Weber swapping a Dodge Raider 

"gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish) 09/05/2018 at 12:17 • Filed to: raider

5

10

This weekend I spent most of mine time making my truck not run anymore, by removing the factory Mikuni feedback carb, and disconnecting everything associated with it.

Why did I do such a thing? Because aside from a few dissenting views, the general consensus in the Mitsubishi community is that the best thing you can do for a G54B is to remove the overly complex Mikuni and the vacuum octo pus that it relies on.

The usual followup to this is replacing it with a Weber, by way of a Redline kit. I made the mistake of ordering a kit that said it was Redline, but was a little cheaper than the other best reviewed ones..... What I got was a genuine Weber, but with a kit that isn’t quite right, and woefully inadequate Weber North America instructions for a slightly different Chrysler/Mitsubishi kit. But I’ve made it work. Sort of.

After lots of following vacuum lines to cap everything off, t he first big obstacle was the discovery of a water jacket inside the intake manifold. No mention of it anywhere in the instructions, or really most places I’ve read about doing this swap. Off to the parts store I went to buy a tap and a plug.

Problem solved. Next was whatever hell material the old carb base gasket was made of. That took about 9 years to scrape off.

Let’s skip ahead to the adapter plates being on and the carb being mounted.

After the hassle of tightening the carb down with the hard to access nuts, it was time to set up the throttle cable. the kit came with a bracket that put the cable in the wrong place if you install it according to the instructions, so I installed it backwards and got it to line up. It also came with a different linkage plate for the carb....that didn’t fit.

This was the only way that would work for my throttle cable, so I made it fit.

So there’s the linkage as good as I’ve got it so far. There’s slack when closed, but if I tighten the slack, it tries to pull the cable out at wide open. So that’ll be fun to sort out. I have the fuel pressure regulator and gauge hooked up, with way too much slack. Those are necessary because the Weber wants no more than 2.5psi, and the stock fuel pump puts out around 10psi.

That brings us nearly up to date. The jets it came with are correct enough that it started from the baseline mixture setting, and idled once it was a little warm. Aaand then it died. No lights, no electricity at all. Disconnecting and reconnecting the negative battery cable worked for a couple minutes, and then it died again. So that’s where I’m at. No electricity, and an untuned Weber with a questionable throttle linkage and a fuel pressure regulator flopping around.

I’m really starting to understand why I see 4Runners, Pathfinders, LandCruisers, and Jeeps all the time, but no Raiders......

Hopefully I can sort this out this weekend. Or not, because it’s supposed to rain the whole time.

crowmolly > gmctavish needs more space 09/05/2018 at 12:23

2

Looks cool!

Just a friendly reminder, anything with NPT threads needs sealant on them. Not sure if that’s what you’re working with but I see a lot of brass. 

random001 > gmctavish needs more space 09/05/2018 at 12:24

1

But THIS IS SO COOL!

vicali > gmctavish needs more space 09/05/2018 at 12:34

1

T his beats every st or mtroo p er’d Toyota covered in P unisher stickers every time..

jimz > gmctavish needs more space 09/05/2018 at 13:00

1

the coolant passage on the intake was for the Mikuni carb’s choke.

yes, it ran engine coolant through the carb to operate the choke.

reason 3,842 that carb is a piece of shit. Feedback Quadrajets might have been POSes, but at least you could find someone capable of rebuilding one. 

Sovande > gmctavish needs more space 09/05/2018 at 13:11

0

I did a very similar swap on my Nissan, though it had a Hitachi carb and 19' of vacuum hoses. That’s an actual measurement.

You may have already done this, but I assume this truck would have an ECU of some sort (in my Nissan it is a small box that lives under the front seat)? If so, try unplugging it as it will be trying to send signals to the carb which no longer is in the car. The other thing you can do is unplug the O2 sensor as that is how the original carb would have made fueling adjustments.

Basically you will need to cut any power to anything that can control the fuel and spark. The end result will be a dead simple engine that I would bet will run pretty well.

I can’t tell from the pics, but do you have the electric choke hooked up?  All the unneeded hoses and ports blocked off?

gmctavish needs more space > crowmolly 09/05/2018 at 15:00

0

That....is disappointing to hear, but good to know.

gmctavish needs more space > Sovande 09/05/2018 at 15:03

0

That’s kinda what I was thinking. There’s a fuse thing for the carb that I’ve been trying to remove, and I forgot to disconnect the O2 sensor. I unplugged everything from the vacuum manifold, but I’ll see if there’s a computer of some kind as well. Anything vacuum related is capped, other than the distributor advance and the PCV. Haven’t hooked up the choke yet, the tuning guide I’m following told me to do all tuning with the choke plates open.

Sovande > gmctavish needs more space 09/05/2018 at 15:32

0

With the Weber I installed, I never even had to adjust the choke, just hooked it up and it worked.

It sounds like it’s dying because of lack of fuel, is that right? Are you sure the regulator is letting enough fuel into the carb? Have you checked it with a pressure gauge? All I can see is the regulator but no gauge. Maybe it’s not getting sufficient fuel pressure? Will it run with a little throttle? Take the filter off and look into the carb with the engine off and advance the throttle, can you see fuel squirting in?

As for the battery, I assume it was working prior to the removal of the carb? Is there a engine ground strap that could have come loose? I seem to remember one being involved somehow on my Nissan, but I can’t remember exactly.  If not, test the battery and see what it says.   No lights, no nothing sounds like a really dead battery or a loose connection somewhere.  Look at the obvious stuff first.  I just chased an erratic idle and rough low RPM problem for a week before I looked at the plug wires and found one was completely melted.

gmctavish needs more space > Sovande 09/05/2018 at 15:54

0

Oh no it’s dying from no electricity. There’s a pressure gauge just behind the regulator that’s hard to see, making good pressure. Other Montero people are telling me it’s likely a bad ground or battery cable. I was moving all that around and probably knocked something loose, though nothing is obviously wrong so it’ll take some fiddling. And yeah the battery was fine, charging fine, showing fully charged/charging if my gauge is to be believed.

Sovande > gmctavish needs more space 09/05/2018 at 16:45

1

Oh, okay. So the fuel pump is dying from lack of power, I gotcha. My Nissan has a pump relay in the passenger side footwell t hat I periodically have to persuade with the handle of a screwdriver, so I feel your pain. I've had good luck with the Weber once I got all the fiddly stuff worked out. Hopefully you have a similar experience. The good news is that there aren't too many things that can go wrong.