MTFCA Forum

I am looking for a carburetor to be used on my fronty head. I have tried all kinds but still have not found one that is right

Walt B. - what are you running ???

Zenith HP4A is really nice for a mild one. HP5A for a massaged one. IMHO. Straight up bolt on with a stock stub manifold.

I tried Solex and BB-1 and I am a fan of the BB1. Easier to adjust and I like the updraft, it reacts better when giving throttle to it. As for a period correct one, I will defer to others.

I've used a Zenith HP5A and liked it for general performance as well as being correct. The only challenge is jets are fixed and not readily available. Stan Howe has some solutions for that.

Late last summer I tried a Weber 32/34 downdraft. Friend had been using one on his Prus head speedster and it's great. Required making a manifold of course for the Fronty but pretty straight forward. I did a test run between the Zenith and Weber and found a significant performance improvement. My run was up a 10% grade and from dead stop to where I had to slow for a light, I got to 54 with the Zenith and 58 with the Weber. My car isn't correct anyway so I went ahead and sold the Zenith.

Zenith was a "set and forget" carburetor that controlled everything through jetting. That was fine when Zenith had dealers with all the jets in stock, now we live with what we got or carefully try to modify the jets. Stan Howe makes an adjustable main jet for his restored Zeniths. It looks pretty cool.

In Stromberg carburetors, an LB-1, MB-1, OC-2, or OS-1 should mate to the head. I believe the late Ralph Ricks had an MB-1 and liked it. I personally like the design of the O series, and the OS is similar to the OF that we all know, but it has a different economizer needle. Stromberg actually sold the OS-2 in a kit for Fronty according Stromberg's 1926 dealer's manual. Stromberg has idle and high speed adjustments, so the Zenith jetting issues are alleviated.

Hope that helps!