1970 Dodge Charger 440 4bll carburetor questions

[eldubb440]

I think someone has already said it, but you don't need a "Mopar expert" 100 miles and 3 weeks away to look at your car.
These engines are pretty basic and operate the same across all makes - Mopar, Chevy, Ford etc.
Any competent old school mechanic should be able to help you.

Also, you're focussing too much on the carburetor brand/type/cfm. You should be able to bolt on any carb from say 600 to 750 cfm and it will work ok once set up. Ultimate performance might differ, but the engine should run ok with no backfire.

1 or 2 hours of basic checks and I bet it will be either fixed or you'd know what the issue was.

 

[Geoff 2]

Matchek,
Carter carb numbering was sequential. The carb # was either stamped on a mounting foot or some earlier carbs had a tag under one of the airhorn screws.
A few examples, all AFBs: 1959 383 #2950. 1965 273 #3853. 1967 440 # 4326; etc.
Sequential listing continued with the AVS & TQ models.

Edel carbs also used a 4 digit number, bit it started with 1, eg 1405.

 

[matchek]

9636

Thank you RemC. It is the number then. Wow - it's a real Carter then. I take it based on the number format that is how we're able to tell it's a Carter. Perhaps Carter carbs starts off with a serial type number, then the model number.

 

[matchek]

Matchek,
Carter carb numbering was sequential. The carb # was either stamped on a mounting foot or some earlier carbs had a tag under one of the airhorn screws.
A few examples, all AFBs: 1959 383 #2950. 1965 273 #3853. 1967 440 # 4326; etc.
Sequential listing continued with the AVS & TQ models.

Edel carbs also used a 4 digit number, bit it started with 1, eg 1405.

Thank you Geoff that is great information. Did you say why you thought my carb was Carter though? I think it is because of the picture of the ID number of the carb I posted? I just wanted to say your carb is a Carter because of _____________. so I don't make any assumptions.

 

[matchek]

I think someone has already said it, but you don't need a "Mopar expert" 100 miles and 3 weeks away to look at your car.
These engines are pretty basic and operate the same across all makes - Mopar, Chevy, Ford etc.
Any competent old school mechanic should be able to help you.

Also, you're focussing too much on the carburetor brand/type/cfm. You should be able to bolt on any carb from say 600 to 750 cfm and it will work ok once set up. Ultimate performance might differ, but the engine should run ok with no backfire.

1 or 2 hours of basic checks and I bet it will be either fixed or you'd know what the issue was.

Well the Carb and CFM inquiry was to find out what the stock brand and CFM was for this 440 engine. Even thought anything may work okay, I wanted to know what was stock and the original intent. I think I can safely say that it came with a Carter carb with 625 CFM - at least that was rating at the time. That inquiry is not my issue now.

As as "any" competant old school mechanic can help. True, and still have looking but easier said then done these days in my neck of the woods. As I mentioned the benefit of a Mopar expert looking at it is he can better help me for other items and plans for the car. They also have spare parts to interchange to diagnose and improbe quicker. I am not ruling out looking for other competant mechanics close to me - just have not found one who is available yet.

 

[Geoff 2]

Your carb IS a Carter because of the 9XXX stamping on the mounting foot.

 

[RemCharger]

@matchek here is a listing for your competition series carb straight out of the carter catalog.

 

[matchek]

As an update thank you all so much for your advice here on this thread! To make a long story short, the new mechanic I took it too, removed and cleaned the Carter carb (also blew with air hose), adjusted the timing, put on new spark plug wires and clips and the car runs great. You guys were right, just need a good cleaning and tune up. The mechanic who has been working on classics for 35 years said my Mopar was the best running Mopar he ever driven in and that included all of the new engines that he installed along the way. Wow! What a compliment. (there were no vacuum leaks but this mechanic thought one spark plug wire may have been burnt from sitting on the engine block - this could have been from when the previous mechanic was testing the motor).

Before the the carb cleaning, the engine did not responsd to adjustments, but after cleaning and new wires, it responds like it should.

I finally got it back today, drove it around town and it ran great. So keeping the Carter carb and you all were right about it! Thank you so much. So this thread has been completed.

Having that said on the way home on the 36th mile, it overheated and I wrote about that on the Heating / Cooling forum. Please go to that thread for that issue. But the carb issues is now solved.

 

[matchek]

For a fairly stock car, I’d stick with a Carter.

Just want to do another shout out to everyone on this thread who adamantly advised to look into repairing the existing Carter carb on my 440 rather than replacing it with a Holley when two mechanics recommended replacing it with a Holley. I passionatley communicated the passion from this forum as to how great y'll thought the Carters were and all it needed was to be removed, cleaned, and blown compressed air threw it. Or at worst rebuilt. After the cleaning, our hunch is it got gunked up from previous owners using Ethonal gas and it sat and got gummed up. I probably could have done this myself afterall.

While I was driving on Route 40 highway yesterday from the shop, a group of a 1/2 dozen Harley Davidson bikers pulled up to me, paused, all gave me a thumbs up in unison, and then speed off. I got chills down my neck. They were all pround of American muscle. I had a toothache but that made my day.

Thumbs up for this board! The car/Carter carb runs so nice - no stumble, no backfire. At idle don't even know sometimes that it is running so smooth I get nervous that it stalled. Thanks guys!

 

[RayHemi]

Just want to do another shout out to everyone on this thread who adamantly advised to look into repairing the existing Carter carb on my 440 rather than replacing it with a Holley when two mechanics recommended replacing it with a Holley. I passionatley communicated the passion from this forum as to how great y'll thought the Carters were and all it needed was to be removed, cleaned, and blown compressed air threw it. Or at worst rebuilt. After the cleaning, our hunch is it got gunked up from previous owners using Ethonal gas and it sat and got gummed up. I probably could have done this myself afterall.

While I was driving on Route 40 highway yesterday from the shop, a group of a 1/2 dozen Harley Davidson bikers pulled up to me, paused, all gave me a thumbs up in unison, and then speed off. I got chills down my neck. They were all pround of American muscle. I had a toothache but that made my day.

Thumbs up for this board! The car/Carter carb runs so nice - no stumble, no backfire. At idle don't even know sometimes that it is running so smooth I get nervous that it stalled. Thanks guys!

Hope my suggestion helped at least some. I was working on another section of my car when this thread started and since I'm stalled waiting for parts I started looking at my own engine. I'm partial to Holley but it didn't take much for me to start treading the path to Carter for my B body. I have always liked Carter's story, and often wondered why Chrysler used so many. So I started a thread elsewhere on BBO to draw help much like you did. I am not at all surprised you got it straightened out. Good luck with your engine.