This year at the Classic Motor Show Birmingham NEC 13-15 November 2026 (link here) we will be taking two of our cars to the Mustang Owners Club Of Great Britain stand which has a unique theme of ‘Pace Cars’, so we offered to help out; the first car we will be taking is our 1964 1/4 Pace Car which as far as we know is the only one in Europe on the road. The second car is our 1979 Pace Car.

1964 1/2 Pace Car

We have already posted about this car way back in 2013 and gave some history to this very special car here, it’s worth a recap.

Lance has been working hard to get them out of our secure storage and give them a clean and they’ve come up really well after a good few hours.

Did you know?

The three pace cars used on the track were all convertibles. There were 195 Special Edition pace cars released, all were Coupes.

1979 Pace Car

This car has been in storage and hasn’t been on the road for a very long time. Still a rare car even if many have survived from the reported 10,485 Special Editions made. This one has had a Chinese carb fitted as the original won’t be ready in time for the show sadly, as we have stripped down the original and it needs a few little bits which are on back order.

Here we have a video of this car cold starting after sitting for a week or so. Mark took the air filter pan off just to show the workings as it started. Remember this a Chinese carb for now, the ones that people moan don’t work. We have had this car on the road for a break-in and drives nicely with our carb know-how.

Chinese Carbs

Every so often we get emails from people who have purchased a a Chinese Carb for their cars and then come running to us that they don’t work, but they do (now) if you do your home work and know what you’re doing. Thanks to Mark (our Carb Guru) who has written this article to explain it a little bit better. It’s worth the read, we won’t reveal everything we have found, but we reveal quite a lot!

“Over the years, since their appearance on the market, we’ve had experience of these Chinese 1 and 2 barrel Autolite carburettor copies. 

Our first experience years ago wasn’t good. They were poorly cast, poorly machined, and assembled by Mr Magoo. After trialling a couple, both 1 and 2 barrel versions, we ended up putting them on the “Death Row Shelf.” Where they would end up getting torn apart for spares to keep genuine Autolites going. They were just junk.

Having noticed an improvement a year or two ago (we’re not saying 100% satisfaction here) to other Chinese manufactured parts, we decided a reappraisal of the Chinese “Autolites” might be in order. A couple were ordered and sat waiting for an opportunity.

Like buses, the opportunities came all at once this month. We need to replace a very worn 1 barrel Autolite on a 6 cylinder and a similar condition 2 barrel on a V8.

We pulled the latest purchase of Chinese carbs out of stock and decided to tear them down to every last component on the bench for an examination and reassembly before trying them on the cars. We found some pleasant surprises and confirmed some long-held beliefs.

Firstly, we can say the casting quality itself has much improved since our last dealings with these years ago. Much nicer looking casting with a lot less rough casting flash. The material itself also seems to be improved, but we will find out more about that shortly from our local electroplater guys … thankfully, a couple of petrol heads too. These guys work predominantly in the Defence and Aerospace field and have the knowledge and equipment to delve into that deeper than we ever could. 

The machine work performed on the castings is also better, but this is let down by a lack of thorough cleaning afterwards. The older Chinese carbs were notorious for the leftover swarf, even in the float bowl. These newer ones are better, but we did find and remove some minute swarf/machine chippings in both the 1 and 2 barrel. Not enough to block a jet but enough to impact sizing or an air bleed orifice.

Quality control now employs someone at last … alas with only one eye, but it’s an improvement.

Unfortunately, they still employ Mr Magoo on the assembly line. There are two specific areas not assembled as the original Autolites were, and one trips the other up in operation of the cold enrichment circuit. It’ll still work but not to its best potential.

It’s also clear that these are not run or set up on a test engine before shipping. 

However, those niggles aside, we then went through the jetting. We found again that the Chinese manufacturers still do not mark their jets exactly as the original jets were by Autolite and they seem to favour 0.005 increments and mark them accordingly. For example their equivalent of a “48F” Autolite jet is marked “485”. Only the pair we removed measured out to .046 and .0485. A spread of 1.5 to almost 2 full jet sizes on the 2 barrels. This measured with our pin gauge set with a +/- tolerance of 0.0002″. Obviously, that is going to impact trying to synchronise the idle mixture and have further effect.

We clean all our original Autolite jets in a nitric acid based solution, which removes EVERY spec of dirt. Then we check them on the pin gauges before storing them. We got two original Autolite jets (of the correct matching sizes) and installed those into the thoroughly clean casting. Then reassembled the carbs as per Autolites schematics and put them on the respective cars.

After filling the float bowls, working the linkage until the discharge nozzle was primed and dropping a small amount of fuel into the bone dry intakes, we turned the key.

The V8 started almost immediately and settled into a high (unadjusted idle). A good sign. The straight 6 took more cranking and we feel this is due to the intake design of the 6 with its long straight intake and right angle turns in the runner to the chamber in the head. However, after a couple of turns of the key, the 6 then fired up and set into a high idle of its own.

We were happy. We set the chokes cold/fast idle to a more sensible rpm and let both cars get up to operating temps. Then proceeded in checking/adjusting hot idle rpm, timing, vacuum and idle mixture. Once we were happy, we shut off and checked hot starts. 

Both carbs lit off and started both motors perfectly. Our smiles broadened but we weren’t out of the woods yet. So far starting and (hot and cold) idle proved acceptable, but there’s still idle to part throttle transition, cruise and acceleration (WOT) to go.

Alas, time beat us, it was the end of the week. Beers, hot tubs and women of dubious character were screaming for our attention over the weekend so keep an eye out for part two When we delve further and road test them but our conclusion so far is … they’re better than they were but they aren’t a “bolt on” replacement we’d be happy with …. yet.”

Pop by the Mustang Owners Club of Great Britain to see the collection of these cars, as far as we know this will first time that all the Pace Car years have come together in the UK. Adam will be there on the Sunday, so if you see him and say hello and tell him how much you love his blog!

Stay Safe & Take Care!