Inliners International Forums General Discussion Hi Performance 1st Fish carb

Well, I got the first of my Fish carbs today- it's an interesting device! It probably works differently than I originally thought- the holes in the Throttle shaft go thru both sides. Looks like air is pulled thru the holes, emulsifying the fuel- it doesn't flow over the butterfly like I thought. There isn't a true venturii, either- the carb necks down to the butterfly dia, and then stays the same to the base. I got a lot of interesting original literature- this carb could supposedly replace 50's era 4 BBL's. It will be interesting to see how much air it can flow. I'll have pics later this week- how do you post them here?

Congratulations.

We can make a Fish-Club now...
... no wait - we call it Stovebolt Fish-Fry

I also have 2 coming. (I want a dual setup on the 261)

I hope they flow and work the same, one of them is a later Brown version. But from the pics they look the same outside.

I hardly can`t wait for them to arrive over here.

If there is something interesting in the papers you got, would you be so kind and mail it to me?

I need any information I can get now for this setup.

Oh boy am I nervous to get em on the engine.

By the way, did you know that they made a 2 barrel version in England?

Frank

P.S. to post a pic go to "Full Form" first.

Your picture needs to be on the net - that means it needs an URL.

Go to http://imageshack.us/ and uploade the pic from your computer. It gives you an URL (internet addres).

Than click the "image" button here in the form and enter the URL. done!

Frank-

Brown may have made two sizes- measure the bottom throat- the original Fish was 1 1/2" dia. The Tyce version is rather interesting. It uses a fixed inlet jet, and a grooved plate attached to the choke shaft rides over it. A parallel linkage between the choke shaft and the butterfly shaft synchronizes the metering plate with the butterfly angle. There's also an airbleed screw that regulates fuel flow- a more easily adjustable way than removing tiny little shim washers from the metering screw in the fuel pickup arm. If you attempt to alter the factory setting of (2).010 shims and (3).003 shims, you would be wise to have replacements on hand. It's very easy to drop the screw (brass, nonmagnetic), and lose one or more shim washers FOREVER. Also, there are two Arm shim washers in the carb body that space the fuel pickup arm- don't lose those. Check the play in the throttle shaft bushings by wiggling the arm- if the arm sticks at any point, they're probably worn out. My M2 has this problem, so I have to figure out a fixture to install new ones. The inside end of the bushing is machined to the same 1 1/2" radius as the bore, and has to go in so it's perfectly aligned with the wall of the bore- that will be a neat trick! Where did you find the Brown carb?

Frank-
Dual setups require synchronizing linkage- I have some pics of various setups, but no dimensional info. I suggest you disassemble and check each carb to see if everything works correctly, and to see if the full power metering screw is set identically on both carbs. If one carb has worn parts or is set incorrectly, you'll have an omigodnightmarehorrorshow on your hands. It looks like Brown may have followed the Reece version Fish for a pattern- the full power adjustment screw doesn't rely on shims. You unscrew a plug in the top of the carb body when the pickup arm is at full throttle, and use an Allen wrench to move the screw in/out. Reece made the 2 BBL Fish, along with some sidedraft models in the late 60's. Motor magazine had a writeup in the March 1st, 1969 issue- it and some other info is posted at http://mk1-performance-conversions.co.uk/images/reece_review.jpg .
You need a tool to set the cruise range (easily, anyway). You can make it from a piece of 1/2 x 1/2" bar stock about 3" long and two 3/16" bolts. Find the exact center and measure out 5/8" out on either side. Drill and tap the holes for the 3/16" bolts. Now comes the fun part. The gauge has to center on the OD of the carb, so at 1 1/4" out from center you have to either set pins (edge of the pin at 1 1/4"), or use a 1 1/2" holesaw to notch the bar, then mill out the depth of the notch between the outside cuts. One of the bolts is 2" below the top of the carb, and the other is 1 9/16" below- this sets plate angle as you turn the throttle shaft. You measure from the top of the carb to the end of the bolt, so this is why the material between the holesaw cuts has to be removed if you go that way. One picture is worth a thousand words- I know.

