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Mikuni carburator

Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 5:54 am
by Pappy
I'm considering using a Mikuni Carburetor on a corvair engine. my experience is carburetors with slides do not ice up, which eliminates the need to carb heat which would certainly minimize some building. does anyone have any input on this?

Re: Mikuni carburator

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 10:18 pm
by stuartsn
Pappy,

If your goal is to get in the air reliably with the least amount of problems I will advise using a carb that has proven itself to work well with the Corvair such as a Marvel Schebler, Stromberg, Zenith or others and use carb heat. William Wynne has written a lot on this topic in the past and strongly advises against using motorcycle carbs like the Mikuni. It would be interesting to have others who fly corvairs tell what carbs they are using and how they like them. If it turns out that a Mikuni doesn't ice up that may not matter if it runs lean and detonates.

My thoughts,

Stuart Snow

Re: Mikuni carburator

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:33 pm
by EAB4
I second Stuart's thoughts- following a proven path will save you from a lot of headaches and wasted time, and probably be safer.

Slide carbs are not immune to icing. They are less prone to icing, but can still ice up. I don’t think using a Mikuni carb and trusting it to never ice up would be good risk management.

In the overall scope of the project, building the carb heat system really isn’t that big a part of it. The time you would spend figuring out and troubleshooting the Mikuni installation could easily wind up being more time than installing a known workable carb AND building the carb heat system.