edlebrock vs. holley

I agree. mechanical secondaries (double pumpers) are for race engines with huge cams. Vacuum secondaries are wonderful on the street...

 

Man, no need to get bent out of shape. if you notice, I was responding to another poster who said you need to constantly adjust them. I've had the same problem, and I really don't care to mess with them. It's easier for me not to. For others, that's fine. And yes, by posting this stuff I'm certainly turning the hundreds of people who buy Holleys every day away from them. Or, could it be that by others pumping sunshine up Holley's butt by praising their ease of tuning and simple reliability be leading those who don't want to mess around spending time "understanding" the carb down the path of money spent on a future e-bay gem? If you read through my posts, I say a lot of people like them - and good for them. I don't, and I'm not going to pretend that they are the end-all in carburetion. And I know I'm not alone.

Wrong on both counts there. I wish you were right though. It's irritating as hell.

I'll agree there...except for the Holley part.

 

Bad idea.

It's an old trick but misguided one. You are guessing on the proper size of the hole to drill, and if you go to far, you can't fix your mistake.

The is a small set screw underneath the base plate. You have to turn your Holley upside down to see it. It is the stop screw for the secondary throttle plates. You can easily adjust this set screw to keep the secondary plates from seating completely, which allows the air into the engine without messing with the primaries. If you go to far, you just back it off, unlike drilling holes into the primary plates.

It is also possible to gain horsepower via carb size and not have bogging. It usually requires a fair amount of tuning and downdraft boosters, but I saw David Vizard use a 600 Holley through a 1050 Dominator on a 440 Mopar, and he got more HP with each increase in size and with proper tuning.

These are some excellent examples of the troubles people have with Holleys and why they get criticized.

I have never gotten my Holley dialed in and had to fiddle with it later. They do not need constant fiddling if you get it right.

 

Ok Holly gurus, how do you determine the best pump cam again? It's been awhile since I was messing with mine. Also, how does one determine the best jets?

 

Playing with pump cams are only necesary if you have a stumble that there is just no other way to get out,or if you are tuning for optimum performance.Jet sizes are easy,start out with say #66 jets take the car out for a good hard run, pull a plug and have a look,if the plug is very light color you need to go up in sizes if it is very dark or black you need to go down. P.S THE MAIN REASON A HOLLEY CARB BACKFIRES IS A LEAN CONDITION,WEATHER IT BE A VACUME LEAK,TIMING,OR JETTING.This is to all that blame a carb for backfires.A bog is usually too much fuel a backfire or popping at high rpm is a lean condition. Sorry there were a few low hits in this thread and i was getting all bent outa shape...i'm ok now.Derek.

 

Who the hell runs a q-jet on their ford . Like Derek says...it is rarely the carb that causes the issue, its a tuning issue, remember, most of these carbs are universal and will require fine tuning. Holley took care of the backfire/power valve issue a long time ago go with a simple spring and check ball on the bottom of the base plate. It really is 6 of one and a half dozen of the other. I prefer holleys and,no offense, it does take "know how" to work on them, but as far as performance between holley and edelbrock, well, there is no comparison. imho.

 

Those hits don't matter, i'm keeping my holley. I was having a float problem with it just as I decided to park it about 11 years ago. I'm fixing to rebuild it, but I also need a gas tank so the tank first, then rebuild.

 

To fix the hole you made, provided you no longer need it, or it was just too big - you can use JB Weld to plug the holes.

There was a time when I had a carb that kept dropping the throttl blade screws into the intake. I was poorer then. I used a piece of screen between the carb spacer and the intake to catch these screws in case they fell out. Yes, I used thread locker on them too.

Yup, I know of the set screw and being able to open the secondaries a little to compensate for the air coming in.

 

Ford did. 1970-1971 429CJ used a Quadrajet. Lots of Early Bronco guys use them offroad - they work better than the Holleys or Edelbrocks do in rough conditions. The offroaders call them "hillbilly fuel injection" because of the steep anles they'll take without starving. I'd love to see how one would run on a 351C; good economy at a cruise, and good power with the secondaries open. But I'm wierd that way.

And if I was going to run a strip car, I'd run a Holley. Other than that, no. There's no sense in getting bent out of shape over who likes who's carb. Seems like there were a lot more "low blows" and disrespect to the "Quadrajunks", "Quadrafloods", "Quadrabogs", "Edelbogs", "Edeljunks", etc. than the Holleys - have a look at the name-calling. My philosophy is run what you are comfortable with - that's all that matters.

 

Quadrajet is a gm term, Thats what I was refering to. I'm aware that ford had a "spreadbore" motorcraft carb that they used for a limited time but intakes that will accept that pattern are hard to come by and any aftermarket manifold will need an adapter, not a good thing, imo.

 

No, "Quadrajet" is the name of the spread bore carb made by Rochester - they were used en masse by GM, but weren't strictly a "GM" carb. The Q-jet on the 429CJ is an honest-to-God Rochester Quadrajet - not the 4300 Autolite spreadbores that Ford used on most 4V engines in the early 70s. Now the Autolites are a Ford-only carb, and if they only performed like the Holleys they would be the only way to fly. The early 4100's I've had have been flawless; the 4300s occasionally had issues.

 

Ya know, I think your right. My mistake.

 

I know this is really a Edelbrock vs. Holley fight, but I was kind of thinking of buying a demon carb for my future street car w/302? I haven't done or been around them so I haven't really heard if they're good or not. Oh and my vote goes to the Edelbrock, because they're easier to use for the non-experienced driver, and they are like mac, easy to use, appealing and very "pretty". On the other hand on a windows or a linux (Holley) based system it is not so nice looking (until Vista come out later this year), they can be a bit more challenging I guess, but if you are a gamer or a person that needs uniformness across the company, it's windows. Fender and Gibson, Microsoft and Apple, Ati and Nvidia, the list goes on and on. By the way that you were asking the question I would go with an Edelbrock, then in certain amount of time if you feal up to it you can go with a Holley. If you really want to see how a Holley runs, see if you can rip one off of your friends car :evilsmile and put it on yours. Or you can buy it in the news paper really cheap ( 65 bucks for a 650 Holley here in bradenton, but sold it before I could buy it ). Hope this helps,
Abe

 

Reading plugs is pretty difficult these days. Unleaded fuel doesn't tell you as much as it should. Either find a local race gas shop and buy leaded, or get an analyzer and read your exhaust.

A friend of mine just bought one of these:

http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/products/lm1.php

 

Sorry if I offended by using those terms.
It really was just an attempt to inject humor into the conversation.
I really do like Quadrajets, but I still practice using those names just to lighten things up. Kinda the way I have used terms like 'Exploder' for the Explorer, or "Tortiose" for the Taurus.
I even said over and over that the Carter design was good for 'bolt and go'.

I have. Loved it.
Offenhauser makes ALL of it's intakes in both Holley and Quadrajet flanges for any engine.
I used a 650 Quadrasuck on a 302. Good power and economy.
Of course the Holley would have made more power, but at the time I didn't need that.

My 396 Chebbie had the original Quadrastumble on it and ran great.
Got bored one day and fitted a spare 700 DP Holley and WOW! What a difference. Felt like I went from a small block to a big block!

Dave