135$ Brand new IDF 40 Weber knockofs on ebay

[Clatter]

It may have issues as noted, but I decided to give that CB kit I posted a shot for now. I offered less than the lowest price I could find with shipping and the Ebay seller accepted.

I figure it will be easier to modify it to suit to my liking if I at least have a starting point to work with for now. Both carbs and the kit should arrive sometime next week. I'll get started on getting the engine in the rail tuned up and fixing a few leaks on it while I'm waiting for the carbs and other parts to arrive.

Good man..
That'll get you going, and you can report back how well those duals work for you.

But,
Yeah,
Plie is right.
The CB linkage is likely to eventually piss you off.
It can be set up to work well for a while,
And you can get your new setup dialed in.

It's only after living with it for a while will drive you crazy..

[sideshow]

Non-offset manifolds? Best linkages are the center pull like CSP or the Berg. Cross bar style does work but it is a little harder to setup with the off set.

FYI madness will find you if you start mixing offset & non-offset bits.

CB linkage in general is not bad, it doesn't wear very well (most of the complaints). Choosing the wrong linkage is not the end of the world, just enjoy whatever you have on hand.

[GoMopar440]

These manifolds are the offset ones if I read the ad correctly. I'll mess with the non-offset parts if these give me any problems I can't work around.

As far as the CB linkage problems go, I'm pretty sure I can make just about anything better if given enough time and caffeine.

[GoMopar440]

I've got a LOT of catching up to do now that STF is finally back up and running. A lot had happened since my last post, and not as much of it was as good as I would have hoped. In summary, those chinese clone IDFs were total crap. They may be useful as a set of ITB's if I ever go with a home brew EFI setup, but that's about all I'd trust them to do. Rather than rewrite everything I'll just cut and paste the posts from over on TOS.

After getting back from a little road trip down to CO I had the first carb waiting for me when I got home. I spent a little time taking the IDF clone apart and giving it a brief preliminary inspection.

There are a few obvious things I have already found so far:
1) There are brass and aluminum metal flakes all throughout the carb. Even between the gasket and the top casting. A thorough cleaning should be considered MANDATORY with these carbs, not just a "good idea".
2) The carb came soaked with an oily substance, which is most likely supposed to be a metal preservative to prevent corrosion during shipping and storage before being sold. The stuff smells a lot like either lamp oil or kerosene. There was quite a bit of the fluid inside the carb body and the orifices when I was disassembling the carb.
3) The top casting has rough surfaces on the inside of the bores just above the gasket between it and the body. This is a little too rough to leave it as received. I'll smooth it over and polish up the bores to fix it before I reassemble the carb.
4) The cold idle enrichment circuit holes are empty and unused under the side cover plate. Given the area I live at, and the temperatures we see here regularly, I was hoping the enrichment circuits would have been intact and functional. If it looks like I absolutely need them later, I'll have to find all those pieces and fit them to the carb.
5) The gasket between the top plate and the carb body was torn near one of the bolt holes. It didn't stick to the carb body or the top plate and I didn't tear it on disassembly, so it had to have been torn during assembly at the factory. Where the tear is I could probably just reuse the gasket. However with all the brass specks embedded in it and the tear on the corner, I'll just go ahead and replace it before I put it back together.
6) Casting flashing was all over the pieces above the venturies in the bores. I'll clean these up, but I was a little surprised at how much there was on these parts.
7) The venturies don't have hardly any casting flash like on the other parts, but they have some squared off shoulder edges in the bores. These should probably be blended in better, but I may run them as is to see how they work like that. The shoulders aren't protruding into the airflow as it moves down through it. Rather the steps are sharply cut back from the surface above it.
8 ) A lot of the other places where the castings form an opening for the bores have rough edges and some casting flash visible. These will all be worked over to remove all flash and then smooth and radius the sharp edges as needed to create a smooth flowing bore for the air to pass through. Leaving these edges in as received condition isn't an option IMHO.

All these little issues, and any others I find when I look deeper into it, are just confirming the need to give these carbs a thorough tear down and inspection when you get them. So far I haven't found anything that can't be easily fixed, aside from the missing enrichment circuit parts, with just a little elbow grease and a few simple tools. If you can bolt these carbs onto an engine, you probably already have everything you need.

Now, onto the pics!




Here's a look at the steps on the insides of the venturies and some of the casting flash on the pieces above them.




