This is a direct "copy" and "paste" from the Walbro website:

Due to the latest EPA and California Air Resources Board emissions regulations, Walbro has discontinued providing adjustment tools to Central Warehouse Distributors, Dealer’s or consumers.

I'm afraid that someday soon you won't be able to even buy a carb with adjusment needles without resorting to black market tactics. I can't tell you how angry this kind of thing makes an old mechanic and hot rodder like me...

Some day they will do away with carburetors, and everything will be fuel injected, with all the electronics potted in epoxy and non re-programmable. Don't know about you guys, but I sure get tired of the government deciding what is good for me, and then shoving it down my throat.

Anyone wanting to pm me to comment might want to do so quickly, as the moderators may not let this post live long. (Too controversial)

AV8TOR

I agree 100%. Best thing to do now is collect all the carbs you can. They are thrown away every day. Look for them on dead power equipment. Capt,n[:-]

[i]When we as American's get tired of the government regulating every facet of our lives, we'll Vote the Libertarian party into office.[/i]

I get your point, but I have a slightly different take on it. As far as adjustments, I don't let that slow me down. I dremeled off the shroud around the needles and then made a slot in the needle head. About 2 min. of work and I had user friendly needles.

As for the world going fuel injection, bring it on, I can't wait. Fearing fuel injection as being less modifiable is like fearing DVDs when your used to VHS tapes. DVDs are much easier to rip to whatever format you want, upload, copy to an SD card etc. as long as you learn how. Fuel injection is a joy to work with compared to carbs. If you need 5% more fuel at 3k rpm and 10% less at 4k rpm to get a perfect mixture across the range you just tweak those values. With a carb you have to tune to the problem spot and comprimise elsewhere. If their FI system is secure and you just can't reflash it, and the very nature of those devices makes that more impractical, you can just scrap it and buy or build your own easily. There are already FI systems on a chip that just need a timing reference and transistors to drive the injectors. And that isn't even getting into tunability of different injectors, and other components. I would much rather be making click and fix adjustments at the field rathar than futzing with needles and diaphrams.

It's not the technology that I fear, It's the **** government and the personal liberties that we're losing much faster than we realize.

While I do agree with you I am not too worried. Those tree huggers have a long way to go. I have talked to people at Walbro about this and they said it would be years and years before the carbs go away. Also, don't fear fuel injection either. In the car performance world there are all kinds of companies that make tuners and flash chips for FI to tune curves for timing and fuel delivery. Even the Harley guys have come up with ingenious little things to do it from a laptop. Works very well too I might add. Heck even my beloved Echo engines are OK. Remember the CARB crap only controls engines under 50cc as I recall. That is why Echo added a slight amount of stroke to the CS-510 and called it the CS-520 if I recall correctly to sidestep the tree huggers. now it is just over 50cc. I am sure all those pea brains are real happy about that. Or could it be that our government is smarter than we give them credit for being. They don't want to screw everything up...Do they???[8D]

That's well said. I also agree completely about the fuel injection except for one point. If tuning "ports" are provided, that's one thing. If not, and one has to do a complete redesign of the programming and electronics, that's above all but the most die hard and capable enthusiasts. Not something the average guy wanting to hop something up a little can do. But again, it's the government playing god with our lives that %$&&%* me off, not that I need to have a reserve of carbs in stock to be sure I have some useable ones for future use.

AV8TOR

I wouldn't freak about FI controllers.

Look at what we are doing with the electrinic ignition systems..

once a cheep injector system is avaliable you'll see programable FI/CDI contol boxes come out.