DO ALL 308'S STUMBLE THROUGH TURNS

Ok having a sort of mini debate about 308 carb cars. A lot of very knowledgable posters tell me that all 308's will stumble in hard turns ( fuel starvation type symptoms) Please post your personal experiences only. We're talking great corners at brisk speed hard acceleration through turn. Just a personal note. I do not believe that the 308's were delivered new with stumbling in turns. Call me a romantic, but I think we would have read in most magazines (especially American mags) and noticed at track events had Ferrari offered this car made for curvy roads that choked whenever you tried to accelerate through twisty's. Lets hear it.
Bob

 

I would have to agree that hard cornering causes some hesitation in my carb'd 308 - I haven't studied it to a huge degree but I seem to recall that is only for a moment then it settles down.

I see no reason why the carbs would have behaved differently when the car was new - perhaps when these cars were originally reviewed, carbs were more common and this behaviour was not unexpected?

 

Thinking back twenty-five years ago when we serviced a fair number of carb cars at FCA track events, I seem to remember that most, if not all of them, had some stumble or a hesitation under high cornering loads. I'm not sure it's starvation, it may be a surge, or excess, that does it (accompanied by blue or black fuel smoke from the exhaust while it clears out) but I don't remember. I do remember that they are sensitive to float level adjustment, and all it takes is one to be off to make that happen...I don't think the Dino had this problem and their DCNF's were arranged 90 degrees off the axis the 308's were...

 

I don't mean to imply that the stumble is fuel starvation, it just feels like it.-Bob

 

246 Dino owners have complained about that too: they mention the transverse orientation of the engine isn't kind to the Webers in hard G turns. IIRC, there was some debate about that being a 'design flaw' as opposed to poorly set up carburetors.

Ken

 

That's true, Ken. If you look at other cars that use the DCNF (Maserati V-8, Fiat Dino) they are all aligned with the float bowl side-to-side rather than fore-aft. Then again, so is the 308... Oh well... <grin>

 

Speaking from my own experience with #29585 (owned since 1990), they do not! The key seems to be having everything PERFECT in the carburetors, especially float levels, and it also helps to have the distributors advancing (and retarding) properly. Mine has no perceptable hesitation, "starvation", or surging, and it comes from painstaking precision in synchronizing everything. Throttle response feels nearly equal to fuel injection under all driving conditions and comments from passengers used to everything from "fuelies" to Holley's bears this out. It takes awhile, but once you get it right, you'll know what I mean!

 

On mine it depends on engine RPM, if lugging below 3k I notice it at light throttle, but if I'm on it & above 3k with 1/2 or more throttle I don't notice any stumble at all.
Bill

 

I asked the same question a few years back... Here's a poll:

Does your carb 308 experience hesitation or stumbling in the corners?
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7218

For more info, do a search on "carb hesitation"


--Mike

 

FWIW I have experienced no hesitation or stumble with my 512BB in hard cornering i have heard carb cars can do this so I have tried to make in happen on purpose as an experiment and it never has, the BB has 4 Weber downdraught 3 barrels.

 

As mentioned in other threads, if you have a carb 308 and you aren't getting fuel starvation caused stumble in hard corners, you simply aren't going fast enough

 

The webers are facing fore and aft in a 512BB and not subjected to the same conditions as the webers on the 308. I could believe that a 512 or 365BB could escape the fuel starvation problem.

 

Agreed, if you want to experience this you need to stop driving like a girl - in fact, the stumble is not caused by the carbs; it is caused by both nearside wheels lifting completely clear of the ground

 

I have a 1981 308 carb car...

Yes it stutters on very tight bends and roundabout junctions. This seems to be a fueling issue and definitely feels like a carburettor surge/starvation. It is limited to the time of the hard corner only OR clears as I open up the throttle further - possibly as it transfers from just idle to the main fuel jets?

I heard other 308 drivers describe just the same symptoms. Seems to be normal.

Strangely I had a Fiat with a stage II tuned engine also with two WEBER 40 DCNF carbs orientated in the same direction. It never stuttered on cornering, but would flood and stall upon very hard braking. Hence if I had a hard stop to make, I had to heel and toe to rev up the engine and stop the stall.


Does this help?


Yours,

David

 

Say what?

 

My Carb'd 308 shows on some documentation as a 1981 car since it was first registered on January 1st 1981 but obviously the build date was some time in 1980... unless they had been real busy that morning