Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Does anyone have any suggestion to the best Carby to use? I have a '77 Rangie with standard 3.5l engine.

At the moment it has a twin throat carby which I thought was from a P76 engine. I took it out last week for it's first run off-road. In most cases it runs fine even up hills but when on a hill it will not idle and is very hard to start again. I have not pulled it down yet but I have been told that these symptoms are typical of a Ford carby which were not much good.

If this is the case I will get a bigger & better one. I heard Holley had a new one out for 4Wd's (ie works on hills) anyone know anything about it?

yep, the holley is called a truck avenger I believe, but is to big for the small 3.5...
Some have had good results with the Rochester Quadrajet...
but for ease of installation an off road use, I dont think you can go past the good old twin strombergs...
Amtravic on this forum pulled his EFI in favour of the quadrajet and swears by them..

Thanks mate. I have never been a big fan of the Strombergs.

Do you or anyone else know if there is any modifications needed to fit the Rochester to a Rangie?

walker wrote:Thanks mate. I have never been a big fan of the Strombergs.

why?? they are an excellent carby... easy and cheap to rebuild... and can run almost upside down...

walker wrote:Do you or anyone else know if there is any modifications needed to fit the Rochester to a Rangie?

i believe an adapter is required for intake manifold and that is really about it..

LPG, Rochester Quadrajet or factory twin Strombergs or EFI.

Thanks all,
I will have a look on the web to see if I can find where you get the Rochester from.

rochesters were used on most carby holden V8's I believe

Call me ingorant but I just can't see why people don't like the twin strombergs that the original Rover V8 came out with in the Rangie

I've owned 4 carbie Rangies (all strommie jobs) over the years and never had any real issues with them. maybe I'm lucky, dunno

My arguement is that the 3.5 V8 is a gutless lump anyway and blokes fit all sorts of gear to them to increase the performance for very little gain. My philosophyis leave them alone and keep them stock, at least they are reliable to an extent

But that's just me I guess. Good luck whichever way you go.

Trav

i agree... they are a very simple carby that are easy to rebuild with hardly any moving parts... maybe a little hard to balance without the right tools.. but once running right they are very reliable..
just bang a set on Walker... you wont be unhappy with them..
you say you have never liked them... but i would suggest that you give em a go..
full reco ones can be found on ebay pretty cheap.. hell, I have a few sets lying at home..

If the Rangie was standard & running well I would agree with you but I bought it with a different (single) carby and the block has been modified to fit it so I thought it might be better to stay along these lines.

If everyone is happy with their strommies maybe I will convert it back.

landy_man wrote:i agree... they are a very simple carby that are easy to rebuild with hardly any moving parts... maybe a little hard to balance without the right tools.. but once running right they are very reliable..
just bang a set on Walker... you wont be unhappy with them..
you say you have never liked them... but i would suggest that you give em a go..
full reco ones can be found on ebay pretty cheap.. hell, I have a few sets lying at home..

I seen a set on e-bay a while back, newies they were too. I think they went for about $175 or someting.

If I had a bit more money to play around with I would of definatley bought them as a spare

Trav

me too...
Walker... the only thing i can think of that would have been modified would be the intake manifold...and there are lots of these lying around on the second hand market...

Aquarangie wrote:Call me ingorant but I just can't see why people don't like the twin strombergs that the original Rover V8 came out with in the Rangie

I've owned 4 carbie Rangies (all strommie jobs) over the years and never had any real issues with them. maybe I'm lucky, dunno

My arguement is that the 3.5 V8 is a gutless lump anyway and blokes fit all sorts of gear to them to increase the performance for very little gain. My philosophyis leave them alone and keep them stock, at least they are reliable to an extent

But that's just me I guess. Good luck whichever way you go.

Trav

Yep I had the twin Strommies and they worked great, on any angle I could drive in & out of even after jetting them up for the 3.9 motor. I did have to add an extra element into the muffler air cleaner between the 2 others, to let it breath properly. Someone probably is selling a part shagged carby complete 3.5 somewhere for peanuts. Spend a bit more & pick up a spare Rangie.

I am happy with my quadrajet. If you have a 4 barrel manifold and want to go that way you can check my set up out. Assuming you are in Melb. Just send a pm or look up LROCV member 359. It may be better (cheaper) to find a second hand set of original carbs and manifold however I am told there is alot of sucess with using a weber carb off an XF Ford.

does anyone know what company makes those 4x4 holleys ?...the ones with the modifications for extreeme angles? any idea how much? i have a holly carb on mine i bought it with...but its a dinosaw and i want to upgrade it to a newer reco one thats been tweaked for offroad use.
I saw an advert in a 4x4 mag for them but i cant remember which one of my hundreds i have at home....

Stick to the stock twin strombergs - I've had a Holley 390 and Weber/Edelbrock 500 on mine and both were less than ideal.

The Holley, OK not an off-road modified one, was just useless - never stayed in tune for more than a week, iced up, floats stuck, tuning screws unwound themselves and was a general complete and utter bitch from start to finish.

The Weber was a LOT better, gained a lot of power BUT you may as well connect the fuel hose straight to the inlet manifold, it really chucks in the fuel. And it hated side slopes, stalled at about 25-30 degrees tilt.

Carbs are never going to be perfect, so for all the time and money you can waste on aftermarket "bling" ones you may as well make do with something less exciting but reliable and cheap.

Some cars had bigger versions of the Strombergs that are a straight swap. They're rare as rocking horse poo over here as I guess a lot of the racers have snapped them up, but you guys might find some on old british cars.

Oh yeah, if you want to be really put off the Weber / Holley, just look at an exploded diagram of one compared to a Stromberg - would give a NASA engineer a heart attack.

Just to add fuel to the fire, i have had a 350 holley on my 81 manual rangie for 8 years and it has never had a problem and as soon as i put it on the power and economy increased - was even getting 22mpg.
Any carb if well set up will be fine.

Loanrangie wrote: Any carb if well set up will be fine.

I agree with that comment, but for all the Holley-equpeed Rangies I have seen since being involved with Rangies, only one that I know of worked okay on hills, but even then it splutterd a bit (not stalled).

Just going on first-hand obsevation/experience. At least yours works

Trav

SWAMPRR wrote:does anyone know what company makes those 4x4 holleys ?...the ones with the modifications for extreeme angles? any idea how much? i have a holly carb on mine i bought it with...but its a dinosaw and i want to upgrade it to a newer reco one thats been tweaked for offroad use.
I saw an advert in a 4x4 mag for them but i cant remember which one of my hundreds i have at home....

ummm..... Holley

http://www.holley.com/HiOctn/ProdLine/P ... TrkAV.html

You beat me to it

I used a 350 Holley on a Nissan Patrol G60 years ago. It is possible to stop them flooding. I extended the breather and ran it to tube which ran through the airfilter and down the side of the motor so the exess fuel which flooded from the front vent did not splash straight into the top of the carby when going up steep rough hills (even the smooth hills were rough in the old Nissan). I could never stop the fuel leaks fom the metering block/bowl though.

Loanrangie wrote: Any carb if well set up will be fine.

The difference is some carbies don't need setting up, the shape of the fuel bowl is important, a deep bowl is better than a wide bowl when the bowl is tilted if you want the pickup to still get fuel and the overflow not to dump it's load down the carby. This is why you need to extend the pickups from the side to the centre of the bowl.

Maybe a carby off an offroad vehicle like large 6cyl Patrol or Landcruiser would be the go with some rejetting, 4.2 litres should be enough to supply a 3.9 V8.