Carburetor - History and Development

History and Development

The Carburetor was invented by an Italian, Luigi De Cristoforis in 1876. A carburetor was developed by Enrico Bernardi at the University of Padua in 1882, for his “Motrice Pia”, the first petrol combustion engine (one cylinder, 1,225 cc) prototyped on 5 August 1882.

A carburetor was among the early patents by Karl Benz as he developed internal combustion engines and their components.

The world's first carburetor for the stationary engine was invented by the Hungarian engineers János Csonka and Donát Bánki in 1893. Parallel to this, the Austrian automobile pioneer Siegfried Marcus invented the rotating brush carburetor.

Frederick William Lanchester of Birmingham, England, experimented with the wick carburetor in cars. In 1896, Frederick and his brother built the first gasoline driven car in England, a single cylinder 5 hp (3.7 kW) internal combustion engine with chain drive. Unhappy with the performance and power, they re-built the engine the next year into a two cylinder horizontally opposed version using his new wick carburetor design.

In 1885, Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler developed a float carburetor for their engine based on the atomizer nozzle.

Carburetors were the usual method of fuel delivery for most US-made gasoline-fueled engines up until the late 1980s, when fuel injection became the preferred method. In the U.S. market, the last carbureted cars were:

• 1990 (General public) : Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser, Buick Estate Wagon, Honda Prelude (2.0 S Base Model)
• 1991 (Police) : Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor with the 5.8 L (351 cu in) engine.
• 1991 (SUV) : Jeep Grand Wagoneer with the AMC 360 engine.
• 1993 Mazda B2200 (Light Truck)
• 1994 (Light truck) : Isuzu

In Australia, some cars continued to use carburetors well into the 1990s; these included the Honda Civic until 1993, Daihatsu Charade until 1997, the Suzuki Swift until its end in 1999, as well as the Ford Laser (1994), Mazda 323 sedan (1996), and Mitsubishi Magna sedan (1996). Low-cost commercial vans and 4WDs in Australia continued with carburetors even into the 2000s, the last being the Mitsubishi Express van in 2003. Elsewhere, certain Lada cars used carburetors until 2006. Many motorcycles still use carburetors for simplicity's sake, since a carburetor does not require an electrical system to function. Carburetors are still found in small engines and in older or specialized automobiles, such as those designed for stock car racing, though NASCAR's 2011 season was the last one with carbureted engines; electronic fuel injection is used beginning with the 2012 race season.