KR> Carb On Top

2008-10-12 Thread Dan Heath
The Heads have been re-worked and the compression set to 8.5:1. Putting the
carb on top is an attempt to create a better intake system that will greatly
improve the fuel flow and eliminate the need to run the engine so rich that
carbon builds up on everything. However, as with every change, other changes
are required. Here are a few of them.
http://krbuilder.org/CarbOnTop/index.html

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. 

See N64KR at http://KRBuilder.org - Then click on the pics 
See you at the 2007 - KR Gathering
There is a time for building and a time for FLYING and the time for Flying
has begun.
Daniel R. Heath - Lexington, SC


KR> Carb On Top

2008-10-12 Thread Willie van der Walt

  > Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

  The problem with top mounted carbs are flooding. If you have gravity feed 
and the needle and seat does not working properly . The fuel will end up in 
your sump and breaks down the engine oil. That is if you forget to close the 
main supply from the tank when parking. Regards Willie 
www.riversafaris.co.za





KR> Carb On Top

2008-10-12 Thread Mark Langford
Willie van der Walt wrote:

>  The problem with top mounted carbs are flooding. If you have gravity feed
> and the needle and seat does not working properly .

I don't think an Ellison can leak like that.  The Ellison won't flow at all 
unless the engine is sucking on it.  There is a needle and seat in an 
Ellison, but it's used for pressure regulation of the fuel supply.  Besides, 
the carb will now be the highest point in the fuel system, so I still don't 
see how it could leak.  Steve Bennett has his Ellison mounted on top in his 
KR1.5 for years now, and said he picked up something like 150 rpm over the 
same carb in the "under-the-engine" configuration.

As for comments, it does look like a lot of trouble to move the carb, but 
we'll all learn from Dan's efforts, whether positive or negative.  I do 
think it can be made to work down below, but it may work better up high.  I 
guess we'll see...

Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama
see KR2S project N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford
email to N56ML "at" hiwaay.net




KR> Carb on top

2008-10-12 Thread Dan Heath
Steve Bennett had his Ellison on top, on the 1.5 KR.  Does anyone have or
know where, pictures of this are available.  I am thinking about doing this,
but have a lot of questions.  Such as how to do a good installation of carb
heat.

Has anyone else DONE it.  Please reply to me OFF Net, and I will consolidate
the applicable information, and if I DO it, I will document how I did it
along with any results both positive and negative.

Thank you very much for your time. 

See N64KR at http://KRBuilder.org - Then click on the pics 
See you at the 2007 - KR Gathering
There is a time for building and a time for FLYING and the time for Flying
has begun.
Daniel R. Heath - Lexington, SC


KR> Carb on top

2008-10-12 Thread Colin & Bev Rainey
Any builder looking to run with carb on top needs to run one that is similar to 
an auto carb in that it has a good needle and seat style control for regulating 
fuel into the bowl.  The problem that I have seen with alot of carbs being 
adapted to the KR engines is that they are purpose built, just not for our 
purpose.  A carb used on our engines needs to be one designed for a moving 
vehicle, not adapted from an industrial application, or a farm tractor, or 
something else.  A good candidate is the Weber series of carbs. Another are the 
Mikuni carbs from 4 cylinder engines (not from seadoos, not large enough) like 
the Honda Protégé or Accord.  These carbs are designed to run daily with engine 
heat, so on top is okay, and they run with fuel pumps, so that is okay. Use the 
book AUTO MATH BOOK by John Lawlor to calculate the necessary cfm requirements 
for your application and then match the carb to it, always choosing to the low 
side of the cfm requirement. Example: if your engine calculates to needing say 
368 cfm at your peak rpm, then choose an available 350 cfm carb, or 325 cfm 
whichever is readily available. This is one time where bigger is NOT better. 
Larger will cause hesitations, surging, and mixture problems through all ranges 
except peak rpm (which is what the carb would be selected to work at only in 
this case). Testing has shown that an oversized carb will actually cause the 
engine to slow down, or make less power not make more.  Also make sure that it 
is a factory style carb and not after market like a Holley, which will require 
jetting and adjusting for all ranges and changes in season.  Acquire a Carter 
brand electric pump which uses a better pumping mechanism to prevent flooding 
and has more volume flow without the pressure (see the Weber Carb site).  The 
Posa requires too many modifications to make it acceptable. I think Jim Faughn 
is still running one on his 2180 VW.  He goes into alot of detail on his site 
about it, as does Orma. Good reading.

And here is a little tip alot of builders are missing: if you use a carb of 
late model design, say after 1975, it will not only be designed for best lean 
mix which will yield best performance, but will NOT require mixture control as 
it will be equipped with a barometrically controlled diaphragm that will 
automatically lean the mixture as you climb or atmospheric conditions change, 
the same way that the new FADEC engines alter the mix with electronic control 
by leaning the mixture. You will need to set the idle mixture and then the rest 
is preset mechanically based on factory adjustments internally. This is why the 
carb MUST be matched properly to the engine.  They also have an accelerator 
pump eliminating the need for a primer system, AND making acceleration smoother 
due to fuel being added as the throttle is opened at the same time, something 
that even some of the aviation carbs do not have which cause the typical 
popping back and hesitation when the throttle is opened rapidly from idle. I 
have heard counter thoughts on this but we cannot replace the decades of 
development that have gone into the successful carbs of later cars. Use as is 
including the choke. The electric choke will do 2 things: make cold starts a 
non-issue, and will allow for an automatic richening of the mix if the incoming 
air is too cold. Power is applied to the choke to keep it hot, so the carb temp 
has to get really low for it to come on, but if it does, the mix will richen to 
compensate for low temp of the incoming air for proper fuel atomization. These 
enhancements took many years to develop and cured the mysterious surging, flat 
spots, "vapor locking" and other drivability problems associated with the 
pre-emission carbs.