Bent arm from rough handling in shipping maybe? The packaging could have been a bit better IMHO.



The "40" laser printed on the flange is the only marking of any kind anywhere on the carb. The jets are marked with their sizes, but they don't help ID the carb itself in any meaningful way.

Float looks way off in this pic. Will check and adjust before reassembly.

Corner of the gasket was torn near a bolt hole by the factory during assembly.

Specs of brass dust/shavings embedded into the gasket. These metallic particles have also been found in the float bowl and interior spaces of the carb.



I hope the pics and info posted here will be of use to any other people considering buying these chinese IDF copies. I pretty much had to just go on faith that they would be decent enough to use since I couldn't find any current info on these anywhere before buying them. There's plenty of info to be found on the real Weber IDFs and EMPI HPMXs. Let me know if anyone needs more detailed info or pics of any particular areas and I'll do my best to help.

[GoMopar440]

The other carb and the mounting kit both came in the mail March 8th. I spent some time going over all the pieces to make sure everything was there. Then it was just a matter of figuring where all the pieces went. The instructions are quite a bit vague in this respect to the CB kit. The supplied instruction sheet left out a few details IRT assembling the linkage. The intakes and air filter tops and bottoms were not mentioned in the instructions at all. Neither of the IDF copy carbs came with any instructions whatsoever. I pieced together the missing info by reading and searching through threads and watching videos online. Even then those uncovered items were left out of the main topics of conversation in those venues as well. I did my best with the information I had, so if anyone sees that I put a part in the wrong place, please let me know so I can correct it.

The weather isn't really warm enough to put these on the rail yet. Also the engine hasn't been tuned up yet, so I'm not going to try to put these carbs on the rail right now. Anyway here's what I came up with for the mock up phase so far.



I found a few things early on that seemed to be wrong with these carbs. Firstly, the linkage arm on one side of the first carb looked to be bent, possibly due to rough handling during shipping. However, when the second carb arrived, it had the same linkage arm bent in the same way and to the same angle AFAICT. This leads me to believe that the bend was intentional and put there by the factory. As of yet I haven't been able to find out if this is correct. And if so, why is it bent?


Next thing, I'm not sure if it an issue or not since I don't know how the IDF's function internally yet. The jet stacks that poke up from the center of the carb do not sit at the same height. When looking at the carbs from the accelerator pump side, the left stack sits higher than the right stack. There is somewhere between 1/16" to 1/8" difference between the top of the two stacks when seated fully. The height difference and orientation of the offset is about the same on the two carbs. Another factory design or is this a legitimate screw up?
1st carb

2nd carb


The next issue can't really be attributed to any one company. These 40 IDF clone carbs were both shipped with velocity stacks. Something the higher end genuine Weber 40 IDF and Empi 40 HPMX carbs don't do from what I've seen. The installation kit is from CB performance and includes the cast top and bottom air filter ends. The velocity stack mounting studs in the carb tops are not long enough to hold the gasket, cast air filter bottom, velocity stacks and the lock washers and nuts all at the same time. Two of the studs are too short to even allow the lock washers to fit when just the cast base is used. The solution is simple. Get and install longer studs and the problem is solved.


The last issue is definitely a problem and shouldn't have let the carb be shipped out to the customer as is. On the second carb one of the larger passages in the carb body was drilled from the outside and then sealed off with a brass plug. In this case either the hole was too small, the plug was too big, or both. The result was a 1/4" long crack in the main body casting from the poor mating fit of the parts. I am left with having to decide if I should send the carb back for a replacement and hope the next one doesn't have the same problem(s), or I can just fix it myself. I'm leaning towards the second option given all the little issues I've already found with these carbs. Most of these issues seem to be manufacturing related in origin, so I think I'd be better off solving the problem myself. I could patch the crack from the outside, but I don't have any way to tell where it ends internally.


Even if I can fix the crack from the outside, the stresses that caused it in the first place are still there. After thinking about it last night I realized that I have no way of knowing how far that crack travels internally. Fixing the outside won't necessarily fix it completely and I'd most likely end up chasing phantom tuning issues that would be impossible to pinpoint.

Any input on the different height jet stacks? Are they going to give me unbalanced fueling issues from cylinder to cylinder on the same side?

