So, on seeing this post I immediately wondered If I would be doing myself a favor to put a pair of the BIG 97's on my S.CO.T blown 284 EAB. The motor is a Rick Schnell build. It's ported , has 1.6in valves and is running an Isky 400 Jr. Cam. Too much carb ?
When you get the answer please share ! Although different animal ... collecting parts for 4-71 stroked Buick 215 mash up build(similar cubic inches to you) ... and clueless myself. Would love these carbs' as well. Way cool read about beautiful stuff.
Great article about the bigger 97s. I have bought many parts for my original Strombergs from Uncle Max and Clive's company (including his throttle body with ported vacuum). All his parts are highest quality.
They are shipping now. I think John ordered his off the website... The natural finish runs $475 each.... $625 for chrome.
Wow-those are nice, and as you said, 4 of them =1000 cfm. Way nicer looking than a big old 4 bbl. Good video too, but you should probably skip the Sham -Wow audition.
I wouldn't think so... They were built to be completely compatible with the original production carbs. Beats me... but you'd be hard pressed to find an uglier carb than the 2G in my opinion. Plus, they are four bolt and inappropriate for many traditional applications.
Four barrel carbs and two barrel carbs cfm flow are not measured the same...Four of the BIG97 would only amount to about a 625 cfm four barrel..just noting...
Sure would have been nice to have those in the early 90's when we were converting Strombergs for alcohol on our V8-60 midgets. Looks like a lot of the issues we had with flow have been addressed with these changes.
I was wondering if they would ever go do the 81 carb over. The 97 is just too large to run on a banger if you want the aesthetics of running a dual carb intake. Never mind the cost of a run down awful 81 at a swap meet is like 500 bucks right now. I guess that I will have to wait.
I want to run 6 on a small block. You could be a hand model, Ryan... There, I've said my peace... or was that piece? Sam
I second the notion that an 81 (V8/60 carb) is needed urgently for guys with multi-carb intakes on streetable early mills.
Friend of mine ran a single big 97 at Pendine last weekend on an overhead converted banger. Ran just over 87.5mph straight out of the box beating quite a few V8's including some small blocks….
I've had my mitts on 'em and they are a treat! Courtesy discount for anyone interested, by the way...
Wow. Am I going to be the first to post a review of running 4 of these big suckers on a big(ish) OHV? Hadn't planned to but Clive supplied me with 4 of them late last year or early this year. I am not an engine tuner and had never had to get elbow deep in tuning carbs, especially 4 at a time. Clive was very helpful and I should thank him here for his patience with me bothering him with my questions, updates and requests for more parts. Clive has been promoting the Big 97s mainly as 3x2 set ups and, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's where most of his testing has been focused. I got hold of an Eelco 6x2 for a nailhead but didn't want the hassle of tuning 6 carbs so opted for 4 Big 97 primaries. (Cant run progressive linkage on 4 on a log). In hindsight it probably would have been a lot easier to run the 6 with 2 primaries and 4 secondaries, but we live and learn. So running 4 of them on direct linkage presented some challenges on my stock 401. Because they are primaries they were jetted way too big to use all at once. They came with 0.058 mains out of the box. I think Clive is now supplying them with 0.056s. To cut to the chase on my set up I ended up with 0.046 mains. Took me a while to get there though. I also had a flat spot just off idle which I fixed by opening up the idle jets (air bleeds). It was leaning out as the throttle plates started to move. Then the last major change was we found the accelerator pump was only giving me a dribble rather than a healthy squirt causing a hesitation when i punched it. Heavier springs on the pumps fixed that. It is probably still not perfect but I think it's as good as I'm likely to get out of a street driven stock 401 with 4 rather large carbs on a straight linkage. It is night and day over the old 3 x 48s on an Offy 3x2 intake I was running. None of what I have written here is in any way a criticism of the Big 97s or Clive. I am impressed by both. Just a quick bit of info for anyone contemplating a similar set up to save you some time. Pete
Hi Knucklenutz, Mike at H&H Flatheads has put a few BIG97 Primary 2x2 sets on SCOT blown motors already, with good results. I won't bang on too long about it, but there should be no such thing as too much carb. The engine takes what it needs, according to a simple math formula of cid x rpm x volumetric efficiency. The carb doesn't force mixture in. And bigger carbs mean slower mixture velocity, which means less turbulence in the manifold, especially in that 90 degree first turn from carb into manifold. Thanks! Clive
Hi Seb, Just a quick note to say that all the Stromberg cfm readings are at 1.5inch Hg, same as a four-barrel. So the Tri-power is an honest, 4-bbl comparable 750cfm. We can all argue about whether any modern engine ever sees even 1.5inch Mercury another day. As most are lucky to see 1 inch, 1.5 actually implies the carb would be too small, restricting airflow so the engine had to pull more vac to get the air it wanted.. Thanks, and thanks to everyone else for your kind words, by the way. Clive
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