Thought I'd share my experience with a pair of brand new, genuine 45mm Weber DCOE 152G carbs. I paid nearly 900€ for them, and to say I'm disappointed in the quality is an understatement.
After receiving the carbs, I took off the float bowl top covers to adjust the float height. First thing that caught my eye, was how coarse the castings are in these compared to the old, Italian DCOEs I have. The first major red flag were the needle valve washers, that had aluminium shavings sticking off them. Not a sign of good craftsmanship in my eyes.
I plucked out the shavings, and took a look at the floats. The other one didn't look quite right.
I also thought that the internal plate in the float bowl, shouldn't be sitting proud of the bowl surface. At least that's not the case on the old Italian ones.
I set the float height, and put the covers back together anyway. Installed them on the engine, turned on the fuel pump. The carbs flooded, and leaked like crazy through the main jets. I took the top covers off again, and put them on the side. I then installed the top covers from the Italian carbs, with old floats. After that, the carbs stayed dry. Until I started the car, and gave it a few blips of the throttle. It was flooding again, but this time through the acceleration jets. Three out of four jets were so tight in their bores that I had to pull them out with pliers, and I had to use force too. Shouldn't be that way.
The washers on the acceleration jets looked horrible.
I changed the washers, and all was well after that. I later disassembled the new top covers, and found the other fuel inlet drilling looking like this.
It should look more or less like this.
I also tested the floats in hot water, and both of them had air bubbles coming out of the cracks in them.
All in all, I'm hugely disappointed in the carbs. With a brand name like Weber, and considering the price, I expect to get high quality carbs that I can make initial settings on, slap them on the engine, and start tuning right away. The brass parts, mainly the emulsion tubes and jet holders had shavings all over them too. So, the main issues with the carbs were (are) coarse castings, bad machine work, sloppy assembly work, poor attention to detail etc. I read somewhere, that the blue paint doodles on the top covers mean that the carbs are inspected, and tested. I have a hard time believing that.
Luckily the situation was handled well by the importer, and I got everything I needed to make the carbs work. From the start I decided to tackle the problems with myself, even though the importer offered to make them work for me himself. I've since rebuilt the original top covers with new parts, and rectified all the stuff that was wrong with the machining on them. They work fine now, but I don't think I shouldn't have had to go through all that. I haven't taken the carbs completely apart yet, so I don't know if they still hide some issues.
Even though it might sound like it, my intention is not to slam Weber but to offer a heads up for somebody considering buying these carbs. I guess I'll be happy with mine once I get them properly tuned. It's just that I paid a lot of money for a supposedly good product, but in the end I had put in the hours myself to make them work.
After receiving the carbs, I took off the float bowl top covers to adjust the float height. First thing that caught my eye, was how coarse the castings are in these compared to the old, Italian DCOEs I have. The first major red flag were the needle valve washers, that had aluminium shavings sticking off them. Not a sign of good craftsmanship in my eyes.
I plucked out the shavings, and took a look at the floats. The other one didn't look quite right.
I also thought that the internal plate in the float bowl, shouldn't be sitting proud of the bowl surface. At least that's not the case on the old Italian ones.
I set the float height, and put the covers back together anyway. Installed them on the engine, turned on the fuel pump. The carbs flooded, and leaked like crazy through the main jets. I took the top covers off again, and put them on the side. I then installed the top covers from the Italian carbs, with old floats. After that, the carbs stayed dry. Until I started the car, and gave it a few blips of the throttle. It was flooding again, but this time through the acceleration jets. Three out of four jets were so tight in their bores that I had to pull them out with pliers, and I had to use force too. Shouldn't be that way.
The washers on the acceleration jets looked horrible.
I changed the washers, and all was well after that. I later disassembled the new top covers, and found the other fuel inlet drilling looking like this.
It should look more or less like this.
I also tested the floats in hot water, and both of them had air bubbles coming out of the cracks in them.
All in all, I'm hugely disappointed in the carbs. With a brand name like Weber, and considering the price, I expect to get high quality carbs that I can make initial settings on, slap them on the engine, and start tuning right away. The brass parts, mainly the emulsion tubes and jet holders had shavings all over them too. So, the main issues with the carbs were (are) coarse castings, bad machine work, sloppy assembly work, poor attention to detail etc. I read somewhere, that the blue paint doodles on the top covers mean that the carbs are inspected, and tested. I have a hard time believing that.
Luckily the situation was handled well by the importer, and I got everything I needed to make the carbs work. From the start I decided to tackle the problems with myself, even though the importer offered to make them work for me himself. I've since rebuilt the original top covers with new parts, and rectified all the stuff that was wrong with the machining on them. They work fine now, but I don't think I shouldn't have had to go through all that. I haven't taken the carbs completely apart yet, so I don't know if they still hide some issues.
Even though it might sound like it, my intention is not to slam Weber but to offer a heads up for somebody considering buying these carbs. I guess I'll be happy with mine once I get them properly tuned. It's just that I paid a lot of money for a supposedly good product, but in the end I had put in the hours myself to make them work.