Oops!- make that a 2 1/2" holesaw!

Thanks for all that Information.

That "Brown" carb that a friend of mine picked up at a swap meet for me turned out to be something totaly different for a Cart or maybe a lawn mower ans was spelled "Braun" :rolleyes: (at least it was dirt cheap and someday I may own a lawn mower)

Here is the one I got from Ebay. It will arrive soon.








Maybe this one would be enough for a hot 261 but I saw pictures of a F..d Flathead Hotrod with 3 Fish carbs. So if one carb is good 2 usualy give you more Zip (and milage hahaha!). I don`t think I want all the trouble of a tripple setup.

I saw a carb picture with a company logo that says "F.I.S.H." with dots between the letters. Is this an other Fish repop?

Thanks, Frank

Frank-
That one looks a lot like mine except for the super-long throttle shaft and the hose fitting on the distributor advance port. If there's a lot of wiggle room on that end, the bushings probably need replacing. After looking at mine, I'm thinking the bushings could be made a wee bit shorter, so they don't have to be contoured to the bore interior- that would make life MUCH easier. The throttle shaft on mine was worn eccentric on the linkage end, so I'll have to turn it down and fit an undersize bushing. If you have play- check this area also. I think a single Fish should flow enough to run your 260, but the intake manifold and heads also figure into flow resistance- multiple carbs will usually show less if the mount is a straight shot into the head. I'll see if I can get a friend to scan some of the Fish literature so I can email it- what's your URL?

Frank-
I see the "super long throttle shaft" isn't the carb throttle shaft- is that bottom plate affair some sort of governor?

I think the "throttle shaft " is a vacuum thing.
The bottom plate is a home made intake adapter - the seller says it was for a Chevy 6 but I got this Clifford intake and have to make my own one.

The mail is Frank@Thesavoy.de

Frank-
You'll definitely want to lose that bottom plate- the extra butterfly just provides more airflow restriction and gives fuel a place to condense on. I took a bunch of pictures of my disassembled carb last night, so hopefully I can post some here.

Any news on your Fish?

Did you tried it on a car or flowbench?

Frank

Got 2 of my new Fishes.

One is a Brittish Reese Fish, the other one is an original one.

But this one has a feature I never saw anywhere else. A copper or brass tube with a metering screw at the bowl? Any ideas?

Frank

Frank-
I did flow the Fish- don't have the specs with me now, but one should be sufficient for a 6. It flowed surprisingly well- almost as well as the 38mm Mikuni slide carb. I pulled the bushings and took the throttle shaft to a machinist for repair.

Frank-
I did flow the Fish- don't have the specs with me now, but one should be sufficient for a 6. It flowed surprisingly well- almost as well as the 38mm Mikuni slide carb. I pulled the bushings and took the throttle shaft to a machinist for repair.

Here are the flow figures for the Fish. Testing was done at 10" H20 depression, 56% Relative Humidity, 30.18 Barometric Pressure, and at 76 deg Farenheight. Results were also converted to the 3" HG two BBl carb standard.
At full throttle, flow was 145.7 Scfm @ 10", or 294 Scfm @ 3"HG. This compares fairly well with a flow figure given on the Minispeed site of 150 Scfm for the 1 1/2" Reese Fish. The 38mm Mikuni roundslide carb flows 152.7 Scfm (308.4 @ 3"HG), so the Fish is doing quite well for a butterfly carb. Flow at 1/2 throttle was 52.2 Scfm @ 10" (105.4 @ 3"HG). Flow with no throttle plate was
151.7 Scfm @ 10" (306.3 @ 3" HG). I had wanted to flow with no shaft or butterfly, but due to a misunderstanding, this is as close as we can get.
I also tested pressure drop thru the throttle shaft holes by blocking off the fuel feed jet and inserting a probe into the throttle shaft after removing the shim screw. With the throttle fully closed the PD was 2.62" H20, and at full throttle it was 22.1" H20 PD. At first, we thought a leak had developed, but this was the true figure! Apparently the "lift" vacuum developed on both sides of the throttle plate "airfoil" is significant! Keep in mind that gas vapor will occupy about 2.6% of the airflow at normal fuel/air ratios, so the real world flow would be 286.6 Scfm (loss of 7.6 Scfm) at the 3" Hg 2 BBl standard. HTH

Thanks for the figures.

