Hacker News Reader

Comment by Mistletoe | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes I miss the carburetor.

Did you ever have to stand outside in the winter, in ice and show, with the hood propped open, spraying starting fluid into the carburetor, and manually holding the throttle open, so that your engine could get to the proper temperature?

Did you ever floor a car and have the engine shut off because there was too much fuel?

No thanks, I don't want to go back to those days!

I mean, 'JohnJamesRambo did say sometimes.

Like those times you just say "FTW, I'm gonna spew as much unburned fuel out the tailpipe as possible".

Or fiddle with the manual choke to find a setting where the engine would sort of idle. Or wish you had a manual choke, when the automatic choke wouldn't go on -- or off.

I had that happen once. I rebuilt my Rochester Quadrajet and it purred like a kitten for a decade. I eventually gave that car to my friends that had a similar model to use for parts, but it was the best car I ever had. Chevy Caprice Classic, former undercover cop car with a 350 and a shift kit.

I certainly miss those days. Working on my current vehicle is a PITA. The fuel rails, coils and plugs take hours to change. On my old car, I could do that in 15 minutes even if the engine was hot. I can't even imagine how proprietary the components on a Tesla must be or how difficult it will be to fix myself.

I don't think we have to go back to carbs with manual chokes (not that it was all that bad anyways), but frankly an electronic TBI like GM put on the very last generation I small block Chevy engines (with wasted spark ignitions instead of a distributor) would have been a good place to stop (as they're dead simple to work on and program unlike a lot of newer FI setups, and overcome the major problems with carbs like needing altitude and temperature compensation).

I have never operated a carbeurated vehicle that I did NOT wish was fuel-injected.

I've never operated a fuel-injected vehicle that I wished had a carb.

The truck I learned to drive on would cut out if you turned left abruptly, or hit a slight bump while turning left somewhat less abruptly, while off the throttle. We lived on a really steep hill with a ravine at the bottom which meant if you weren't careful to give it gas on the (downhill!) left turn, you would soon find yourself operating a vehicle with no power steering and no power brakes, trying to use one arm to steer the now-manual steering, while using the other to try to restart it, while stomping on the manual brakes, hoping everything came together and restarted before the ever-increasing downward grade ran you across a busy road and into a ravine.

My first motorcycle had a carb, and fuelling issues on motorcycles are even WORSE because they screw up your balance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com