best carberator for the stock slant 6

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theshootist

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Hey guys! Well I've got a 1970 swinger with the slant 6 about to be rebuilt but am not sure what carberator would give me the best performance. I was thinking about souping up the engine but since it's my first attempt I think I'll just take it easy on my brain. Any Ideas would be helpful:salut:
 
Nothing wrong with a stock /6. Spend the money on good machine work and pistons and stuff.
 
For stock heads and exhaust, the best bang for buck is probably changing to the Super Six 2-barrel intake (ca 80's Aspen, Volare) w/ the Carter 2 barrel BBD carb. Many posts on that. Maybe $150 for parts.

You might do a bit better w/ a small 4-barrel carb, but intakes for that are $200+ and only helps with a custom head job to bigger valves, bigger exhaust, and maybe bigger cam. Maybe $700.

By far the best performance is to design in a turbocharger. That is high-skill work, but can still be affordable if you are resourceful, can weld, and adapt junkyard parts. Search posts on that.
 
A super six is more expensive than that. At least $200 for an intake, air cleaner, and kickdown linkage + brackets. Then you'll need a decent carb. You can either get an unknown or reman carb or you can do the right thing and find a NOS carb for $200. Then you've got to get the good gaskets and either do the work yourself or have a machine shop resurface the manifolds. You'll also need a new accelerator cable while you're at it.

To the original poster...why don't you tell us what you want your car to do. Do you want horsepower or do you want gas mileage?
 
All good post above.
I like the stock 1920 single barrel holley for drivability and milage.
Easy to tune and maintain.
 
I recently got a 64 Slant Six with the Carter BBS. Long ago I had a Slant Six with the Holley 1920. That Holley drove me nuts. I suspected my problems were something else until I finally got a good 1920 carb (after ~3 others from auto parts stores).

The BBS looks like a smarter design. It is very similar to the 2-barrel BBD that was used forever by Mopar on the SB and finally on the Slant. The 1920 has a side fuel bowl that often leaks and you can't "pop the top" to verify the fuel level like you can in the BBS.

Much of the internals in the 1920 are sealed so you don't know what might be stuck in there and rebuilders probably don't rebuild those. It has a diaphragm operated "economizer" rod that is probably harder to know if it is working. It appears that the "metering rod" replaces that in the BBS and it seems you can test that better.

I am sure others will chime in with better info. My impression is that the 1920 is a cheaper and more problematic design. My 64 sure runs smoother than my 69 ever did, except with the final 1920 carb that actually worked.
 
Thanks for the info guys. Tthis is my first build so I'm ignorant of what to do and what works best. I've taken most of the stuff off the engine, and plan to pull it this week. I found a shop near buy that my friends recommend and was impressed with the owner he told me he would rebuild it for $1,300 and that seems very fair with a 3 year warranty I think. I would like some speed but don't know how to do it without having to change a bunch of stuff yet maintaining gas millage as this is my first time.
 
ESP47 said:
A super six is more expensive than that. At least $200 for an intake, air cleaner, and kickdown linkage + brackets. Then you'll need a decent carb. You can either get an unknown or reman carb or you can do the right thing and find a NOS carb for $200. Then you've got to get the good gaskets and either do the work yourself or have a machine shop resurface the manifolds. You'll also need a new accelerator cable while you're at it.

To the original poster...why don't you tell us what you want your car to do. Do you want horsepower or do you want gas mileage?
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Also being new at this and interested in putting a Super Six on my 69. Do I need to get the manifolds resurfaced?
 
