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Too rich for my own good

To: british-cars@encore.com
Subject: Too rich for my own good
From: carl@neocad.com (Carl Stern)
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 91 10:30:24 MDT

     Hi.  Mr. Question here again.  No desk toys yet. 

     I had my first stranding last night in my MGB, but I've owned it a 
month so I knew it was coming.  I believe it flooded on me.  I finally had
someone stick their fingers into the carb intakes and hold the pistons up.
That finally let enough air through at about half throttle to get it started.
I am a novice at this and do expect to become an SU expert.  I am not yet 
though so tell me how my diagnosis is.

  (74 MGB, twin SU HIF4 carbs, manual choke)

The reasons I suspect it is running rich are:
  -It almost always starts without any choke use, even in the morning, temp 60F
  -There is a lot of soot in the end of the tailpipe
  -If I drive around town a lot in traffic without the revs up, it'll start
     to load up and the idle gets real rough and drops.  Eventually it will
     stall if not kept alive with the throttle.
  -The guy I bought it from had to lean out the carbs to pass emissions, but he
     then reset them.  Maybe it was better off leaner.
  -My idle is usually in the 1000-1200 rpm range, but it varies

Is it possible it is just too choked?  If so how do I correct this?  Or do I
really need to completely retune the carbs?  Do people like Uni-syns, 
Colortunes, or something else?

 Thanks 
 Carl - former owner of a gold 73 Chevy Bel Air that James Bond drove from the 
        back seat at the beginning of "Live and Let Die".  



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