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Home > Archive > Alternative Power sources > September 2005 > Fish carburetor
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| Bret Ludwig 2005-09-03, 8:21 pm |
| Saw three of them new in boxes at a yard sale today. Owner wanted $10
apiece. Yeah, they're a scam...but I hear the little one works better
than the piece of shit Solex on an old VW. Should I have bought one, if
only for a pencil holder?
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| Harry Chickpea 2005-09-03, 10:21 pm |
| "Bret Ludwig" <bretldwig@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Saw three of them new in boxes at a yard sale today. Owner wanted $10
>apiece. Yeah, they're a scam...but I hear the little one works better
>than the piece of shit Solex on an old VW. Should I have bought one, if
>only for a pencil holder?
I'll bite. What is a fish carburetor? (I'm goinna regret this)
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| Accessory Section 8 2005-09-04, 1:21 am |
| No, a Fish carburetor was a single-barrel carb with jets in the
throttle plate that was sold to the gullible for huge sums from after
the war to as late as the early Nineties. Wild claims of colossal
mileage and multifuel capability were made. The mileage was never
better than a properly jetted conventional carb and certainly worse
than FI, but the multifuel claim had some merit-you could run ethyl
alcohol by simply adjusting the screw. Of course, the old simple
conventional carbs could be rejetted in five minutes, and the Fish had
the distinct disadvantage that you could-like an aircraft engine with
the red mixture knob-lean the engine into stochiometric at full power,
where the valves went through the exhaust and the piston tops melted.
No one talked about that.
Many were sold and never installed, apparently.
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| Bret Ludwig 2005-09-05, 9:21 pm |
| The Fish carb story is a fascinating one. There were a fair number
produced, and a surprising number are still in their original box and
come up for sale now and again. There have been at least five
subsequent manufacturers of "Fish" carbs after the original.
Getting an engine with more than one Fish to run right would require
it be fitted with EGT probes for each cylinder. In fact keeping even
one Fish going very long was a hassle.
The main problem with a Fish is setting correct fuel/air mixture
throughout the operating range of the engine. But OTOH all polished up
it would look cool on a vintage style hot rod.
Just don't expect any better mileage over a plain old single barrel
carb.
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| Bret Ludwig 2005-09-05, 10:21 pm |
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Steve Spence wrote:
> and worse performance, mileage, and emissions than a computer controlled
> fuel injection system.
Much. OTOH you can fix a Fish by the side of the road with a pocket
knife....
Mechanical constant flow speed density FI with electronic supervisory
control is the best way to go for spark ignition engines. However, no
one wants to bother.
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| JoeSixPack 2005-09-29, 4:21 pm |
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"Accessory Section 8" <jt8d@cbgb.net> wrote in message
news:1125805992.102803.81640@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> No, a Fish carburetor was a single-barrel carb with jets in the
> throttle plate that was sold to the gullible for huge sums from after
> the war to as late as the early Nineties. Wild claims of colossal
> mileage and multifuel capability were made. The mileage was never
> better than a properly jetted conventional carb and certainly worse
> than FI, but the multifuel claim had some merit-you could run ethyl
> alcohol by simply adjusting the screw. Of course, the old simple
> conventional carbs could be rejetted in five minutes, and the Fish had
> the distinct disadvantage that you could-like an aircraft engine with
> the red mixture knob-lean the engine into stochiometric at full power,
> where the valves went through the exhaust and the piston tops melted.
> No one talked about that.
>
> Many were sold and never installed, apparently.
>
It's called running on an excessively lean mixture. Most older light planes
came with just such a mixture control, and it's easy to reduce the
fuel-to-air mixture all you want. What happens with a too-lean mixture is
pretty good mileage, but the damage to the engine from overheating and
pre-ignition makes the whole thing a destructive practice.
Honda engineered a two-chamber engine (the CVCC) that allowed the engine to
run on a very lean mixture without damage. This was accomplished by
adjoining the main combustion chamber to a smaller, ignition chamber that
burned a richer fuel-to-air mixture than the main chamber.
http://www.luk-korbmacher.de/Autos/gloss003.htm
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