tank carbs

in the early 70s my best friends dad had a 57 corvette with a 327 4 speed he had this huge carberator on it i had never seen before.... i remember he told us it was off of a tank has any one else ever seen anyone do that before it was a strange looking sucker...... he only raced the car ...i remeber he said they outlawd the carbs at the track and wouldnt let them run them anymore....has anyone else ever seen any wierd stuff like this before

 

Did it look anything like these?

 

yes that exactly what they were i remember he had built some custom adaptors for them thats the only time i ever remember seeing them...

 

Was it a two barrel? If the track had a class for two barrel carbs....I could see it.

I have seen some monsterous two barrels on Seagrave firetrucks with the 906 ci V-12.

 

think i remember him saying it was a two barrel.....

 

heres another thread about them http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=247748&highlight=tank+carb

 

I have the repair manual for two versions of those things, Sherman and I think M-26, ready for when Gotzrider goes to work on his...interesting things, they seem like gigantic iron Webers!

 

Stromberg made a number of DIFFERENT versions, both downdraft and sidedraft. Throttle bores on the more common versions are 2 1/4 (same size as the Rochester Q-Jet secondaries). These will flow approximately 850 CFM (2 barrel scale) or 625 CFM (4 barrel scale). Often, there were two of these on an engine. We have several of these carburetors. We also have a prototype where considerations were for only one on a 1700 plus CID engine that has throttle bores of more than 4 inches.

Most are covered in the Military Tech manual on Stromberg carburetors, however, since the prototype did not make production, it is not covered.

Jon.

 

Military in the '40's and '50's published manuals on Stromberg, Carter, Zenith, and Holley carbs at least. I have those, some in two editions, WWII and '50's. All are excellent sources and cover both some familiar civilian carbs and odd stuff like the tank carbs.
Most useful for rodders would be the Holley one, which covers a bunch of 94 models and close relatives. Stromberg one does not cover EE series, so don't chase after it for that.