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Stroker, do they make an adapter to put 3 225's under that? :-0

Holley 1920 wheezer is a peach. Get one, clean it out and rebuild it with a rebuild kit, about 30 minutes and 15 bucks. no fuss, no muss, forget about it. put a 2.25 inch head pipe off your exhaust manifold and run 2" back to the exhaust. IF you go super 6, intake is 100 EZ, kickdown is another 50-100 (why, No idea) and the 2bbl is probably the least expensive part of the kit. You can go Holley 350/500 2bbl if you have a manual trans with a Rochester(carter 2v) to Holley adapter plate. My humble advice, spend your cash on a nice paint job, interior, tunes and just enjoy it for what it is, a reliable cruising 6.
 
for reliability and mileage BBS. For performance you can get a 2x1 manifold. Run a pair of BBS's but do not over-carburate your engine. If you add carb, add flow.
 
good advice guys, and so on to the next novice question. Back in the 70's when you could buy leaded gas with a higher octane level these slant sixes ran just fine but now that we don't have the same quality of fuel does the guy doing the the engine rebuild typically bore out the heads for larger pistons to compensate for poorer fuel or does he keep it the same as it was back in the day?
 
pacuda59 said:
Also being new at this and interested in putting a Super Six on my 69. Do I need to get the manifolds resurfaced?
Click to expand...


Bolt them together (with stove gasket in between) and put a straight edge on there and see how they look. If they are pretty far out of whack then you'll probably want to resurface them. If there are just a few highs and lows here and there, you can probably get by using a long sanding board and a couple hours of sanding. Be sure to get Remflex gaskets as well. You don't want to spring an exhaust or vacuum leak and go through the whole process again down the road.
 
As others have said, the 1920 is definitely the best choice for a STOCK slant six with budget in mind, not to mention it would have been factory on your car so you won't have to deal with custom linkages or anything. I've got one in my car and it's been a pleasure since being rebuilt -Dan
 
ESP47 said:
A super six is more expensive than that. At least $200 for an intake, air cleaner, and kickdown linkage + brackets. Then you'll need a decent carb. You can either get an unknown or reman carb or you can do the right thing and find a NOS carb for $200. Then you've got to get the good gaskets and either do the work yourself or have a machine shop resurface the manifolds. You'll also need a new accelerator cable while you're at it.

To the original poster...why don't you tell us what you want your car to do. Do you want horsepower or do you want gas mileage?
Click to expand...

or you could just wait for someone to give away a supersix that they don't want anymore. I gave away 2 supersix engines not long ago because I changed to v8
 
theshootist said:
good advice guys, and so on to the next novice question. Back in the 70's when you could buy leaded gas with a higher octane level these slant sixes ran just fine but now that we don't have the same quality of fuel does the guy doing the the engine rebuild typically bore out the heads for larger pistons to compensate for poorer fuel or does he keep it the same as it was back in the day?
Click to expand...


The lack of lead in fuel is because of catalytic converters. Running unleaded is still OK but your car definately wants the lead. Hardening the valve seats is good. Lead additive is good (with octane booster) Stupid Environment. :bom:
 
theshootist said:
the same quality of fuel does the guy doing the the engine rebuild typically bore out the heads for larger pistons to compensate for poorer fuel or does he keep it the same as it was back in the day?
Click to expand...
Unleaded fuel is not poorer quality. You can still get high octane ratings, at a price. Most people bore out a block to fix wear, not for more power, but it is much more expensive than a hone, re-ring, and re-use existing pistons.

Unleaded fuel turned out to not be as disastrous to older engines as originally thought. The problem is that the exhaust valves wear into the head faster since the lead oxide provided a cushion. For moderate driving and factory springs, that is probably a 100K mi wear concern. How do you know? If the compression is good, your engine is good. At that point, you might install larger exhaust valves to get to new metal. You can also have special hardened valve seats installed. I had that done on my 383 in 2001 and for only ~$15 per cylinder. Actually, I had it done earlier but the machine shop said they used regular seats, not hardened steel (can't trust many shops).

Newer engines arent' immune. Chrysler botched the Magnum design by induction hardening the cast iron around the exhaust seats. That worked for valve recession, but the heads are prone to crack between intake and exhaust, which is worse and made many boat anchors. All aluminum heads (most cars since 1985) surely have hardened steel valve seats, but the heads are prone to warp at the slightest overheat. Still, the weight savings is nice.
 
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