Has anyone found an existing or toyed with the idea of making a phenolic (epoxy) carb spacer/adapter for the 22r engines? It seems like a plastic spacer would help prevent heat transfer from the manifold to the carb and might also help reduce some of the warping and sealing problems that the aluminum Weber spacers typically have. A bonus would be if it could be made as one piece, similar to the LC Engineering spacer to reduce the number of gaskets needed.

 

Does fuel melt the material? That would be a large issue

 

naw, fuel doesn't melt it, or companies and all these wholesalers like summit and jeg's wouldn't be selling them...seems like an idea worth checking into b/c of the sealing problems like you stated...

 

I thought my carb had a phenolic insulator underneath it?!? My 84 tercel had one.

 

Degradation from fuel exposure would be one thing to investigate when selecting a material for an adapter like this.

86tuning, you are correct! The stock Toyota carbs did come with a plastic spacer between the carb and the manifold to prevent heat transfer to the carb (carbs work better cool). I am wondering if the idea of making an adapter for aftermarket carbs, such as Webers, would be possible. I am thinking about maybe trying this sometime this spring before I graduate.

 

Keep me posted on what you find out. I am having some fuel leakage at the moment and I need to get new spacers.

 

OIC, you're thinking of making a phenolic adapter to fit a weber to the stock manifold. Prolly a good idea, but couldn't you just re-use the stock spacer underneath the weber adapter? I've not examined a weber adapter before, so I may be blowing smoke out my wazooo.

 

One problem with that is that I dont have the stock spacer anymore. Also, the stock spacer has two holes (one for each barrel). I am currently using the two aluminum adapters that came with the Weber carb (these have an oval opening), and to match the adapters I machined the intake manifold into an oval as well by connecting the two holes.



I figured that this would allow the bigger weber carb to breathe a bit easier by having less restriction. A new spacer could be made to either fit the stock two hole design (like the LCE adapter) or opened up to fit an opened manifold like in the picture above.