My Rant: Why Quadrajets are better than Edelbrock carbs

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One of the important things to remember with the Edelbrock is that you need to be sure to install BOTH check balls, not just the one. If either is missing, it will not run right no matter what you do. One is round, and the other is square ( I think it is there for added weight). It may also be that the carb was run without a fuel filter and some junk got inside it. If so, it would need to be very thoroughly cleaned out. I pulled a carb like that from a Malibu once. It looked like sh*t, and had obviously been run without a air filter. Plus, it had rust in the bowl which tells me the car had a rusty tank and no fuel filter to block the rust. I was never able to get that carb cleaned out properly. I ended up stripping a jet when I tried to pull it, and decided at that point that it was not worth reviving.
 
My Edelbrock carb has been running great for the last 15 years! I only had to rebuild it twice due to the ethanol additive in the gas today.
 
Lots of my friends like various brands carbs and hate Q-jets. They GIVE them to me for free. Why? Because they never bothered to learn about them. I bothered because all my Pontiacs came with them and I figured the factory engineers knew a hell of a lot more than me. Over the years I've collected tons of parts so that I can dump a pile of stuff on the workbench and build a carb from scratch for allmost any motor I need. When I get a particularly good one I just rejet and retune it for my current project. Right now I'm useing a 79' Buick 350 model on my 77' TA 400 and it is absolutely perfect. Plus, once it's dialed in, you just forget about it until it gets dirty, then give it a quick cleaning and you're back in bussiness.
 
That is the nice thing about the Quadrajet. It is very "set and forget", unlike most Holleys. However, it does take a while to get it set perfectly. I figure on spending a month to fine tune everything before I can forget it. This is where most people lose faith in the design as they are not able to put the mental energy into sciencing it out.
 
When I swapped a 4 barrel manifold and Q-jet onto my 301 4 speed wagon I used a carb that had been on my Daughter's 80' TA. It was so original it still has the rivets on the choke houseing. Ran pretty good, but I changed the jets and rods to what would have come in a 79' 301 fourspeed TA. WAY better. Only cost me a new airhorn gasket.
 
I`ve been modifying q-jets for 30 years ...

the reason you obtain such a good reponse at low rpm is that the primary circuit is small with high velocity ,giving quicker reponse signal then a holley or edelbrock ( carter design»)

contrary to the secondary circuit that is huge to obtain maximum CFM and top end power ....

most holleys & edelbock have quite equal primary & secondary circuits ....

q-jets are less user friendly but when tune right they give incredibel results ...
I ran 11.79 on my q-jet W30 olds ,,,
 
ive had both holley and edelbrock and i no they both r nice but i have a quadrajet on my car now and it runs great but when you start having problem with them then it seems like they suck to me. but im keeping it for now
 
I would love to keep my Quadrajet on my engine, but I just cannot get this thing to get decent gas mileage at all. Great power and throttle response (now) but just can't even get it into the double digits for mileage.
 
thats kind of weird they normally help on gas mpg. i had a holley and it was rejetted but not much and i was getting alittle over 8 miles to the gallon and now with the quadrajet im hetting atleast 13 now
 
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