My Reese Fish is about 1.25 inch while my "Daytona" Fish is about 1.54 inch.

Hmmm 145,7 cfm - arround 390 -420 would be good for a warmed up 261.

Looks like I need at least a dual setup or did i miss the point?

Frank

Edit: Do you know what that estra brass line is for? Looks like some enriching device. But how to use it and how to hook it up?

Just checked my ebay account - BINGO!

I won an other Fish.

This is a BM3 Carburetor. This was actually raced in the mid 1950's
The throttle bore is 1 3/4", It is an original Daytona/Fish modified carburetor. To build this for the owners car, Fish asked for a spec sheet on the engine, bore & stroke, H.P., compression, pistons, cam etc.

Frank-
You've got quite a Fish collection going there- I'd like to score an M3. One of the things you'll want to check is throttle shaft endplay- mine had about 5 thou, which caused the fuel pickup arm to stick. I had a machinist make 2 new bushings, and sleeve the linkage end of the throttle shaft with a stainless tube- he did a really good job on a tricky little project. He had at least 10 hrs into it, but only charged me for 8. However, now we have the process down, so if you need to know how it's done, let me know, and I'll email you. I also modified the high-speed adjusting screw to work like the later Fish- just remove a screw in the throttle shaft housing, advance the fuel pickup arm to full throttle, and run a setscrew in/out. We modified a standard 8/32 allen setscrew to take a deformable plastic plug in the side so it's self-locking and will not move under vibration- works quite well. Much better than removing the float bowl on the side of the road, along with a nonmagnetic brass screw to change 5 tiny, easily lost little .003/.010 shim washers! I've posted photos of the Fish teardown over on the Power Wagon Advertiser site (www.powerwagonadvertiser.com) under "Conversions & Modifications" - someday I'll try posting them here. With respect to your engine airflow requirements- what depression is the 390/420 cfm at? The "enrichment device" doesn't look factory to me- more like an owner's modification. The bronze arm looks like the original throttle lever arm for the carb- mine has one exactly like it. The tube appears to enter the float bowl above the fuel level, and end in the throttle shaft bushing- it doesn't make any sense to me. Is there a hole in the carb bore I'm not seeing? Have you removed the float bowl cover & divider plate to see if the other end actually penetrates the fuel arm cavity? The early Fish carbs had a slightly different arm that was relieved on the top to allow fuel to be pumped through a hole where the bowl vent tube later went. When the vent tube was added, two extra sets of holes were added to the throttle shaft (5 sets instead of 3). Maybe you have some one-off experimental factory version- that would be really rare!

Yeah, fish fever.

Got a Reece, 2 (different) M3s and the BM3 (I think the B is for "Boni" cause the factory did the modifications for Orlando Boni.)

Sadly the first m3 never came. I hope it is not lost while shipping.

I had it all appart and endplay is fine.

All my carbs already have the setscrew in tha arm, the only shims i have are for endplay/groove tuning. So I will modify the m3 housing for the high speed tuning in the way my Reese works (with the plug).

The tube of the "enrichment device" goes to the throttle arm, there is a little slot that allows additional ful comming in at about 75% opening.

But maybe it is not going in (sice the tube is above fuel level) it may allow fuel to go back to the bowl, that woulkd be rather a "leaning device". Makes no sense to me but who knows?

Yeah, looks ether home made or factory experimental.

I saw the comments on the Powerwagon site, but I´n not allowed to see the pics (without account).

Can you please mail those pics.

Thanks, Frank

Endplay should be very little- did you check the area where the arm sweeps with machinist's blue or magic marker? Other spots to check are the bottom of the arm and the top round part- shouldn't be any rub marks on the carb body. You can view the PW site photos by joining the site- it's free. On your carbs- when the throttle plate is completely shut, is the spark advance hole above the lip of the plate? The directions say the hole should be 1/16" above the throttle plate lip- no way that's happening with mine without some filing! The hole is the small one next to the upper idle crcuit hole (considerably larger dia). Thanx.

