Holley 1901 Carburetors?

Hello sidevalvequru;

Aw why ya wanna mess up a nice of vintage carburetors when Holley 9510W's are more suited to the task?

Mostly b'cause the engine is a 1949 Lincoln flathead, & the "teapot" Holleys look different (the 1901 is model designation, not year)

Were used on '53 Merc, & Y-block to about '59

Everybody around here with any 1st hand experience just holds their nose when i ask about these.

As I recall from my drag racing daze, it's about installing the correct jets. Too lean and you might burn the valves; too rich and you won't burn the fuel. Jet size will depend on air flow that depends on rpm. Rpm and drive train gearing must be matched to maximize and optimize the power. This is why God invented the dynamometer and the drag strip.

Bob G

you should use the stromberg 97 carb they are availble at strombergcarburators.com for about 450 they are beautiful looking.Work great and are more period corect for the engine you are using.what kind of rod are you building?

Plan to build a nothing extra car, a street driven altered.

Engine= 337 in³ 8EL flathead; Body= 'Glass '32 Bantam roadster, chassis=fabricated box tubing w/ crossleaf springs, dropped i-beam axle.

Factory manifold has flange for a 4-stud deuce (the 885; see site above)

The Edmunds aluminum manifolds i have is made to carry two 4stud deuces. i have the 2-GC's that a previous owner had on one of them. The Holleys were standard on some FoMoCo, '53 to about '59. They have 1.437" throttle bores, the engine is bigger than any regular flathead (that's not full of concrete!)

very cool good luck

Take a look at http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/ 

Lots of helpful people there.

Given you arent radically modifying this engine, I would go with just tuning it properly. Typical "high end" modifications such as knife-edging the butterflies, thinning the throttle shafts, and boring out barrels will all improve airflow, but if your heads and intake cant support alot of breathing, they're all useless exercises which will end up hurting your engines performance (particularly in the low end torque range). This doesnt seem like an engine made to spin over 6k rpm, so even if your heads and intake were up to snuff, a high flow carb might still not be needed.

One other thing to check though (and like my previous comments its more general then specific, Im more of a quadrajet guy), is to make sure your throttle shafts arent leaking at the carb housing 0 if they are you may want to remove the shafts, bore out the housing and put busings in. Air leaking can lead to performance issues as well. Carb gaskets should be replaced, and if leaking is suspected you may have a warped carb.

Back in 1975 we bought a set of 3 Gerstenslaugher busses to use for the library division. They were equipped with big International Harvester V8 engines. Around 530 Inches. They were equippes with Holley 4 BBL carbs. I thought they were model 1901s. There might be some parts available for the 1901s from these engines.

Have you gotten any further with the 1901 carbs yet? Do you want me to search for exploded views?

Have you seen this? www.oldcarmanualproject.com/manuals/Carbs/Holley.

Hi Bob C, Many thanx for your followup! Have all the factory lit on these & the 885.

The old car manual project is doing an excellent job of making this info available to anyone who cares to look; we should all br grateful to them!

Rumor on the street has the 1901's prone to leak. The entry to the venturi is as aero-dirty as i've seen.

I have my ideas, just want to bounce them off someone w/ 1st hand experience. Barring that, i'll use 1st principals & wing it!

Will start out using a pair of good, stock units

The 4bbl versions were prone to drip raw fuel when idling. If it had been my call, I would have used anything else. Good luck.

From a particular joint? I'm told it was a gasket issue.

These things just look so "differnt"; they call to me!

I've read the manuals, all the circuits make good sense, the just look funny.

I left that shop before the end of 1984. I thought the tubes that drop from the overhead float bowl into those fat discs was where I saw the fuel drip. I was under the impression that the fuel was delivered at that point, but it just was not atomized well, and dripped.

Please remember this was just after my 32 year old daughter was born. You are making my grey matter black and blue.

Those feed tubes are the delivery for the main (aka hi-speed) jets.

Thw discs look like a novel form of emulsion tube arrangement.

If those were weeping @ idle, i'd suspect fuel level in the bowl.

Years ago I ran a pair of 885's on a '51 Lincoln flat head. They worked very well. I used the vacuum tap from one of them for the ignition and that seemed to work ok. The 1901's are very much the same as the 885's but should be easier to set up without the ackward back draft intake. Be aware that the 1901's have vacuum passages in the venturi and throttle base designed for the full vacuum advance system used on Lincoln's starting in '51. You may want to block off the venturi tap if you are using the '49-'50 type distributor? The '52 Lincoln 1901's had the biggest venturi's ( 1-3/16" dia) and the '52 to '53 Mercs were smaller at 1-1/8". They too were set up for a full vacuum ignition system. The "drip" mentioned is probably due to the float level? I have prepared a couple of '52 Lincoln 1901's to use on a V12 Zephyr but haven't tried them yet. I did try a Merc 1901 on my '46 V12 and it does run a tad smoother than the 06H Holley. Blocking off the venturi vacuum port did the trick for getting the correct signal to the vacuum brake in the distributor.