[64woodwheel]

I have seen a couple of very high end 63's that have the spark port plugged on the front carb. I am wondering why. I have seen 3433s that do not have any evidence of ever being machined. Are these clones?

[61-63]

The one with numbers on the foot is a clone; the real carbs had no numbers on them from the factory.

The one with no numbers is real if the body casting # is correct. The reason I say this is because you can still see casting flash along the bottom edge of the front foot, and you loose that casting flash on a 3012/3221 when you grind the number off during the process of turning that carb into a 3433/35.

As far as the spark port you will see real carbs with that port open and never drilled out, drilled out and threaded with a brass plug in it, and drilled out but plugged with an aluminum rods like both of those carbs seem to have. So the spark port really doesn't tell you anything.

[64woodwheel]

Thanks, John. That makes sense because I have a 3435 that has a plugged port too. It has a #2 phillips-drive plug. I don't know why Carter would have installed it. It is not plugging anything. There is no machining that opens into the the throttle bore. I am still wondering why anyone would press a solid slug of material into the hole as shown. The commonly cloned Buick carbs have a spark port that would need to be plugged, but the one with the stamping on the foot is not a Buick carb because it does have the correct style rear vacuum port (visible in another pic). Maybe this plug is a repair to cover up a modification that was done at some time to try to create a functioning spark port since the 3012/3221 did not have spark ports.