Has anyone installed a side draft carburator kit? if so tell us about it?..i was looking into stroking out my 22r by put a 20r head and 20r intake manifold on for more air then i came across the side draft kit...i think i want to do this...

 

Talk to suncomb1 He has dual side drafts and knows pretty much everything about 22R motors.

 

I'm the other guy with DCOE's. kawa is right though, suncomb is very helpful. What do you want to know about them? I love mine but they are thirsty little guys. Not horible milage, but not as good as when I had a 32/36, to be expected I guess.
What do you do with your truck, what engine mods do you have and what mods do you plan in the future? Help me figure if this is the route I think you should go so I can convince you which way to go!

 

mine is just a plain old 83 pick up with a 22r. like i said i was doing research on putting a 20r head on and read where you should use the 20r intake manifold vs. the 22r manifold because the 20r manifold had bigger openings for more air flow than the 22r manifold...then i came across the side draft carb kits....it obviously isnt that popular from the # of replys this got so maybe it is difficult to install and or deal with...now im starting to doubt putting one on. all my rig is going to before is hunting here in alaska so should i even put one on?..im going to put lockers on, 4 in rough country suspension lift and 33x12.50 tires...maybe stroking it out will give me all i need??... i do believe i have the stock carburator, will the weber 32/36 help any if so how?

 

I believe people don't use them because they're expensive and there's a misconception that they're really hard to tune. The other reason that I sorta agree with is you really don't get that much out of them unless you have a medium to highly modified engine. With what you're looking to do with your rig I would recomend going with a good low to mid range rpm cam, headers w/2 1/4" exhaust, and a Weber 32/36 carb on an Offenhouser dual plane manifold. I had this setup years ago and probably should have stuck with it, not that I regret the DCOE setup, but this was a great power/mpg setup. Great bottom end and decent at high rpm's. I mostly just gained top end when I went to DCOE's. You can get bigger valves for the 22R head (I did) to help with flow. I've never heard that the 20R manifold had higher flow, just that the head did and it would bump up your compression on a 22R bottom end. It might, I've just never heard that.
Stroking would be great if you have the $$, I have really wanted to do it, just waiting to NEED to do a rebuild so I can justify buying a stage 3 LC Engineering engine. Check out their website, good info and tons of stuff to put on your wish list or to just drool over. All their stuff is top notch in my opinion.
Oh, I would also recomend going with some 4.88 gears when you do the lockers to match up with those 33's, if that wasn't already in your plans.

I am by no means nay-saying on the sidedrafts, they are awesome, but you have to throw some money into the engine to really get the benifits from them. You can't just bolt them on a stock engine and expect much gain. Also be aware that they don't support the vac advance on your dizzy so you have to get a pruely mech advance dizzy (LC has them). I didn't know this when I got the carbs so I had to have LC overnight a dizzy to me because my truck was my daily driver at the time.

Hope my ramblings help you some. I've had my truck since '93 and have been slowly building it up a little at a time. The engine has seen more different setups than I can recall, and I'm more than happy to help someone find the right setup for them the first time so they don't waste their money on something they'll just change out later for what they really wanted.