Lawn mower carb on a Ford 302

[aremmes]

In the list of crazy things to do to a car, this doesn't rate as highly, but it's still pretty weird. Still, that's a pretty big carb for a lawn mower -- I'm pretty sure the one on the 500cc B&S thumper in my riding mower is smaller.

[flatisflat]

@aremmes 45 mpg? So the V8 is starved, and the carb works in that it still mixes air and fuel in the necessary ratio. OK.

[WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAthenGTInowA4]

Running lean enough to get 45mpg out of an old Ford V8 seems........... dangerous. I love melting pistons as much as the next guy, but doing it for fuel economy is silly.

[ForSweden]

ban you tube

[pos_camaro]

@WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAthenGTInowA4 I thought that it would be lean also, but then I realized that it restricts the air as much as the fuel. The ratio should be ok, so it's just choking off the power, not burning the pistons.

[aremmes]

@WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAthenGTInowA4 In the video he shows the engine is actually running a bit rich, around 13.5:1. The "economy" comes from restricting air flow as @pos_camaro points out -- the tiny carb just chokes the intake, as one would expect from the much smaller diameter of the throttle body. If he ran that on a dyno I'd expect the torque curve to resemble a cliff.

[WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAthenGTInowA4]

@aremmes @pos_camaro

Interesting. I guess that makes sense. I'm assuming power is WAAAAY down with less air and fuel. I wonder how low you can go before the power required to move the pistons isn't overcome....