Today on my way to work I stopped for an espresso about 1/2 mile from home.
After pulling into the parking garage I noticed smoke coming from the right
front of my 72 TR6. The smoke looked very thick like a wire fire, so I opened
the hood expecting to disconnect my battery. What I found was smoke and fire
coming from the front hole on the stock air cleaner! The fire wasn't large and
actually extinguished itself by the time I grabbed my coat to smother it.
I'm wondering what could cause this? The carbs are in decent enough shape, and
the car runs fine for the most part. Though yesterday afternoon it had a fit of
backfiring followed by sluggish running at 50 mph that seemed to clear itself
up within a minute. One other thing, this morning I noticed that I left the
choke pulled out all night after I pulled the car into the garage. Could the
fire be related to one of those things?
I happen to have a set of new DCOE's that I had planned on installing last
November. However after talking with guys on the list I changed my mind and
decided to wait until after I got a new head and cam from BPNW. I'm beginning
to think that I shouldn't wait to install the Weber carbs. Which brings me to
the rest of my questions:
I have an electronic ignition and headers on the car right now. The engine has
good compression and is in generally good shape. Does anyone feel that it would
be possible to run the DCOE's? I'm not afraid to tune these carbs, and have a
fair amount of experience with tuning Weber downdrafts (DGEV's) that I am sure
is transferable to the DCOE's.
If I do decide to go with the DCOE's can I effectively run the car with the
vacuum retard disconnected? I'm not convinced that my thermal switch is working
correctly anyway, so I might be running without any retard as we speak. As I
understand it the retard is there to prevent overheating by retarding the spark
when the engine is running hot, is this generally correct?
Normally I would put the TR6 in the garage until I could take care of this
properly, but with my other car down waiting for me to install a new engine
that's really not possible at the moment.
Thanks again,
Don Clark
Seattle, WA
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