumps will burn up while others are fine. Carter seems to be ok with dead heading.

The needle and seats are what holds the fuel back and prevents it from overflowing whether dead headed or return. Edelbrock, Holley and Hitachi (13B) can be dead headed without any problems in my experience. I'm not sure about Nikki carbs since I haven't messed with them enough.

 

So for an update, since no one seemed to read or respond to my other thread, this thing KICKS ***. Completely untuned, without even fuel pressure set accurately, my last round of mods has totally opened this up. The main thing was the Sterling carb but I also removed the shutter valve, rat's nest, and some other crap.

The car really responds now and man does it haul ***. I've got some serious driving in and even let a friend drive it (a rare occurance) and everyone agrees that the 7 is unstoppable now. The guy that drives it is now shopping for an FB, as is another friend who tried to pass me on the highway

I know that before I was getting roughly 107 horses to the wheels based on my G-meter (which turns out small numbers compared to a dyno because of wind resistance etc.) and now by the seat-o-pants meter I figure it has to be pushing at least 130 untuned. The response and expanded power curve is the best part though. It screams once the secondaries open.

Great work Carl, I might be referring you some business in the next few months.

 

So as long as the pressure is low enough (around 3psi) then the fuel can't force its way past the needles and seats. So it gets stuck there. The fuel pump goes to pump more fuel, but since there's no room for the fuel to move forward, it basically sits there spinning until space opens up (fuel gets burned) and it pushes more fuel forward.

Depending on the type of pump then, this is either an OK thing to do, or it could be detremental to the pump's health.

I wonder where I can find info about dead heading's effect on Mallory pumps. I'm running a Comp70 and burned out the last one because of a restriction in the line. I don't want to burn out another one because I didn't do my carb/fuel system research properly!

Jon

 

Though I s'pose I shouldn't worry at all. If the carb is dead-headed and expects 2.5psi, I could always buy mallory's return-style regulator to go with my fuel pump. It would mean less tubing in the engine bay than I have for my holley right now anyway.

Jon

 

 

Hey Carl. You almost had me convinced about the FPR settings. What you said made sense, but my memory was saying otherwise. I finally dug out the instructions to double check and it is pretty clear; "warning: with the adjustment screw turned all the way in you will have very high fuel pressure and will flood your carberator. This can result in fire, blah, blah, blah"... You get the point.

Anyway, according to the manual:

adjustment screw out = lower pressure
adjustment screw in = higher pressure

I think that tightening the adjustment screw is actually relieving some of the spring pressure. Just wanted to set the record straight for future referrence.

 

Sorry for the mistake. Thanks for correcting it for the future.