Junk Carbs

[Max Gilbert]

Hello all. After buying a few good knockoff carbs from eBay I got burned hard this week. Ordered 5 carbs this week 4 through eBay and one from Amazon. Of the three I've recieved so far they are all junk and fail pressure tests horribly. Most won't hold needle pressure and almost all three of them have leaking check valves either in the body or the priming bulb. One of them both! This is after wetting the carbs running gas through all of them multiple times and retesting. They might "work" but from a testing standpoint I'm not wasting my time putting them on. Am I doing something different from y'all? How do you normally test a brand new carb? I put 7 psi on the inlet barb and watch for leaks, let the priming bulb release the pressure and watch for leaks, finally I pump 7psi into the gauge with the bulb and watch for leaks.

 

[hotshot]

Yep, same procedures but also keep pumping to check pop off pressure & that the inlet needle actually reseats. I normally see pop offs range between 12 & 20 psig on good running carbs.

You can also check reseating by quickly depressing the metering diaphragm with a toothpick through the center vent hole. If they won't consistantly reseat to bubble tight, they'll flood the saw when the engine isn't running and will also give you trouble when trying to tune them in.

Once you put test gas through them, you usually can't return them for a refund. Sounds like you need to quit buying that China import crap, or maybe you just had too much tax return money & had to burn it away like that, LOL.

 

[Max Gilbert]

Yes I'm forever sworn off China cheap carbs. My how my attitude did a 180 in a week. I did manage to get a return on two of them they requested that I keep the carbs. Also what is this thing you call a tax return? I'm a small business owner and part time 1099 subcontractor I owe around $3500+ to the government every year. Making around $23,000 gross It sucks.

 

[Definitive Dave]

It varies widely by model.
Many of the sellers buy whatever is cheapest or whatever happens to be available.

MS660/066/064 carbs seem to be the worst right now, there were good aftermarket carbs inexpensively (@$23 each retail) awhile back but the price has dropped to the $14 range and they suck ****.
In this regard the end used can be their own worst enemy, because the cheapest option sells, so the vendors push for cheaper options from the manufacturers and crap products are the result.
The nice AM carbs I was buying are no longer available
My last case of 100 on the MS660 were about 50/50 between runners and trash.
The only great option for the 066 right now is the Tillotson HS320 which isnt really aftermarket since they are an older OEM carb, that is still made by OEM manufacturer, but they are less expensive than the Walbro and run better, so...

Great aftermarket carbs available right now off the top of my head:
346xp/350/353
MS260
MS360
MS361
MS181/201
272
BR550
MS440/460
Huayi MS200t