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Driving to elevation

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bugedd

bugedd

Jedi Knight
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I'm thinking of driving the bugeye to Lake Tahoe tomorrow, about 6500 ft elevation. I'm at sea level, and the car has pretty spot on mixture with the SU's. Will I run into issues when I get up to Tahoe with overly rich conditions, idle, or ??
 
You will get a bit richer, but you'll likely be okay. SUs do adapt to the elevation changes pretty well -- you'll be a little down on power, but should still work fine if you're well set up where you are.

For reference, I currently live at about 5500' elevation. I've had the my cars up to just over 10,000' without any issues, as long as they were working well at home. My Morris is set up nicely, and did great up on those passes. My MGB used to run really rich even at my house, and really struggled up above 10,000'. Rebuilding the carbs and setting them up correctly for elevation fixed all that.
 
Drove over the Rockies from near sea level and never adjusted anything. Will you be down on power at altitude? Yeah, a little. Is it worth it to retune? Personal decision.
 
One trick people used back in the dark ages, when these cars were built: at altitude, give it just a little choke. When the air pressure is low, the fuel doesn't move through the jets well, as there is less pressure differential across them. So, a little choke helps, and does not make the mixture unduly rich, as long and you don't go nuts with it.
 
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