Like many of you, (sometimes unexplainable) I have a fascination with the Stromberg 97 and the other variations; big logo, small logo, 81, 48, LZ, etc. And, though I haven't been on here much for years, and to completely level with you, I feel like I left a little unfinished project with Bruce Lancaster (the neck up) and I (the fat fingers on the keyboard) had going years ago with tech on the 97's. Full disclosure, I can't hold the proverbial candle to what he knew. Lucky for us, much of his brain is left here, right here in our garage in the form of his thread replies. So, please feel free to chime in, take pics of your crap and post it up, too. My goal is just to "look" at some of the carbs I have and notice some of the subtleties. These 'ole things have survived many owners, who knows what, life after the depression, mad men drag racing and feeling rushed between heats, dropped on the concrete floor and you name it. Heck, they may have literally been to the salt flats and back! As we always say, if they could only tell their story.
I just picked up this 48 off of Facebook Marketplace, believe it or not. The folks that were generous enough to ship it, didn't know what it was even for, nor that they held a legend in their hands. As usual, I asked if they had more like it or anything that it fit on.....no luck! At first glance you notice it doesn't have a 97 logo. So, that would make it a 48! Oh, wait just a second. But the air horn uses the detent type choke and has the winter/summer ball. Has this thing been tinkered with? And, if you look closely, it has the EE-1 designation. Someone has been playing hanky panky and screwed up the gene pool as Lancaster would say. You can also notice the arm sticking off of it for, I assume a choke? And, lastly, it has....wait for it.....a vacuum port!? Alright, obviously this thing was intended for a later model. Hey, I could be waaaay off on some of these "oberservations" so please say what you think and/or know. This is more about learning... *Edit: Hold on....type on CPU and trying to post pics from phone....app doesn't like doing so...
This is just an air horn but notice the little hole drilled right above where the inlet valve and float go. Must have been a South Bend heater in the family tree along the line.... It has the choke lever detent....pure 97....
This one has some I'm not sure what is. First the poor 'ole 97 logo has a chip out of the 9. Sacrilege I say! But, look carefully right above the 97. See it? It's a "67." What is this? I know the .45 below is the jetting. Again, this thing must have been assembled from multiple carbs. The top is black, the body and base. It has the EE-1, summer/winter and choke detent. I guess I should have measured the pump rod length to see if it's right.
My 97s on a vintage Cragar ... Picked up a Long time ago. Outta lufkin Tx. I believe... The box with the st amp collection is how it was shipped!
I haven't got to show this one off, lately. I thought it went up in the garage fire so I was really glad to see find it alive and well. This is a pretty cool cut-away but I like it even more because it came from an 'ole 50's local dirt track guy that raced his whole life. I bought as much old flathead stuff off of him as I could afford at the time. As I got paid, I'd go buy more off of him. He literally lived up a creek in a holler. You had to drive through a section of the creek. If the creek was up, you didn't visit him. Just a nice guy. His grandson has gone on to become a well known dirt track frame builder. Swartz racing chassis. I plan on giving it a proper cleaning and display it on a better base. I never get tired of looking at it and studying it. It looks quite pure bred 97....all the features are there. Notice the little solder dot on the bowl where they cut the other side of the inlet valve area and had to support the float on the other side....
Last one for the evening.... This one came from the 'ole roundy round guy, too. He had a bedroom in his old house that dresser drawers full of old flathead stuff. When we went shopping, he would only let a few things go at a time. He held out on this one for quite a while before he'd let me buy it. I assume because it was "new." I'm not sure if the box is accurate or not but as you can tell, he marked it up- several times- just in case you might forget what year/s it fit. I'm pretty sure 48 should be included, too. It is a very nice piece, certainly a rebuild and never used. It has all the pedigree of pure 97. Notice it has a repaired placed in the air horn for a gas heater. It has the .45 stamped above the 97 logo. The tag says, I think, "Tim Mckinni's New Carburetor Ford V8." What was the story. Did Tim never get his carb back? Did he die before he returned. Did he get it and never use it then sold out or died? Who was Tim? Wouldn't it be cool to know? What about the "K" scribed in the reveal on the air horn, right between the horn and the body? Was this so the owner to know that he got back HIS carb? Ok, what is the .098 on the inlet valve?
Stromberg produced 18 different model EE-1 carbs for Ford, either as O.E. or aftermarket. An additional 42 experimental models were tested, that were rejected (or produced in very limited quantities) These numbers do not count the 10 EE-7/8 (a.k.a. model 81 ) (2 production, 8 experimental) or the 9 EE-1's (2 production, 7 experimental) produced for Lincoln. Jon.
6 large logo 97's running 18 years on this car. I also have a 348 Chevy manifold with 6small logo and a few extras.
That's interesting. Do you have some docs you could take good pics of and post them up, here? Thanks!
I have the documentation, but as you can imagine, Stromberg did not consider the EE-1 Ford carb as "special", so all of the documentation for these carbs is embedded with the rest of the Stromberg documentation. I have spent time over the last 35 years going through this documentation just to build an index. Somewhere, there should be a thread on these forums concerning the index which I posted; also, I posted the drawing of one of the bowls showing the large "97". Search should find these threads. Jon.
Here is a set up I put together to put on my flattie once I have put some miles on the motor and got it broken in. I didn't want the hassle of trying to break in a new engine and also tune 3 carbs at the same time. Not sure if I will run the stacks or not. Probably will use some air cleaners with filters on the street.
The Jalopy Journal
