The Riley Racing Carburetor

American hero George Riley was a racing virtuoso most active in the 1930 – 1940’s (no relation to British Riley Motor CO) George did his own everything, like the first OHV conversions for flathead racecars and side draft carburetors etc. George started out early on, in the 1920’s alongside pioneers Fred Offenhauser and Leo Gossen.

The Riley Racing Carburetor is made of strong 356 heat treated aluminium and the housings are anodized. They use Ford Stromberg main jets and idle tubes, and also Chandler Groves needle seats and adjusting screws. I'm not sure how many carbs Gerorge did but more than a few of them ended up on drag bikes and hill climbers in the 1950’s & 1960's - like George Smith’s “The Tramp” and Chet Herbert’s “The Beast” both ran dual Rileys on the quarter mile.

However, after the drag bike and hill climber golden era ended, every Riley carburetor seem to have vanished from the face of the earth, with the exception of a few stored in classic racing museums.

Balls out! Just how brilliant are these floats!? And they're not attached to anything inside the carb, they are free falling, like Tom Petty. And this makes the carb insensitive to angles, a totally genius construction, especially when mounted on a bike.

These carbs are going on a stroked Knuckle, and I'll post more pics of this project as soon as I've made some further progress - that made me sound pretty sober huh? Fantastic.

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