Hi new to forum ,but have been a member for awhile. i have just received a triple side draft corvette intake for my 235 engine, having difficulty finding carter YH carbs , does anyone know of an alternative carb set up that would work. Any insight would be appreciated.

There are a few on eBay Not cheap. I had one of those setups on a 261 in a '40 Chevy pickup back in the '60s.
Carter YH

Hi mikejohn56 . . . the earliest version of the carter YH was for the '53 vette. These are going to pricey because of the application . . . everything vette is pricey. But the YH was also used on Nash and Corvair engines. These will be a bit more economical alternative - but YH carbs are not common so none are cheap. And the trick will be to find three identical carbs. There is an active listing on ebay right now for the Nash variant:
Carter YH
and the seller has 4 in hand.

regards,
stock49

I think my friend has a few side draft turbo corvair carbs, if you are interested?

MBHD

I would be interested to see what your friend has..

I am starting to see that , hope to find moderately priced rebuildable units

thanks for information, trying to contact the link in your post to see what is avalible

He says he has carbs if you are interested in them.
He said he would rather not destroy them & turn them into TB's for his EFI SDS installs on Corvairs.

MBHD

interested , looking for 3 , price and condition . let me know how he wants to contact me . e-mail ,phone , off forum. lets see what we can work out.
Thanks Mike

This is what he emailed me about the carbs.

"$160 for each core turbo carb. As a reference, the Corvair vendors get around $230 core value for a turbo carb. None of the vendors that I know of list a complete used carb for sale, but list rebuilt ones, or sell individual parts. They can maximize the profit on hard to find parts as these by selling individual carb parts or complete, rebuilt carbs. I understand it makes the most sense for a business to do it this way.

If he wants the carbs completely rebuilt and restored, they would be $240 each. They would look new."

Let me know if you are still interested.

MBHD

Guys:

Scott Marshall (aka CNC-Dude) and I have done some preliminary work on developing a "blue flame" side-draft intake for the 230/250/292 inline six. Like the original, it would use three Carter YH carbs. To that end, I acquired a couple of dozen YH cores and several rebuild kits to have on hand should be get the manifold into production.

In the case of the original blue flame intake used on the early Corvettes, the YH carbs had two unique (and therefore somewhat rare and expensive) differences from all other YH application:

First, I believe the blue flame carbs have a unique throttle shaft and housing that has provisions to link the adjacent carbs together. All other variants of the carb do not have such a provision, making the throttle linkage a problem.

Second, I believe the blue flame carbs are the only variants that use manual cable activated chokes. All others either use an exhaust heated or electric choke mechanism.

Because the blue flame carbs are somewhat rare and expensive, we planned to use a jackshaft throttle linkage (similar to a number of Weber setups for inlines) so we could use the more available (and less expensive) carbs.

As for the Carbmeister, he provided me with two identical rebuilt YH carbs for a Ford y-block marine interceptor intake and they were outstanding.

The YH carbs were used on a number of applications besides the Corvette blue flame sixes. I probably will miss some but the carbs were used on the turbo Corvairs, various marine applications (including the Interceptor), the Nash, the Olds 215ci aluminum JetFire turbo (back in the early 60s), and the Latham axial flow supercharger (both 2 and 4 carb variants) to name a few.

In any event, these side-draft carbs really look "old school cool" on an inline 6 (and a pair would look great on the Chevy II 4-banger as well).

Russ

When my friend installed an SDS EFI system on a turbo Corvair, he used the stock carb as a throttle body. Dyno tested it.

Then he removed all of the venturi & other BS in the way of airflow, then dyno tested that.

IIRC, the engine went from 6 psi to 12 psi of boost pressure. Which made a lot more power also.

The way GM purposely kept the boost down was to use such a small carb to restrict airflow & also use a restrictive muffler.

There was no wastegate to control boost pressure. Also the A/R on the turbine housing was made too big, so it would not build boost, it would build boost in 2nd gear.

Just saying the carbs are small. The biggest engine for the Corvair was 2.7 liter. The carb can be modded to be made bigger, but not a whole lot bigger.

MBHD

I was thinking about using Harley cv carburetors on my 270 gmc. they run anywhere from about 75.00 to 200.00 on ebay. parts, jets and kits are easy to get I like the idea of side drafts something you don't see every day. 3 Harley side drafts with old school S&S air cleaners would give me a woody !
Jay D.

I like the look of SU side drafts.

Does that intake have some sort of dial a flow divider plates in the intake runners?

MBHD

Here's my favorite side draft set up. Good luck finding one or even a carb.

What kind of carbs are those & what were they used on?

MBHD

Hank, They are Zeniths. The bowels bolt on and can be rotated so they can be side draft or down draft. I don't know if they have changeable venturies like some other Zeniths do. I do not remember the model number. I found two at a big carb site online but they were not quite matching and they wanted $600 each. That set is for a Chevy 6 216-235. They are not mine.

Hank , sorry didn't respond sooner. I appreciate you reaching out and info from your friend. I'm still researching options on carbs . Hoping to find something a little more affordable . Will keep your friend in mind if i don't find another solution.
Thanks again Mike

Not a problem Mike, those carbs are sorta pricey, but there old & not that many available as far as I know, my friend is a Corvair expert & makes big bore kits for those engines, roller hyd cams, billet pulleys etc.

MBHD

I'll see a Corvair guy at our chapter meeting tomorrow. I'll ask if he has any spare carbs. I'll ask the others too.