First off lift kits. Im looking to put 2 to 4 inches of lift on my 83 ford f250 XL and was wondering an easy way to do this. I was wondering if new leaf springs could put a couple of inches on it.

Secondly Ive hear you can put a cold air intake on a carburetor but Im not really sure how can someone explain this too me?

 

If you want to lift it, put a kit under it. You can't get it aligned and it will wear the tires if you use springs only.

I would keep the original aircleaner and the hot air hook up to the exhaust manifold. It will be very fussy and not want to run if this feature is not hooked up in cold weather. People take this stuff off and then complain how "cold natured" their Ford is.

 

+1 you have to run warm air to your carb during the cold season - otherwise icing can rear its ugly head along with the poor running caused by it.

Of course if you live in southern California you might not need it...

David

 

Wait...what is this you speak of? My F150 just has a filter over the intake and no aircleaner housing. Definitely NO hot-air intake. To get the thing started in the winter takes an act of God. My Haynes shows the little UFO on the carb, but mine didn't come with that. Start fine hot....cold is a bear. I know my choke pull off is screwed up though.

 

This hot air system won't help the engine start, but it will help keep it running, especially on cold damp days. All stock carbed systems had it from the factory.

This system is the stock aircleaner with a snorkel where the air comes in to the filter housing, and in this snorkel is a flapper valve controlled by vacuum. From underneath the snorkel is a flexible hose connection where a hose connects and runs down to a sheetmetal shroud around the exhaust manifold.

There is a temperature sensor mounted inside the aircleaner near the filter area. A vacuum line from the manifold runs to this sensor, and it controls the vacuum to the flapper door, keeping the air temp coming into the aircleaner constant. It will move the flapper to draw warm air from around the exhaust manifold, or to draw it from outside air.

As was said this helps keep the carb from icing. On a damp day, with the venturi affect inside the carb, and the atomization of the fuel, there is a cooling affect and ice will actually form down inside the carb. Symptoms of this are when the engine starts, everything is fine, and then it starts running rough after about a minute or two, and will start running rich. You think the choke is stuck closed so you run out and make sure it's open, and it is, or you open it with your finger, and it doesn't help, the engine will try to stall. This is ice building up and fouling up the workings inside the carb throat.

Usually after you fight it and finally get where you are going and park it for a few minutes, the warmth from the engine will make it's way up to the carb and thaw it out, and it might be fine the rest of the day.

 

THe cold start issure is probably not directly related to the lack of warm air to the carb, although if comeone didn't understand the system and removed the factory air cleaner, it is hard to tell what else they were ignorant of how and why it works and goofed up as well.

Sounds like you need to go back to factory stock, at least if you live in the northern climates.

The warm air to the intake air will definatly help with driveability, even above freezing temps (say up to 45 to 50 degrees) where the air speeds up thru the venturi and thus drops the temp of the air.

Of course, once the ambiant air warms up, then the thermostate closes off the "warm air" from the exhaust heater and allows the cooler, more dense abiant air in.

Basicly, in a nutshell the factory is trying to keep the inlet air above about 80 degrees to allow the carb to work withiin its design parameters AS WELL as a heated intake manifold to further aid in cold fuel atomization / heat transfer to the carb.

Of course with a more sophisticated, dynamiclly adjustable EFI system, there is no low minimum inlet temp (well at least on most places on Earth that is)

This is definaly one area where the factory does know best, at least as far as driveability / useability goes.

Note: As mentioned, this will not help on a INITIAL start, that is where the choke comes into play.

David