High-performance four-barrel carburetors are a hot rodding mainstay. Theyve seen duty on dragstrips, oval tracks, super speedways, road courses, Bonneville, and just about anywhere else that American V-8s have competed. Theyve seen more than a little street time as well; its no wonder, since the hot rodders basic instinct dictates that whats good for the track is good for the street. Unfortunately, that isnt always absolutely true. You may have endured some negative features of performance carbs in the pasthard starts on cold mornings, fouled plugs, sooty tailpipes, or the inability to get out of town on a tank of gas. You probably wrote it off as a sacrifice made in the name of performance.
Of course, the symptoms weve just described were probably not the fault of race-bred carburetors, but rather, improper applications and/or tuning. Many rodders have a tough time overcoming the tendency to go with the bigger-is-better philosophy and consequently talk themselves into running the biggest carbs they can lay their hands on. This may not be the best course of action when youre dealing with an 8.0:1 small-block with the original cam.
It should be a simple matter of selecting the right carburetor and getting it tuned properly, although that can be tougher than it sounds. Even when the proper carburetor model is selected, carb tuning is still an issue. Tuning a carburetor effectively is a skill, one that requires experience to master; it isnt the sort of process a novice is likely to conquer the first time out. One of the biggest obstacles is that accurate tuning requires accurate feedback. In other words, you need to know exactly what the air/fuel ratio is under a variety of conditions to correctly dial in the right jetting, power valves, secondary operation, and so on. Veteran drag racers can read the spark plugs after a run to determine whats going on in the combustion chambers at full song, but those readings dont help that much with dialing in cruising operation.
Now add to this the fact that today, many street rodders are installing performance carbs on mild street engines. These low-compression V-8s, often with RV-style cams and small-port heads, dont usually need massive carburetors. Besides, many contemporary street rodders are more interested in highway performance that strip e.t.s.
Dont get excitedwere not suggesting that you go back to the stock two-barrel. Demon Carburetion has recognized the need for performance carbs in lower-performance applications and has recently introduced a line of carbs that can simplify the selection and tuning process for those with more sedate powerplants. In addition, Demon has also developed a new line of carbs for particular crate engines, providing the desired performance without the usual dial-in procedure.
Before we delve into the features of this new line, lets briefly review the basic features found in all Demons. First, they use billet baseplates, which all but eliminate any chance of snapping off a carb foot if you go a little too tight during installation. The metering blocks are also machined from billet, eliminating any chance of the porosity that can cause internal metering nightmares. Your jets wont strip out, either. The main body of every Demon is produced using a concentra-cast method that ensures perfect alignment of the casting coresno more seams inside the venturii. Those venturii feature a unique patented entry design as well. All Demons also have float-bowl sight glasses, dual fuel inlets, four-corner idle mixture adjust-ability, and built-in power valve blow-out protection.