Well boys and girls, I am just a junkie for the weber/dellorto induction noise. The louder, the deeper, the throatier = the better. Takes me back to the old days out in the forest waiting for the rally cars to appear after listening to them for kms of them blasting on/off the throttle through the forest.
So I've found myself some ram tubes .... but there is a little hole on the inlet side of the DHLA carbie - just above the left side air inlet on each carbie. This hole is accomodated for in the factory air header so I guess it wants to suck air (& potentially dirt) in.
My question is: When I put the ram tubes on and put oil soaked socks on the main air inlets will be filtered .... BUT WHAT IS THE PLAN FOR THESE OTHER LITTLE HOLES that may suck some dirt in if I fall off, or venture off, the black stuff ????
I hope this forum of great minds can fill me with a wealth of ideas and options.
I have been running ram tubes since I bought my 1st Alfa 5-6 years ago and I have just left it as they are and I have not had any troubles at all.
I admit I know little about carburation, but I just checked a couple of books in my library (SpeedPro on carbs-Des Hammill. Speedpro on Twin Cam Alfas-Jim Kartalamakis) and photos in these seem to show ram tube equipped carbs (Weber and Dell'Ortos), with the ram tubes in air filter boxes, but still have those holes unfiltered. So I'm assuming they don't actually suck air. They may just be an atmospheric pressure balance hole or some-such?
Pure guesswork on my part though :-[
These air holes are essential to supply air to the top of the carby air corrector jets on the idle and main circuits. You can get gauze for these if you wish (Webcon UK) but I would'nt bother unless you run the car in somewhere like Beijing.
A bloke I know covered these up and wondered why his turbo HQ with a single 45 Weber would'nt go past 4000rpm!
Thanks to all for the answers. All good. I'll leave them open.