Just a quick note: long skinny runners for intake are more rpm sensitive and 
provide a better idle "signal" for smoother acceleration; short fat runners are 
better for overall rpm performance and make more power, but do not provide a 
good "signal" to the carb at low to intermediate rpm.

More on this later

Colin 
crain...@cfl.rr.com
http://kr-builder.org/Colin/index.html
KR2(td) N96TA
Sanford, FL
Apex Lending, Inc.
407-323-6960 (p)
407-557-3260 (f)
crai...@apexlending.com


KR> Carb on top

2008-10-12 Thread raybeth...@sbcglobal.net

- Original Message - 
From: "Colin & Bev Rainey" <crain...@cfl.rr.com>
To: "KRnet" <kr...@mylist.net>
Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2005 1:25 PM
Subject: KR> Carb on top


Any builder looking to run with carb on top needs to run one that is similar 
to an auto carb in that it has a good needle and seat style control for 
regulating fuel into the bowl.  The problem that I have seen with alot of 
carbs being adapted to the KR engines is that they are purpose built, just 
not for our purpose.  A carb used on our engines needs to be one designed 
for a moving vehicle, not adapted from an industrial application, or a farm 
tractor, or something else.  A good candidate is the Weber series of carbs. 
Another are the Mikuni carbs from 4 cylinder engines (not from seadoos, not 
large enough) like the Honda Protégé or Accord.  These carbs are designed to 
run daily with engine heat, so on top is okay, and they run with fuel pumps, 
so that is okay. Use the book AUTO MATH BOOK by John Lawlor to calculate the 
necessary cfm requirements for your application and then match the carb to 
it, always choosing to the low side of the cfm requirement. Example: if your 
engine calculates to needing say 368 cfm at your peak rpm, then choose an 
available 350 cfm carb, or 325 cfm whichever is readily available. This is 
one time where bigger is NOT better. Larger will cause hesitations, surging, 
and mixture problems through all ranges except peak rpm (which is what the 
carb would be selected to work at only in this case). Testing has shown that 
an oversized carb will actually cause the engine to slow down, or make less 
power not make more.  Also make sure that it is a factory style carb and not 
after market like a Holley, which will require jetting and adjusting for all 
ranges and changes in season.  Acquire a Carter brand electric pump which 
uses a better pumping mechanism to prevent flooding and has more volume flow 
without the pressure (see the Weber Carb site).  The Posa requires too many 
modifications to make it acceptable. I think Jim Faughn is still running one 
on his 2180 VW.  He goes into alot of detail on his site about it, as does 
Orma. Good reading.

And here is a little tip alot of builders are missing: if you use a carb of 
late model design, say after 1975, it will not only be designed for best 
lean mix which will yield best performance, but will NOT require mixture 
control as it will be equipped with a barometrically controlled diaphragm 
that will automatically lean the mixture as you climb or atmospheric 
conditions change, the same way that the new FADEC engines alter the mix 
with electronic control by leaning the mixture. You will need to set the 
idle mixture and then the rest is preset mechanically based on factory 
adjustments internally. This is why the carb MUST be matched properly to the 
engine.  They also have an accelerator pump eliminating the need for a 
primer system, AND making acceleration smoother due to fuel being added as 
the throttle is opened at the same time, something that even some of the 
aviation carbs do not have which cause the typical popping back and 
hesitation when the throttle is opened rapidly from idle. I have heard 
counter thoughts on this but we cannot replace the decades of development 
that have gone into the successful carbs of later cars. Use as is including 
the choke. The electric choke will do 2 things: make cold starts a 
non-issue, and will allow for an automatic richening of the mix if the 
incoming air is too cold. Power is applied to the choke to keep it hot, so 
the carb temp has to get really low for it to come on, but if it does, the 
mix will richen to compensate for low temp of the incoming air for proper 
fuel atomization. These enhancements took many years to develop and cured 
the mysterious surging, flat spots, "vapor locking" and other drivability 
problems associated with the pre-emission carbs.

Just a quick note: long skinny runners for intake are more rpm sensitive and 
provide a better idle "signal" for smoother acceleration; short fat runners 
are better for overall rpm performance and make more power, but do not 
provide a good "signal" to the carb at low to intermediate rpm.

More on this later

Colin
crain...@cfl.rr.com
http://kr-builder.org/Colin/index.html
KR2(td) N96TA
Sanford, FL
Apex Lending, Inc.
407-323-6960 (p)
407-557-3260 (f)
crai...@apexlending.com
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