Yeah. I could also have tossed on a 50 buck two abrrel from the junkyard and my old two barrel intake if I wanted it to just run. I've tried chevy qjets, Pontiac and olds qjets on my car. All restored/rebuilt to factory specs by me. All ran like sh*t although the olds was the closest. Chevy was the worst. Qjets are application specific. My '78 Buick 17058241 has ran the best even in piss poor original shape. I plan to rebuild that one soon.
To be clear, my car has a 1976 Buick 350 shoehorned into it. Not stock at all. .030 over, comp 268H cam, .469/.469 218/218 duration @.050 lift. Mild headwork/three angle valve job. The carb number is 17058241. '77-79 Buick and '78-'79 Pontiac, with changes to the insides like idle air tubes and jets and whatnot to the pontiac being as it is a Buick carb originally. Quadrajets are very versatile while at the same time being very picky with what engine they are on. Yes, you can take a chevy qjet and make it run fantastic on a Buick, but for the amount of work and time you'll spend it's not worth it. I bought my carb for 60 bucks on ebay and it works, it just needs a rebuild. Well plugs epoxied, maybe jetted up a size or two and different secondary metering rods. Plus ethanol resistant accelerator pump and gaskets because I live in the land of corn.
I've heard that - to be weary of companies that Frankenstein Q-Jets back together and that they never run as good as a properly reman'd one
That's for sh*t sure. A stock carb has been methodically tested and optimized for that specific application by engineers with zillion dollar equipment at their disposal. . When you have the original equipment carb you just clean it- that's all. It can take a few motor modifications in stride and still operate well. It's when you get crazy that you need to start re-jetting and stuff, and that is usually not by much. Now consider a computer carb that is operating on commands from the ECM that has been programmed for all possible operating conditions. To replace that type carb the best you can do is find the model carb that came on the last non-computer version of your motor and hope for the best. Taking a totally different model and trying to adapt it can be so frustrating that you want to just grab an off-the-shelf-mail-order-whatever and be done with it. But you never are, because it will never be right. That is why Mr.Sony did the right thing. He found the correct model carb for his motor and will optimize it to work with the motor he built. THAT is the way to go.
