RE: [Chevelle-List] RE: carbs.

[Tom Tomlinson]

Title: Message

Parallel universe.   I had virtually the same experience with my original '71 Malibu 350 4 speed. The sound when the Qjet secondaries opened up was great, and the front end also hopped up in the air (I flipped the air cleaner top as well ... WAAAAAAA!). I got 19 MPG on the highway with that carb. It started spewing gas everywhere one day, and I replaced it with a Holley. I wouldn't say it was a big mistake, but the mileage did go down with no perceptable increase in performance. I also rebuilt the Qjet and put it back on eventually. Worked fine.   Having said that, I'm considering an Edelbrock perfomer for my current '71 Malibu 350 4 speed. The engine came with an Edelbrock intake manifold and Holley 4160, 600 CFM. I hate the Holley; hesitates when its cold, uneven acceleration, poor mileage (12 MPG). I though about rebuilding it and/or converting it to a 4150, but a friend of mine had an Edelbrock carb and let me try it. Very nice acceleration. Didn't have it long enough to test the gas mileage. Reading the Edelbrock literature, the carbs are supposed to be matched to the intake and cam, so tuning will be little or none.   I also noticed that Edelbrock makes a Qjet clone. They suggest a 750 CFM Qjet carb with their intake manifolds, whereas they suggest a 600 CFM Edelbrock performance carb with the same manifold. Why the big difference? I don't know.   Tom Tomlinson '71 Malibu 350 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Chevelle 69 Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 9:52 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Chevelle-List] RE: carbs. Gents,            I am far from a mechanic, but I am sold on Quadrajets. The guys that say when you get a good one, it's great, are right. I must have got a good one!    When I was a teen I had a GTO with a 389 and a 4 speed. It came with a Quadrajet. This wasn't a low performance Quadrajet mind you. It was what was known as a "spread-bore". Meaning it had tiny primaries that you used for every day street driving (around the size of a quarter), but those secondaries were about the size of a silver dollar (give or take a bit).   When I pushed that peddle to the metal, those secondaries opened and the front end jumped in the air, and the kick was such that it seemed like I had downshifted when I hadn't. The sound that engine made when it went into performance mode was like sweet music to my ears. Especially if you turned the air breather upside down to expose the air filter. Anyone do that?   I rebuilt that carb myself later, not knowing what the heck I was doing. I just bought a rebuild kit and followed the instructions in the kit. It performed just as great afterwards as it ever had. I tried putting a Holley on the car once just to see what all the hoopla was about. I put the Quadrajet back on and never thought twice about going back to the Holley.   I have two spread-bore quadrajets I will be rebuilding to put on my big block. That's what I'll be using gents. If anyone wants to throw their spread-bore Quadrajets away, I'll take them!                                                                                      Steve