This is a summary of the process I went through to swap the Autolite 1100 carb on my Ford 200 I6 with a cheap Holley 1904 clone off of Amazon.

Why swap the carburetor?

The Autolite 1100 is known to have a few issues, many of which I’ve experienced first-hand.

  • Small throttle barrel. Less airflow = Less power
  • Difficult to tune (for a beginner like me)
  • Automatic choke is made of fragile plastic (I’ve broken 2 of them)
  • Difficult to find genuine replacements
  • “flat spots” in acceleration and stumbling

Given these issues, I’ve been seeking an alternative for quite a while. My first inclination was to go with a larger carb setup to help wake up the engine a bit. I don’t need it to be fast, but I’d like to not worry about getting on the freeway ramps. Something like this aluminum cylinder head from Vintage Inlines would be the premium option, but they’ve been out of stock for the last 4 or 5 years that I’ve been tracking it. Supposedly they are in works with a foundry to get some more cast at the end of this year, but we will see.

And the final reason for the replacement, my old carb died on me last week. R.I.P. autolite, you’ll be missed. I’ll be cleaning it up and rebuilding it for future use.

Constraints

For an engine to run, you need 3 things: Fuel, Air, and Spark. For the Ford 200ci I6, the limiting factor for how much Fuel and Air get into the engine is the intake manifold. The Intake inlet is small, and a larger carb than a single-barrel would be bottlenecked by the flange on the intake manifold. There are a few ways around this, but those are way beyond the scope of this project. Many people have had good experiences using the Australian Ford 250ci heads in place of the stock 200 head, but I’m not ready to get that deep yet.

This limits me to a single-barrel carb with an identical (or very similar) mounting pattern. After perusing some of the Mustang Forums and coming accross some threads like this one, I figure the 1904 was about as close as I could get to a drop-in replacement.

I still have some doubts about whether I’ll have enough clearance between the air cleaner and the hood after the new carb is installed, but that sounds like an issue for future-Jacob.

Final thoughts

These are mostly train-of-thought notes about the issues I faced getting the new carb installed and working on my vehicle. Your mileage may vary, and I am far from an expert on these topics. If you’ve got suggestions or corrections, I’d be happy to receive your feedback. My email and contacts are at the bottom of the page.