weber DGV vs. strombergs?

[Acollin]

I certainly do not want to get under anyone's skin, but my perspective is a bit more philophical. At what point is a sunbeam no longer a sunbeam? How many bits can be changed out before the car no longer is a legitimate representative of the mark? I certainly respect the engineering gymnastics of those who fit and sculpt, but there must be a line to cross or not to cross.

I suppose we might all answer the question differently and I suppose car club judging and award plaques split hairs to indentify the most subtle of changes. i know this is not a new question, but I would like to hear some thinking on the subject. We drop all sorts of parts into cars to make clones, to inhance performance, to improve reliability, etc but at some point it must stop being what it once was and become something-- other.
Be well all

 

[Barry]

I certainly do not want to get under anyone's skin, but my perspective is a bit more philophical. At what point is a sunbeam no longer a sunbeam? How many bits can be changed out before the car no longer is a legitimate representative of the mark? I certainly respect the engineering gymnastics of those who fit and sculpt, but there must be a line to cross or not to cross.

I suppose we might all answer the question differently and I suppose car club judging and award plaques split hairs to indentify the most subtle of changes. i know this is not a new question, but I would like to hear some thinking on the subject. We drop all sorts of parts into cars to make clones, to inhance performance, to improve reliability, etc but at some point it must stop being what it once was and become something-- other.
Be well all

My first thought was that your post has nothing to do with this thread about Weber DGV versus Stromberg carburetors.

My second thought was that you should join the SAOCA and start a thread in the SAOCA Members and Discussion Forum.

My third thought was that I ignored the rule about DNFTT.

My fourth thought is that everything after post #20 should be deleted or moved to a more appropriate forum.

 

[Tim R]

Acollin,

That is always going to be a question of personal preference and opinion with no absolute right or wrong.

We try to use our Alpines as much as possible, regardless of the weather. My son can do 15,000 miles + in a year. One year I did over 25,000 miles. Some people cover only a couple of hundred miles in an entire year and when the car comes out it is an event. At least one of our cars is always left out in the open rather than tucked away in a garage and I want our Alpines to start and get where we are going regardless of weather. If we left the cars as original then we would have all the unreliability issues of the 1960s coupled with inferior fuel that burns hotter and now contains ethanol!
With a couple of pretty minor modifications the cars start every day and get wherever we need to go. In my opinion it is all a matter of how you want to enjoy your car really.

Tim R

 

[mightyohm]

View attachment 10162 View attachment 10163 View attachment 10164 View attachment 10165 View attachment 10166 Mightohm,

Make sure that you fit the blanking plug in the inlet manifold and NOT the PCD valve and don't miss out the heat insulator. Vent the tappet chest to atmosphere or fit a sealed tappet chest plate (as used on the later 1725 engines) and dump the PCD. If you fit the PCD valve on the new manifold you will weaken the mixture on cylinder 4 under hard acceleration (on standard Series Vs the PCD was originally shared between all four cylinders). We use the forced induction kit and have blocked the horn apertures to increase cooling (Tiger style). This way only ambient temperature air gets force fed to the carb rather than hot engine air re-circulating and ending up in the carb intake and reducing power.
Tim R

Tim, thank you. I am not planning on running the PCV. The car is a series 2 and I am planning to use the original side cover with the vent to atmosphere. That s avoids all of the potential issues of the PCV system.

 

[mightyohm]

John, i used the redline manifold which is essentially a copy of the Warnerford gooseneck. This is the easier option for lhd as the manifold picks the carbs up higher which avoids the steering box issue but makes it tight for the m/c iirc. I have a new straight in short manifold but used the gooseneck to get longer runner s and allow me to run the holbay extended auxiliary venturis and velocity stacks to help with lower end torque. But yes required removal of the scuttle brace.

As for linkage its all parts from redline. I used a central connection to help with carb sync instead of one for each. If you use the weber yoke fitting you can sync by just adjusting the screw on the linkage. That said ive found the dcoes very stable. They only even seem to need tweaking if i take them off the manifold.

Michael,

Thanks for the info. Your setup looks fantastic.

 

[hartmandm]

I moved the thread to Modified.

I think Andrew’s post should be a new thread. But now that the thread moved to Modified that is Bill’s call.

Mike

 

[65beam]

I certainly do not want to get under anyone's skin, but my perspective is a bit more philophical. At what point is a sunbeam no longer a sunbeam? How many bits can be changed out before the car no longer is a legitimate representative of the mark? I certainly respect the engineering gymnastics of those who fit and sculpt, but there must be a line to cross or not to cross.

I suppose we might all answer the question differently and I suppose car club judging and award plaques split hairs to indentify the most subtle of changes. i know this is not a new question, but I would like to hear some thinking on the subject. We drop all sorts of parts into cars to make clones, to inhance performance, to improve reliability, etc but at some point it must stop being what it once was and become something-- other.
You sound like a Tiger owner. So many have asked the question at what point is a Tiger that is being restored using Alpine parts no longer a Tiger. No one has answered that question. The same applies to an Alpine with engine swaps, trans swaps, etc. Maybe someone has converted a Tiger back to an Alpine. The title still says it's a Sunbeam.

 

[Tom H]

Mike, I would prefer that carb swaps be still covered in the Stock category. The Modified forum is pretty full of major engine swaps. I think most of us keeping our Alpines on the road have little interest in searching thru V6, V8, Nissan, etc engine swaps to find info on how to improve and maintain our Alpines with Rootes engines. Might make sense to add a couple words to the Stock Forum "Description" to include "Carb, brake, wiring, etc improvements". And on the Modified forum, maybe add "...such as non Rootes engine swaps". I think acollin's post is a non issue. We have the "Factory Original" forum to cover any situation about "originality". And if 90% (by weight?) of the car was built by Rootes, I think it's appropriate to call it a Sunbeam. And I agree that acollin's post should be a new thread as it really starts discussing "philosophy" instead of answering a question about performance and experience.

Tom