My name is Luke, known on YouTube as ThunderHead289. I’m known for down to earth carb & ignition tuning walkthroughs, “will it run” classic car revivals, and general automotive mad scientist, “let’s do this and see what happens” videos.
Like you, I’m an avid “classic car” hobbyist. My main focus on YouTube has been to give back by putting out the knowledge I wish I had when I started out, and to present it in a fun and retainable way.
There’s a lot to know to be proficient with classic cars. I got here the hard way, many hours of trial and error, frustration and disappointment, things that can overall detract from the enjoyment of this hobby and what its really all about.
I designed The Carb Cheater as something I both wished existed when I started out, as well as something I have wished existed today. It has been my hope and belief that I can help to prevent others from having to go through what I did, to simply enjoy this hobby so that it will endure for years to come, I think The Carb Cheater goes a long way in doing that.
The problem:
Tuning Carburetors is an art that normally takes years of experience to understand and perfect. Even still, for a seasoned carb tuning veteran, hours of time-consuming trial & error (change this & test) are often involved. In a sense, the typical process for tuning a carb to optimal scenarios involves a lot of educated “guessing” on what exactly to adjust, and in what direction to adjust it. You cant “see” any feedback with carbs, your only tuning confirmation being a “seat of the pants” feel.
In recent years, folks have grown frustrated and impatient with classical carb tuning. In some cases, dropping huge sums of money for aftermarket fuel injection for their problems to “go away”.
Fuel injection has its place, but it also subtly comes with its own host of challenges including a lengthy and invasive install, reliability and replaceability concerns, and well …. It also still needs tuning once installed. Our push button solution wasn’t so “push button” after all.
The solution:
Don’t go counting out our old friend the carburetor just yet. Founded on solid principles of physics and fluid mechanics, the venerable carburetor “just works”. You don’t need an IT degree to work on it, the beauty of a carburetor being in its simplicity, and through that simplicity, inherent reliability.
With The Carb Cheater, you can “have your cake and eat it too” (boy, if that wasn’t an unintentional cringy play on words…).
Retaining your pre-existing carbureted fuel system, and the simplicity that we all appreciate, The Carb Cheater reads you back all the critical engine data you need to make well informed tuning decisions in real time – effectively eliminating the guess work which is 95 percent of why carbs frustrate hobbyists.
We should have stopped there, but we didn’t. It has a few other tricks up its sleeve as well such as a “auto-tune assist”, where The Carb Cheater can make real-time air fuel ratio adjustments towards a user’s defined target setpoints. Adaptive controls, cool right? We think so – well get to that in a moment.
For now, lets see what that data/telemetry & datalogging is all about:
