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I used to have a Solex 34/34 TDID (two-barrel progressive originally used on Euro-spec 96es from late 1977 on) and while I wouldn't exactly say it's a "crap carb," it was a bit of a headache.
The car ran well with it when the carb was healthy, but when it wasn't, there wasn't much you could do about it. Eventually I found an Opel rebuild kit that was similar enough that MOST of the parts fit, but I still wasn't able to do a full rebuild. Basically, if you've got a good one, the carb will be okay while it lasts, but once it starts to go bad, it's probably not worth trying to salvage it.
Also, to get it to fit on my Sonett III, I had to modify it pretty brutally -- convert it to manual choke, then hacksaw off the top of the cap for the vacuum-powered choke pulldown so it was even with the rest of the top of the carb. This allowed me to fit a stock air filter which I had modified to fit over the oval top of the Solex.
I was happy with how the car ran when I first put the Solex on, but after a couple of years the carburation got worse and worse, and I was never able to get it back to where it started. Finally I chucked it and bought one of the Weber DCNF kits from MSS. Whoa, BIG difference -- the DCNF kit took some tweaking for initial setup, but ever since then it's been very reliable and has required no attention at all. The car is definitely faster with the DCNF, and the one time I kept track of fuel economy (on a 400-mile trip with a mix of city and highway driving) I averaged 32mpg with it.
That's the route I would recommend if you can handle the price (I think it's now about $900 plus your 1-barrel manifold as an exchange) as everything already has been figured out -- manifold, linkage, air filter, PCV hookup, etc.
posted by 68.227.170...
, Thu, 25 Aug 2005 14:09:32
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