If I returned both of these carbs I could get one 3rd gen 40 HPMX. I'd have to wait until next month at the earliest before I could afford another. That sucks, but I really don't want to be a guinea pig on figuring out all the quirks of these cheap carbs. It wouldn't be such a daunting task if I already knew my way around these carbs somewhat. No such luck in my case.

An added benefit of switching to the 3rd gen 40 HPMX's is they seem to come with the velocity stacks now. At least from looking at Cip1's website anyway.

EDIT: I sent the seller a message through Ebay requesting a refund. Now I'll have to wait and see where it goes from here. I'm not going to try to mess with these carbs after all.

[GoMopar440]

MAR 15th:
I've been trying to get the Ebay carb seller, "smfay", to give me an address so I can send these POS IDF clones back so I can get a refund. I sent detailed descriptions of each problem, with clear pictures attached, for each defect I found.

Their first offer was for me to have a local shop repair them and they said they'd repay me for the work. Sorry, but I'm NOT going to try and polish these turds just to give the seller a chance to renig and say "since they're now modified the warranty is now null and void".

Their next offer was that I could keep both carbs and they would just refund me $100. I'm not going to consider that an option since all these issues were on supposedly ready to run brand new carbs.

In my last Ebay message to the seller I restated very clearly that I wanted an address to send these carbs back to, and full refund for the cost of both carbs and the shipping. This is only fair since the problems were made at the factory and they basically shipped me a couple pieces of useless junk. I haven't heard back from them since that last message so I filed a defective item claim through Ebay today.

This whole scenario is what I was worried might happen when I bought these carbs. I was hoping that since Empi could make a decent IDF clone carb, and has been doing so for a while now, then maybe there was a chance similar carbs coming out of china today might at least share some of those improvements and be good enough. I wasn't expecting perfection, just something usable that I could fine tune when I got it. I've reluctantly become accustomed to having to do some tweaking on most of these cheap chinese parts that are flooding the market these days. There's just waaay too much wrong with these carbs right out of the box to make it worth putting any effort in trying to make them work properly.

As soon as I can get this whole return/refund issue sorted out I'll be ordering the Gen-3 40 HPMX's. I'll only initially be able to get one HPMX carb with the refund for both of these junk carbs. The next HPMX will have to wait a while until I can afford another one. At least the CB dual carb manifold, linkage and air filter kit I picked up seems to be fine. I just set all those installation kit parts up on the shelf for now until I have some decent carbs to go with them.

MAR 16th:
After I turned down the sellers next offer (refund of $150 and I keep the carbs), the seller conceded that I wasn't going to accept less than a full refund and finally paid back the entire amount for both carbs plus shipping.

Now with that whole ordeal behind me I can finally start looking around for a Gen3 40 HPMX so I can get my rail rebuild project moving forward again. Does anyone have a preferred source for buying individual HPMX's? Since I'm going to run duals, I want to get carbs that are already setup for that application, even though I'll be buying them separately.

EDIT: After a bit of searching around on the web, I settled on buying from Cip1 for the 40 HPMX 3.0 (setup for duals). They had the best price I could find when the free shipping deal (for orders over $99) was factored in. Only one other vendor had a lower base price, but the shipping cost made them more expensive than Cip1 in the end. Their (Cip1's) website says they're still moving their warehouse and my order won't ship until March 22nd. I can't do anything with just one carb anyway, so until I can afford to buy the other carb to go with it, the wait doesn't bother me at all.

Who knows, maybe they'll ship my order sooner from the Canada store like they did with my last order from them. That would be nice, but I'll still end up waiting in the end until I can get the second carb to go with it. Works for me either way as long as the HPMX's live up to their reputation.

BTW: The Ebay seller didn't want their junk back and said I could keep them. I may eventually tear them all the way down, measure everything and do a side by comparison with the HPMX's. That way I can see exactly what, where and how everything went wrong with the cheap IDF clones. Like someone else mentioned, if nothing else these junk IDF clones may be usable as a set if ITB's if I ever try to go EFI later on. I'm not getting my hopes up though. After all this drama with trying to get a refund, I'm just plain sick of looking at them, so I'm in no mood to mess with these junkers right now.

MAR 18th:
The fact that the 3rd gen HPMX carbs aren't using the same castings as the first or second gen units doesn't mean that those older castings got tossed out. More than likely that's where the castings for these carbs possibly came from. EMPI had to have put their foot down with the chinese factory to get their carbs up to par with the quality of the original IDF's. I applaud them (EMPI) for doing that as I know they have to be cutting into their profit per unit sold to do so.

