I am looking at buying a 82 f150 2wd with auto transmission with the inline 6 and have a carb question. I noticed the truck had a Holley 4 barrel on it. Isnt that excessive? When i test drove it, it would stall around corners. Other than that it drove great. Should i get a different carb (1 or 2 BBL) or is it possible to adjust the 4 bbl to run well? What about fuel economy between the different carbs.

 

Depends on the cfm of the Holley. If it is a 500 cfm, it will tune and run just fine.

 

Most people buy the Holley 390cfm 4bbl for the 300 six, but it's an expensive carb. If you look on the front air horn you can find out what it has. Stalling around corners sounds like a simple external float adjustment on that type carb.

Remember you are just running on the two front barrels most of the time.

 

Thanks. I am bringing the truck home tomorrow and will look at the carb number. Would it be good to run with the carb in there or to replace it with a 1 bbl? How to you adjust the external float? I know how to adjust the internal.

 

The holleys have two floats, one for the front and one for the rear. On the pass side of the carb on the side of the bowels are site plugs. When you pull these out, the fuel level should be at the bottom of the hole. On top of the bowel is a large screw and a nut. Take a large flat screwdriver and loosen the screw on top, and then turn the nut clockwise to lower the fuel level, and counter to raise the fuel level, and then re-lock the screw on top. You do this for each fuel bowel.

If you find out this is the 390 carb, I would keep it. It's a nice setup if it runs good and is sorted out already.

 

I would be only using the front barrels on this carb so i would only adjust the front bowl?

 

No, you need to adjust both. If the rear bowel gets too high, fuel can spill over into the engine at the rear of the carb. You will use the rear part of the carb if you nail the engine for power.

If you take the rear site plug out, and fuel pours out of the hole, then it's too high. If you find the rear is too high, it takes a little time to get the rear level correct, since it hardly uses any fuel normally. If it's high in the rear, I take the adjustment loose and turn it clockwise at least one full turn. This will bring the adjustment low. I then take it out on the road and nail it a couple of times to use up the fuel in the rear bowel. When you get back, hopefully the rear fuel level is low when you take the site plug out. I then bring the level up slowly, till the fuel will slosh out when I push down on the fender and shake the truck. Keep starting and stopping the engine to raise the adjuster, and try to mop up the spilled fuel as much as you can to prevent fires.

You don't have to go though this on the front bowel adjustment, since the engine uses the fuel more quickly out of the front bowel. When you lower the level in the front bowel, the fuel will lower pretty quickly, especially if you rev the engine a little bit.

 

I got the truck home and it didnt stall at all. The carb looks brand new. I will have to get the numbers off it. I did notice the small rubber hose between the fuel filter and the metal fuel line was bend over and kinked pretty bad. I have replaced it but havent test drove it yet.