Carburetor Jets for Dummy Mechanics

A carburetor and it jets

If the truth be told, no one on the Antisocial Network staff would be considered a "motorhead." Oh, sure, we have staffers who can perform basic maintenance tasks and some who could probably tune up pre-Clean Air Act engines, but most of our accumulated knowledge about internal combustion engines tends to be of the vicarious type. Still, we're pretty certain that among us we know quite a bit more than eHow.com's Vee Enne, who it's quite apparent was woefully unqualified to answer the question "What Is a Carburetor Jet?" for the mother lode of misinformation (now relocated to niche site ItStillRuns.com).

Vee Enne – undoubtedly the initials of someone with a name like Veronica Noseworthy or Victor Nickel (in reality, she's Victoria Nicks) – claims to be an expert in computers, which might be useful in explaining electronic fuel injection, but carburetors? Nahhh... That's most likely why Vee went all science-y on her readers to explain how carburetors work (not the question, Vee) even down to describing the Bernoulli "process," although she never uses Daniel's name.

Enne also goes into details about the "significance" of carburetor jets and has some mention of the "problems" associated with jets of the incorrect size; and ends with a favorite eHow topic, "considerations." Vee's first concern is proper maintenance, which, frankly, is stupid. Although we did find this "consideration" rather amusing: "Making sure that the carburetor is the correct size for the engine is critical, as the carburetor jet size is based on the size of the carburetor. If the carburetor is too big or too small for an engine, the carburetor jet will not provide the correct amount of fuel for that engine"...

...which, we realized, sort of makes sense if you somehow convince yourself -- as has Vee Enne -- that

"A carburetor jet is a tiny hole in the venturi, which is the narrow end of a carburetor tube."

All of which is rather funny when you come right down to it: if Vee had spent even a few more minutes researching her topic, she might have learned that the jet isn't just a tiny hole, it's a carburetor part that can be removed and replaced, and often is. The body of the carb is cast aluminum or another metal, while the jet is a brass fitting threaded to fit into the end of the venturi – most carbs have multiple jets, Vee! In other words, Enne's "consideration" about carburetor size is utter bullshit, and it's far simpler to rejet a carburetor than surf the web for a carburetor of "the correct size."

Had Vee stopped by Amazon, she might have learned that you can buy replacement jets for a couple of bucks each, but no... This is just one more time that a moron with no clue what she was writing about earned fifteen smackers to pass along misinformation to the poor schmucks unlucky enough to depend on eHow and this Dumbass of the Day for information.

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