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After focusing on our cooling system, L’s and my happiness index was high, progress level was moving up, and dreams were getting closer. All we needed to do was turn the ignition key in our Chrysler-powered 1965 Clark Cortez motorhome to cycle our radiator cleaner, and that would be the end to our mechanical restoration.
But did our RV start? Of course not, and this, dear readers, turns out to be what happens nine times out of ten.
The problem came down to our antique carburetor, which we have called the bane of our Cortez.
The original carburetor that bolted to our industrial 360 LA engine was a Carter BBD, and I had removed it before I disassembled, cleaned, assembled, installed, and tested it … only to remove and adjust it again before I retested, readjusted, re-disassembled, and reassembled it so many times that I could have probably done it with my eyes closed.
At this point, our Clark Cortez’s ailing carburetor had created a lack of progress, so the time had come to make a decision on it. Here, we had five four options:
- Have our antique carburetor professionally rebuilt.
- Replace our old carburetor with a modern, better performing carburetor.
- Swap the engine for a modern engine that already has electronic fuel injection.
- Buy an aftermarket electronic fuel injection system to install on our current engine.
Sell the Cortez
Now each of these options had their own pros and cons …
↠ OPTION ONE: Professional Carburetor Rebuild ↞
Because I had rebuilt the carburetor so many times, both L and I felt confident that I had done it correctly.
Plus, even if we got our antique carburetor professionally rebuilt, keeping it would still mean it had to be adjusted when we traveled because height above sea level and temperature swings can have a huge impact on how carburetors work and, therefore, how engines run.
Because of this, we ruled this option out.
↠ OPTION TWO: Modern Carburetor Upgrade ↞
A more modern and better performing carburetor can be found from companies like Holley Performance Brands or Edelbrock. This decision would get rid of the choke and give us more power and better fuel economy (though “better fuel economy” is relative when the Cortez is a mobile house brick). However, because it would still be a carburetor, it would still require tweaking, especially when traveling, so this option was also off the table.
↠ OPTION THREE: Modern Engine (with Electronic Fuel Injection) Swap ↞
To understand this option, let’s jump into a quick history and technical lesson first!
Carburetors have been around for a long time—the first being around 1876. It was designed and made by Nikolaus Otto. (If you have heard of the Otto cycle, this is the guy!) Then, in 1885, Karl Benz (this name should sound familiar—more in a second) patented and used a carburetor in the first gasoline-powered vehicle. By the way, his company, Benz & Cie. later became Daimler-Benz and eventually Mercedes-Benz. (The Mercedes part comes from the name of the daughter of Emil Jellinelk who was the entrepreneur and board member of the Daimler motor group back when it was known as Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft. They thought choosing the name Mercedes would be more exotic and memorable.)
The carburetor was revolutionary because it controls air and fuel entering an engine. Looking at the amount of fuel, that alone is controlled by a needle that limits how much fuel is allowed into the carburetor’s Venturi. The Venturi is a tunnel that creates suction by channeling air through it. As the air passes through at different diameters, the air increases speed and the temperature drops. This suction pulls the fuel and air through the carburetor, and the fuel is sucked out of jets from the carburetor’s bowl (basically, a mini fuel tank). The jets spray the fuel into a fine mist, which evaporates, and that further cools the air and fuel mixture. (After all, colder air is more dense, which leads to better combustion.) The amount of air and fuel mixture is increased and decreased when you step on the accelerator pedal, which determines how fast you want to go. Simple…ish!
By the early 1990s, carburetors were pretty much completely replaced by electronic fuel injection (or EFI) in the automotive world. Instead of fuel being pulled into the combustion chamber, it is now sprayed in through a high pressure extremely fine and highly combustable mist. This offers multiple benefits: EFI is more efficient, more powerful, more reliable, and more adaptable. Since then, EFI technology has continued to develop and improve even more and modern EFI systems are far more advanced than the early systems.
Back to our option: Swapping our engine for a more modern one with EFI seemed like a huge amount of work, time, and money. Plus, since we knew our current engine was healthy, this felt like an unnecessary and large step when we could simply add an aftermarket EFI to our current engine …
↠ OPTION FOUR: Aftermarket Electronic Fuel Injection Installation ↞
Option Four—and this is what we chose: purchasing and installing an aftermarket electronic fuel injection for our current engine.
There are several aftermarket EFI systems available to purchase, and they have their own pros and cons; but swapping to EFI offered us the best “bang for our buck and time.” We would have a new fuel injection system that would be electronically controlled, meaning no issues with starts on hot or cold days or at high elevation or sea level. This move would get our Cortez more reliable, more fuel efficient, and more powerful—a win/win!
Now, I have always been in favor of doing an EFI conversion and talked about this since Day One when our Cortez wouldn’t start. L, however, was less convinced because the steep cost made her shy away from it. Once I convinced her the benefits would outweigh the negatives (and she realized our Cortez was unreliable), I did some research; and we settled on the Holley Performance Brands Sniper EFI system. They offer various EFI system options (different models and different finishes), but we specifically went with the 2300 option, which is a two-barrel EFI throttle body. While there are other options that would have given us more power with more fuel injectors, the 2300 would be more than adequate for us and our Cortez as it tops out around 350 brake horsepower and we would not be getting close to that. We specifically chose the “shiny” finish because … why not? But black and gold were the other choices.
With the make and model selected, it was time to fill in the other required parts. For this, we mostly stuck with Holley. We ordered their master kit, which includes the EFI throttle body, fittings, fuel hose, two filters (a pre-pump filter and post-pump filter), external fuel pump. (Often people go for “in-tank” fuel pumps, but we got an external option as this gave us the most freedom when it came to the layout of our fueling system.)
With the fueling taken care of, it was time to look at engine ignition and timing. For those that don’t know what this means, it is when the engine decides to ignite the air and fuel mixture for each cylinder. We went with a Holley again and got the HyperSpark distributor, coil, and capacitive discharge (or CDI) box. These boxes help with controlling and creating extremely high voltage for the spark plugs. Based on the recommendation of our Holley Performance Brands Sniper tuner (more on this in a later post!), we ordered MSD 8.5 millimeter super conductor ignition leads and finished off with a set of NGK V-power spark plugs.
A few other items were also needed, including a throttle body spacer, fuel pressure gauge, fittings, heat shielding, and various other bits and bobs that were specific to our Cortez and planned layout.
Now we have to drag our 1965 Clark Cortez motorhome kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century by installing all the parts.
And of course, if that doesn’t work, there is always Option Five: Sell the Cortez!