With respect to your mystery carb- if the tube enters on the fuel pickup arm side of the divider plate, fuel probably could get pushed into the tube by forward motion of the arm. However, unless there's some sort of control, the fuel in the tube would leak out the side of the bushing when the slot was not lined up, both inside and outside of the carb- a definite fire hazard. You may want to "bench test" this feature before bolting it to your engine. The flow figure for the 1 1/4 Reece Fish given on the Minispeed site was 114 Scfm (probably taken at 10" H20 depression). Are you getting all these Fishes off Ebay?

Soooo.... resurrecting a 15 year old thread.

Im' back on Inliners with a new account - couldn't remember what my nick was back than.
Finding this old Fish discussion- now I remember - it was C-Dan-D-Luxe

How did it all work for you Marine? Still fiddling with the fishes?
I got my M2 running on the 261 and it's all okay so far. There are some minor things I have to adress some day, but meanwhile I have bigger fish to fry (pun intended) like all new wiring.

best, Frank

I just read all of this. It is interesting but sounds very involved. I checked "maineSS" page and he hasn't been hare since 2013. There is an email address there though.

Too bad the pictures are gone. There is one link that still works in one of his early posts. Thanks for digging this OLD TREASURE up and posting your new picture. It is a nice looking set up. Tell us more, I'm not familiar with these carbs.

Well, as you see it's on my 261 and it works quite well.

What I really like is the simplicity of it.

- only a few parts
- it works on pressure differential instead of vacuum, so it is self adjusting no matter if you drive in the mountains or at sea level
- good mileage (nothing sensational though)
- good power
- very clean burning
- no circuits (idle/transfer/full/boost etc.) to deal with
- pretty much just one seamless variable "jet"
- infinite adjustable in every regard
- easy to tune
- some had even a variable vacuum port to fine tune your distributor
- mixture is independent of float level, but fixed to trottle position and engine demand
(we all know how critical float level is for AF-ratio, have you ever imagined you float while driving?)

So yeah, I'm pretty happy with it.

The only downside so far is that there are no replacement/service parts available, so I keep buying them, whenever I come across a halfway decent priced one, just to have them as donors.

There are also a ton of different models/versions out there - some are more complicated or have more features, like an additional enrichment circuit instead of a choke. Also there are later versions from licensed companies (Reese/Minou/Brown etc), made long after Bob Fish was out of business.

Frank

Thanks you for the explanation of how they work and the attachments. Very interesting. I don't remember hearing of these before. I've done a little looking around. A decent simple carb seems like something that would be much better known. I really like the pressure differential part. Around here a 3,000'-5,000' difference in elevation can occur on a trip to town.

OK, I have heard of them at least the Brown version from Utah. Sounds like they worked better than "They" wanted us to know. FISH Carbs

Yeah, it's quite an interesting story.
Since quite a while I was thinking about making a Fish carb related website, were I can post all the information I collected over the years. But I guess it has to wait till I retire - too many things on my plate for now.

When I had the engine on a dyno, there was an interesting effect - according the the O2 sensor it run super lean - like 18:1 lean - with BSFC's around .38, but cool engine temp and EGT below 900. We pulled the plugs and they looked like we could go even leaner.
The AF-ratio readings really freaked me out, but the engine was really happy.

So as David Vizard always says: "you got to give the engine what the engine wants, not what you think it should have".


Frank

My search took me to a thread on the HAMB where you posted. As with all things HAMB there are post by a few who know something, a large number who think they know something, and the rest who have heard something. FISH CARBURETORS? FACT OR FICTION?

It would be nice to have all the information in one spot. Although everything is injected now this different approach to carbonation has a place and deserves a fair shot removed from the politics/power struggles of the day.

Just bolting a Holley sniper on everything and calling it a day, is like swapping an LS in everything these days - it's uninspired and boring in my book.

I prefer quirky mechanical stuff, and coming up with original ideas :-)

Here is a nice video that explains the inner Fish workings:

Frank

Really cool! Thanks. I see why you are running one.