Carter Quadrajet

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pontiacgp

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Mar 31, 2006
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Kitchener, Ontario
My carb is acting up so I picked up a fresh rebuild to use while I have mine in for service...my carb has been tweaked by a carb guru so he gets to check it out, I'm not allowed to play with it. The carb I picked up is a Carter quadrajet and on the side it stamped along with the carter name, made for GMC. I have found some numbers on it but none help me to find out what's in the carb and what vehicle it came from. I was told it came off a 1970 camaro but who knows. I have tried online to dig up some info on a carter carb but I haven't found what I'm looking for. Do any of you have any info and or experience with a carter carb?

thanks
 
I thought Quadrajet was a Rochester carb.
 
79elky454ss said:
I thought Quadrajet was a Rochester carb.
After further Googling it seems that Carter made q-jets when Rochester could not keep up. Identical except for the name on the casting. There seem to be lots of qjet decoders online
 
nearly all the decoders deal with rochester carbs and the information I've seen for carter hasn't helped me. The numbers I have found on the carb don't turn up anything online and the numbers I have found online I can't find on the carb. I would like to find out cause some of these carbs are sought after and whoever rebuilt this one number stamped the parts to keep them together and I only paid 130 for a fresh rebuilt q-jet...
 
What's the number on it pgp? IIRC the carter ones were not really saught after any more than a rochester built one, unless you have one off a specific/special engine, but I would think GM would have saved the rochesters for that purpose.
 
Back in the 70's I had a 69 el Camino with a 350/300HP, 4-speed, 3.73 posi. Went to get a new Q-jet for it a the guy at the parts store asked if it was a Carter or a Rochester. I said the el Caminos came only with Rochester Q-jets. He said not true that some trucks and el Caminos came from the factory with Carters! To this day I thought he was wrong. Now this post has me wondering. (mad me mad at the time, so I bought a spread-bore Holley instead!)

Doug
 
What number on the side? Even though Carter contracted the work, there should be a number on the driver side, running vertically, near the throttle linkage. A 70' would have a divorced choke and the number would be like 7040XXX. Here is a great site for Rochester data.http://www.newagemetal.com/. Carter made standard carbs, Rochester made the exotic ones, like Ram Air's.
 
On smaller horsepower motors you can get just as good if not better performance out of a Q-jet than a Holley.

My Dad was sorta of a guru on Q-jets around here.We raced with them for years.My Dad had to run Q-jets in certain stock classes years ago,and just stuck with them into bracket racing.

You can really do some tricks to pump some gas and power out of one.

Look at some early car magizines and you'll find some of these tricks.

I could always get about a 10th or better out of a Q-jet over a Holey on my 327 motors at the track.

Besides, when you kick down the four barrel,man what a sound !

I like looking for the older Pontiac style with the fuel inlet in the front.Better fuel flow rate and ease of runing a fuel line.
 
I'm not even thinking about a holley.....I'm just trying to figure out what I have...


soooo...it has the number 17059205 but that does not relate to any online number for a carter...it does for a rochester and it's a carb for a 79 truck but this choke with a stovepipe has been upgraded to a electric choke and in 79 the only choke that was used was electric....I'm going to toss this on my car and see how it works....
 
That should be a good carb. I have used 79' Buick and Pontiac carbs and they seemed to idle better than most. 79' had the hot air choke, 80' was first year for electric. I backfit all mine to electric. Be sure whoever modified it that they closed off the air port that goes from the float bowl to the choke. It is to draw air into the choke houseing through the hot air tube in the manifold. If it is not plugged it is a vacuum leak. I use a lead ball (fishing split-shot) to plug it at the float bowl body. It also has the APT (adjustable part throttle) that can be tuned for better takeoff. There is a little plug in the top of the airhorn right above the metering rods that can be popped out and a threaded plug screwed in it's place. By turning it you can raise or lower the rods in the jets. The factory warns about NEVER touching it but just screw it down all the way and count the turns so you know what it was set at from the factory. It takes s a "double D" socket like the mixture screws, but a secondary hanger with the end ground down works too. Does it have that rear mounted choke pulloff? They suck, the linkage gets hung up and the fast idle won't drop off. Front mounted is way better.
 
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