When I got these IDF clone carbs off Ebay I was hoping that some of that knowledge gained through upgrading the HPMX's might have filtered down to the more generic carbs. Apparently this will most likely not be the case. The fact that the seller didn't want these carbs back does not bode well for future improvements. I documented the defects as well as I could and sent clear pictures of each defect. Partially to prove to the seller there was a problem(s) with what they sold me, but also to give them detailed info so they could see where they could tune up their assembly line to fix these problems. Not wanting the carbs back tells me that this is most likely just wishful thinking on my part. In the end the warranty was fulfilled and I moved on to something better with the HPMX's, so I'm done with this little side trip. If anyone wants or needs any more detail info about these clone carbs, just shoot me a PM and I'll do my best to help.

[Piledriver]

Bummer, and thank you for the effort and detailed follow up.

The jet stacks at different height worries me most.
There was good reason Weber used lead plugs...

[GoMopar440]

Pile, I've never had a real Weber IDF in my hand, so I'm not familiar with the lead plugs you're talking about. I've heard mention of the lead plugs in other posts, but I never got a clear picture of where they were on the carb.

As far as the stack height mismatch, the two cylinders would never be able to be tuned properly as is IMHO. The two jet stacks are the same dimentions and the holes are all the same sizes and in the same locations when set beside each other. When they are installed fully in the carb, all the holes in the jets and emulsion tubes are then held at different heights in regards to the fuel level in the fuel bowl. The "liquid timing", for lack of a better term, would be so far off it would most likely never be able to synchronize properly between it's own two cylinders.

It was a very disappointing, and expensive, experience overall to say the least. I bought just the individual carbs at first so I had to buy an installation kit to be able to mount them to the engine. Since the carbs ended up being junk, my only option now is to buy two individual HPMXs to replace them. There's nothing wrong with the installation kit and I made some marks on it when I was mocking it up. It would not be fair to the seller of the installation kit to try to get a refund for that as the fault with it was on my end, not his. That left me with having to find replacements for the IDF clones to go with the installation kit as my only option. Buying two individual HPMX carbs, along with the cost of the installation kit, will end up being more expensive than a complete dual carb kit with all the same parts. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that jazz.

Having to haggle with the Ebay seller to get a refund was like adding insult to injury. The seller, "smfay", didn't want to provide a full refund for the poorly manufactured and clearly defective carbs until I finally had to start a claim through Ebay.

I spent as much time as I did documenting this whole mess to help inform others that might be thinking about taking a chance on these cheap IDF clones. When I was shopping around, I couldn't find any first hand info about these carbs anywhere on the internet before I made the decision to buy. Well, now there is. Anyone that spends even a little bit of time searching around on the web before making a decision about buying one or more of these clones will hopefully find this thread, or the similar one on TOS, before hitting that "Buy it Now" button.

[UKLuke72]

Hi guys, thought I'd chime in to redress the balance here...

I recently purchased some of these Chinese carbs, through a seller called 'Sherryberg188'. They accepted an offer of £200 GBP plus £16 postage... ($305 USD) although mine have come branded as FAJS, it is cast into the mounting flange and also engraved on the cold start block off plate... They came with the vents and jets I specified and arrived in 4 days. So whilst it seems they may all be made in the same factory it would appear we have varying levels of quality control...

I've stripped mine down, everything was as expected. Everything where it should be and overall pretty clean. The floats were around 10/28 out of the box but they adjusted up to 11/32 perfectly.

Tiny bit of swarf/fine dust in the accel pump and a small amount in the float bowls. Only thing I did modify were the venturies. They had one or two casting flaws and 1 had a small ledge where you don't want any ledges... 10 minutes with some 80 grit emery and they were good to go.

Good squirt of carb cleaner and some compressed air and they went together perfectly. Jet stacks sit flat, linkage arms are square, no ripped gasket nor was there any signs of dust/swarf impregnated into the gasket.

Bugger all of my pics are over 800 pixels... If you'd like pics hit me up, I'll resize em


Apologies it's not as thorough a writeup as above but I thought it only fair I take a few pics and share my experience

I think the moral of the story thus far would be to buy http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/40IDF-oem-car ... SwL7VWl53z instead of http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Carburettor-4 ... Sw6aVUog1D