Well Dan and I drove his brat a bunch yesterday and after a while it got a little hard to strat. Had to pump the gas and crank it for 4-5 seconds. This continued for a while and after driving on the freeway for about 15 min at high speed, when we would get off and be driving slowly (5-10mph) the car would putter and idle would be pretty unsteady. The car usually idles fine but yesterday it was kind of erratic, not jumpy, but not steady. I should mention that this car has a small leak in one of the headgaskets and has a hitachi carb. What is wrong and would a weber fix this problem?

There are a few logical things to check. First off see if you have the model with the 02 sensor and ECU. This is the box mounted on the underside of the steering column. These ECU controlled carbs do all sorts of strange stuff when they or the ECU are going bad. Try simply unpluging the ECU if it is present. Beyond that I would check for any vacume leaks from missing or failed hoses. A weber will not fix a vacume leak or such but if the carb is failing (or ECU) the weber would cure the problem and improve driveability.

Well Dan and I drove his brat a bunch yesterday and after a while it got a little hard to strat. Had to pump the gas and crank it for 4-5 seconds. This continued for a while and after driving on the freeway for about 15 min at high speed, when we would get off and be driving slowly (5-10mph) the car would putter and idle would be pretty unsteady. The car usually idles fine but yesterday it was kind of erratic, not jumpy, but not steady. I should mention that this car has a small leak in one of the headgaskets and has a hitachi carb. What is wrong and would a weber fix this problem?

I also have an 82 brat. I Unplugged the computor and threw it in the trash. I desmogged everything and the car runs great with the stock Hitachi carb. I do know that junk in the gas makes my car run bad. I would change the fuel filters, check for vacuum leaks, check and tighten the carb bolts and intake bolts.

 

Bill

Without the computer, the carb will run VERY rich. Not a good idea unless you switch over to a DCP-306-26 instead of the DCP-306-24 which is equiped for vacuum fuel metering.

 

GD