Posted by: macrisel
« on: December 09, 2010, 05:28:07 PM »To followup on on that, when I was taking flight training in college, one of the A&P instructors had a replica Shelby Cobra with a 427 cid in it. Talking with him one day, he admitted he would run 100LL (av gas) through it occasionally to help burn deposits off of the valves left by today's "clean" gasolines. He did let me know rather quickly not to run this in newer engines because it would toast converters rather quickly. At the time, I had an '84 Chevy truck with a slightly modified 350 cid and a roommate that worked at the airport. Being young and adventurous, we put a few gallons of the 100LL in my truck and ran it through. While it didn't turn it into a drag car, it did provide a slight increase in performance.
Nevertheless, after I went back into my carb, reinstalled the old metering rod and a few other parts, that problem as well as others went away. Did I just get it right this time, did it really take the old metering rod, etc., to fix my poor running carb, or was I just luckier to get the settings right this time? I really don't know.