Carb Baffle

[matthud]

What is the carb baffle used for? It looks like it blocks the small ports on the intake from carb. Is this supposed to be blocked off? Why does the carb gasket have this area cut out if its supposed to be blocked off?

 

[wishuwerehere82]

What do you mean by Carb baffle?

Is it on the manifold?

 

[motorman]

What is the carb baffle used for? It looks like it blocks the small ports on the intake from carb. Is this supposed to be blocked off? Why does the carb gasket have this area cut out if its supposed to be blocked off?

PICTURE PLEASE

 

[matthud]

Its a metal gasket that was between the carb and the intake manifold. It had the small ports at the front of the manifold blocked off.

Here is a link to one on Paragon's website.
LINK

Whereas the carb to manifold gasket looks like this.
LINK

 

[wishuwerehere82]

Oh, that Carb. Baffle.

The plate sits on the intake manifold under the gasket.
It has two purposes. One is to form the air passage under the carb where you see the missing part on the gasket. Since one carb fits a lot of different manifolds, this makes sure that you have a good seal under the carb to mate up with the manifold used in your applcation.
The other thing it does is provide a layer of thermal isolation between your manifold and carb. so the carb. stays cooler.

 

[matthud]

So its a good idea to have that baffle in there? When I put my new carb on, I wasnt sure if the previous owner knew what he was doing since there wasnt a carb base gasket just the baffle, so I only used the carb gasket.

 

[motorman]

So its a good idea to have that baffle in there? When I put my new carb on, I wasnt sure if the previous owner knew what he was doing since there wasnt a carb base gasket just the baffle, so I only used the carb gasket.

the gasket goes on the manifold then the stainless plate and then the carb without a gasket. the stainlees plate is there to keep the exhaust heat that passes thru the intake off of the bottom of the carb. the best thing to do if your manifold has holes at each end of the groove in the intake manifold is to plug them with cup type expansion plugs because in later years GL did away with the holes

 

[JohnZ]

Like Motorman said, the stainless baffle goes under the carb, then the gasket, then the intake. That "hot-slot" design ruined lots of carbs, melted the soft plugs out of the bottom of the Q-Jet float bowls, caused engine fires, and resulted in the biggest safety recall in GM history; they stopped using it in 1970.

Plug the two holes and keep the baffle in place; photo is of a different manifold, but it's the same design, same fix.

 

[wishuwerehere82]

OOPS, I stand corrected. I thought it went th other way around, thanks for the real story guys.