What's the skinny on Carburetors?

You are talking about something that has to meter fuel to the engine fairly precisely and no two engines are exactly the same. Not something the average nut-fricker should attempt.

Some can be thrown on and work if they're pre-tuned to an engine setup. I think the skill involved is tuning one that isn't pre-tuned to an engine. Add to that the fact that they're not widely used these days and it takes what I would assume is feel and hearing the minute details that too gain from years of experience and you've got a pretty small group of people that really know carbs.

If you buy a carb for your application, you should have no reason to be changing metering rods or jets.

Buying the correct carb for a particular vehicle meant an easy swap back in the day but usually an unnecessary one. Carbs are rebuildable. Take it apart, soak the hard parts in a solvent overnight and use new gaskets and associated small parts from the rebuild kit. Remember where everything came from and where the rods, springs and cables were. Not all carbs have metering rods. I hate those things. It took me 1.5 hours just to line up the 2 rods on a Thermoquad.

That being said, tuning a car that didn't originally come on an application is nearly impossible for the typical shade tree mechanic and completely impossible for those that can out every tool they have in a drawer in the kitchen. There is no place to get degrees on this. Just learning from others and lots of experience.

So here is my take on this:
"It always seems like people talk about carburetors like you have to have a few degrees to be able to fix one."
I didn't have to get any degrees but the "fix one" lets me know I would have to teach you (hands on) what can go wrong with them before addressing this properly.
"If someone says an old car has a bad carb, can you just buy a new one and throw it on top of the engine?"
Yes providing you buy the exact carb for that engine and year but as I said, rebuild the old one is much cheaper.
"Or does every one have to be dialed in just right?"
If it isn't an exact replacement the novice should consider finding some experienced help. Carbs are a thing of the past and carb tuners are getting hard to find.

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"If someone says an old car has a bad carb, can you just buy a new one and throw it on top of the engine?" Yes providing you buy the exact carb for that engine and year but as I said, rebuild the old one is much cheaper.

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I've messed around with old VWs for years. The new carbs are Chinese junk. Give me a 40 year old German carb to rebuild and it will run like like it's supposed to.

they weren't difficult to rebuild at all...basically just cleaning a bunch of shite and replacing gaskets...

pretty difficult to get everything adjusted correctly, as there are a few different mechanisms in a carb that all kick in at different points in the acceleration curve...

Worst. Carb. Ever.
Carter 2 barrel on a Jeep 258 I6


Replaced with an 750cfm Edelbrock... with a Chevy 350 under it.

CARBURETOR CIRCUITS

This link will give you an idea of what you are getting yourself into....

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Carbs aren't that big of a deal. The more you work on them, the easier they are understand.

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That kinda contradicts itself. The more you work on them, the more you gain those "degrees" he was talking about.

emissions standards getting stricter it will be a thing of the past in a few years except still on low end engines such as generators and mowers.

I learned by going to industry schools for Kohler, Briggs, Kawasaki, Tohatsu, and Honda small engines.

Like everyone says in small engines walbro and Nikki make a lot of carbs and same carb may fit x amount of engines. Each engine has a slightly different setting. Not as bad as cars or outboards, but you do have to know how to adjust the carb. Now small walk behinds the carb on some really no more than a gasket on some lower end models.

Once you learn the basics of carb it gets easier. Now I went to school for outboards and small engines and have equipment to tune carbs for these products. Can I tune a car carb possibly but not as well as car mechanic who works with those types of
Carbs. Can car carb guy rebuild outboard carb? Yes, but when it comes to fine tuning carbs to work in sync they may not be able to be as precise as I would be.