The Volvo B20 & Webers?

[Alf ista]

I have an unmoving AlfaSud in my garage, taking up valuable space. I also have a shed load of parts for the thing. Shifting through the various boxes of stuff, I came across a few carburettors. Beautiful things, carburettors, am I right? Anyway, one of them is a Weber 32D R81 and the others are a truly massive pair of Dellortos which say DLRA 36D on them. Very impressive, but I wonder, before I try and flog these things on fleabay could they be of any future use on my Amazon. I currently have a single Stromberg and I am happy enough with it. But in the future, maybe one of these beauties with a suitable inlet manifold may help stir things up a bit. Anyone got any experience of this, or know if these carbs would suit my car? Thanks in advance. Hugh.

[jakobandhismakarov]

Bit of a sod this one Hugh.

With any set of Dell'Ortos or Webers the trouble you're going to have on a RHD car is clearance with the pedal box. However, I think your car is LHD so you may be alright.

DLRAs were used on left field stuff like Esprits and VW flat fours - I believe they're also the turbo carb that you could use for blow through should you want to wang a turbo on it. DHLAs are more commonly used on B series engines in 40 and 45 mm flavour.

Suitable misabs for LHD \ RHD cars can be had from V Performance in the States, you could track down a Ruddspeed manifold, or there's an eBay company based in Greece (who's name I forget) that would also have a suitable misab in stock.

[agent_strangelove]

I don't know anything about those specific Dellortos.

There are several manifolds which folks with RHD use for the dual Weber/Solex/Dellorto set up. Attached are a few photos (from George M. in Australia) of those set ups on RHD cars. I think some of the manifolds are Warnerfold (an Aussie company) that are almost identical to the TMW ones (short). The MISAB ones are very close to the original Volvo R-sport ones.

The first two photos are a set of the original Volvo manifolds (I just held them up to a B20 I had laying about) with a weber. They also have the vibration isolators on them. And then you add on the Velocity stacks and you see why they will not fit on an 1800....


Chris

[Quarterless]

DLRA's are downdraft only carbs. So the inlet has to be pointing at the sky.

[AidanC]

I was offered a pair of Webers before but the conventional wisdom at the time tied in with the preceeding post in that the position of the mounted carb would result in enough inefficiency as to negate the benefit of the Webers. Apparently, the PV is much more suitable. It was also pointed out to me that the further that you move from a stock setup, the more that you're on your own in setup and maintenance. At the very least, you'd probably need good access to a rolling road/dyno. That's why I went for a D cam, twin SUs and B18B head. You have more options with the B20 - KG Trimning in Sweden will bring you as far as you want to go, used as they are to satisfying the needs of crazy Scandinavians. You just need to be prepared to wait.

They would be the best people to advise you about the use of your carbs. Their catalogue is in Swedish (at least it used to be) but still worth a look.

Final advice - make sure that your engine is in perfect nick before enhancing it (I didn't and now have to). Otherwise, sort it out first (minimum hone + rings)

[Alf ista]

Thanks for the advice. Yes, the Dellortos are downdraft. So too, is the Weber but it would fit on the Canon 2845 manifold I am looking at. What I was thinking (with my limited experience) was possibly replacing the single Stromberg with a single twin choke Weber 32. I have a carb lying about and I may get the manifold. Is it worth it? I keep reading on here and elsewhere the trouble people have with tuning twin carb set ups, so maybe a change to a single Weber may be a good thing? TBH I am not too pushed but if I picked it up for good money it might be worth a try. And of course if it didnt work I could always put the Stromberg back on. So, change to the Weber? Or would I see any noticable difference compared to the Stromberg?

[Alf ista]

Just got some pics.

Here is the poor old dejected looking Weber, crying out for some tlc:



And here is the manifold. A Canon 2845:

[AidanC]

Is your current inlet manifold one piece with the exhaust? If you have to cut the inlet manifold off then there's no going back without a replacement.

Other than that, its probably worth a go.

The twin carb setup is easy to tune/maintain once you've done a bit of research but if you're going to try the Weber route you should probably talk to someone whos done it before. Rob/Emma at Amazon Cars might be able to help as they do a bit of rallying.

[Alf ista]

I have separate inlet and outlet manifolds so, I imagine that the whole thing would be easy to reverse at a later date. I dont have the manifold yet, fingers crossed, and of course I dont have a throttle linkage either, but I suppose that could be fabricated.

[Alf ista]

Well, I missed out on the manifold, but only just..... I think I will keep an eye out for one and maybe in the future I might try again. In the meantime, I will make do with getting my car back on the road and stop dreaming of Italian carburettors. Thanks again for the advice.
Hugh.