@RS-60 mark posted:I can say for fact; I loved the heck out of my Tomlinson Dellorto book!
I'm really glad to hear that somebody found some value in this book.
I've owned my copy for more than 20 years and from Day 1 found it to be pretty much useless to me for troubleshooting, setting up, jetting, or rebuilding the carbs. I can't tell you the amount of time I spent (as a young man, getting rapidly old) reading, rereading, taking the book into the garage, thumbing through it looking for a clue (any clue, really) in a vain effort to point me to my problem. The book never helped. I eventually learned my way around a set of Dellortos, but it was 100% the result of tearing the carbs apart and staring at them, then going in and reading everything I could on TheSamba.
There is good information for quite nearly everything out on the internet, and there's a ton of misinformation as well. It takes a bit to sort the wheat from the chaff (there's a 140+ page thread over on TheSamba filled with gems and folklore both in equal measure), but there are people who understand this stuff. You need to find those guys.
Perhaps Mr. Tomlinson was one of the smart guys, but I've never been satisfied with advice like "Don't worry about your air-correction jets. Everybody just uses 180s". I want to know what those jets actually DO (ask 50 different guys. You'll get 25 different answers and 25 "I don't know"s). Before purchasing, I was hopeful that a book touted as the Dellorto Bible would offer a plausible explanation for the "mysteries". I was left wanting.
I've never known how much to weigh in on threads like this because there's always such a love-in for the Tomlinson books (the Weber book is equally useless to me) that I've wondered if perhaps it was just me. But I've talked with enough other people who found the same thing to be reasonably sure it's not. It's a lot more rare to find somebody who's been able to glean something.
Back when Mark Harney was posting on TheSamba, I was able to get more information in one of his posts than in the entirety of the Tomlinson Bibles. The information on Webers all transfers over to Dellorotos, because they are essentially the same carbs with a different idle jet location. The principles all transfer.
My car is tuned really, really well. I thought it was perfect before I drove @DannyP's car and came to the realization that there's more to learn, and more to gain in the tuning (of which, ignition is 75%). Most cars aren't even close.
This is my experience. Obviously, RS-60 Mark had a different experience. Your mileage may vary.
I'd happily sell my copy, assuming I can find it.
