Edelbrock for a new guy like me?

Street car/fuel mileage,,,go Edelbrock...street/strip and performance minded,,,go Holley

ive grown up on holleys, my dad tought me how to tune them with a vacume gague in about 5 min. ask someone that knows how to to show ya. Holleys are the shiznit in my opinion. Id always have one under my hood

edelbrock here. i like it cuz no float bowls to deal with :D

Originally posted by Anthony:
ive grown up on holleys, my dad tought me how to tune them with a vacume gague in about 5 min. ask someone that knows how to to show ya. Holleys are the shiznit in my opinion. Id always have one under my hood I like my demon, same thing really. I saw a new BG in a new street rodder that was cool. one big bowl, two floats, three jets, power piston, and acc. pump accesible by only 6 bolts on top of the carb. vac. sec.
I might try one if there are magazines doing dyno tests soon.
Zac

My edelbrock has floats :eek: I love edelbrock carbs, there easy to work with and have lots of options. I've never used Holley though, but some of there products Ive been un-satisfied with :eek:

Hey Phil,,he said no "float bowls" to deal with. You've never even used a Holley,so apparently you don't know how easy it is to work on a Holley,and what do you mean by lots of options and easy to work with? :confused: :rolleyes: We all saw your edelbrock in pieces on this website,apparently they werent too easy for you to work with :eek:

I bought a new Edelbrock Carb a couple of years ago and it was a pain in the butt to get calibrated. I have purchased alot of Holleys over the years and they often ran good right out of the box. I think you can do alot more with a Holley's options than an Edelbrock. And most of all those metering rods are a pain to work with.

EVERY time someone I knew substituted a Holley for and Edelbrock, the car ran better, assuming the Holley was close to being setup right.

I mean think of it, the old Carter design was superceded by the QJ, a MUCH more elegant design for street use, and replaced by a Holley by the General for hipo apps. Not bashing Edelbrock here, but the Carter AFB is an early sixties design that didn't stand the test of time to 1970.

The Holley 3310 is a pretty easy to use carb. I wouldnt use a double pumper unless you have lots of stall, and gear. The vacuum secondary gives that slightly delayed opening rate which mates well with low numerical gears and tight stall.

I've ran both Holleys and Edelbrocks, and the Edelbrocks I've run were pretty bulletproof on a mild street engine. Had one on a truck for almost 10 years w/ no problems. The Holleys I've had needed to be tweaked every so often. Wasn't difficult- adjust float level and idle mixture but they did seem to take a little more care and feeding. But they were a lot easier to tune and get idle with a big cam. I think both carbs have their merits - its a matter of preference and application. The Edelbrock AVS looks pretty interesting. Kind of an AFB with a Qjet air door. Looks like it would be perfect for a street car.

David does make two good points. Holleys sometimes do requrie some maintenance, and are sensitive to fuel pressure. The AVS is an interesteing design.

One of the best carbs I ever played with , in the mid 70s, was a ThermoQuad. Laugh, but it was a great carb. QJet was tops for the street.

go with a rochester quadjet

Heh- for a NEW guy, I say Holley is the best :cool: . Sure, theyre messy to change jets on, but simplicilty wise, they are unbeatable, IMHO. Start of with an 1850, keep it stock. Then rejet, revalve it. Then change teh sec. spring. Then swap out the float bowls for center hung ones if you like, and then throw on a rear metering block. Not only have you actually learned something, you now have a kick A** carb that can STILL be tweaked even MORE with pump cams and other stuff to your application. Just, IMHO, of course ;) ; nothing wrong with lots of room to grow.

ha~! ok you got me robert smile.gif sucks! I heard Holley's were alot more difficult to work with? My carb came with my car I havent had a shot to replace it with something bigger or even if i want to yet. It was owned by someone who didnt take too much care of the car before so it needed some cleanin' up. Everything is in pieces at some point :D I guess if knowledge is known with Holley's they could provide more, so it seems?

I like the Edelbrock carbs. Very simple to swap jets, springs, metering rods, etc. Tons of different combinations. I've used them on my 23 T-bucket, 69 GTO, 69 Chevelle 396, and have one sitting on my 70 Chevelle 454 right now.

Originally posted by pnutkemist:
I heard Holley's were alot more difficult to work with?What exactly did you hear that was so hard about Holleys? Dont believe everything you hear. Research it or try it for yourself. Most of those people probably buy cobbled together junk yard/swap meet carbs with mismatched parts.

Originally posted by pnutkemist:
My carb came with my car I havent had a shot to replace it with something bigger or even if i want to yet.If you have a 600 CFM, why get a bigger carb?

Originally posted by pnutkemist:
I guess if knowledge is known with Holley's they could provide more, so it seems? ANY Carb is hard as h*ll to get working if you dont have a basic knowledge of how they function.

I still say Holley.. smile.gif

Adman,
I you want a carb that is very easy to work on, then go with the Holley. You can get jets almost anywhere, I wouldn't be surprised if they had them at WalMart smile.gif Almost everyone knows how to work on them, and they are hard to screw up. There is probably 500 different books available on them.
Try finding jets, or metering rods for the Edelbrock :( You will be lucky if your local speed shop even has them. Most mechanics dont have any idea how they work etc.
Just my opinion,

IMO the Holley is a superior carb for a car that's supposed to run good. Save the Stone Age Carter for your grandma's grocery cart, that it was designed for.

Thats true. Thats how I was trying to put it Justin! What about those ol' Barry Grants?

i've only had one Edelbrock and for the most part it worked great. but occasionaly if i took a corner hard, it would stumble and sputter. i messed with it, got the Edelbrock tuning book, but never got that problem solved. well until i swapped it off for an 1850 Holley. it gets just as good mpg as the 600 Edelbrock did, but it added some snap and it also doesn't stall in the corners. and talk about fuel pressure sensitive, it says in the Edelbrock manual DO NOT EXCEED 5.5 psi of fuel pressure, and i believe 'em. naturally i tried more just to see what would happen, it pushed fuel past the seat and flooded the engine. that was with 7psi. i've ran Holleys up to 8psi with no problem with the needle and seat. the Edel's are a great carb for a daily driver or a pick up truck, but give me a Holley for anything performance oriented. and those Demons, i'm steering clear of them. i know more bad than good about those things. ;)

which carbs run better? go to the track and I doubt you'll see very many edelbrock carbs. The Holleys are by far the most tunable carb out there. The only thing I dislike about the Holleys is the common fuel leakage past the throttle shaft. I've even seen it with new carbs that feel tight, but I wouldn't trade my Holley for an edelbrock, AVS, AFB or anything. It seems the guys that like the edelbrocks are the streetrod type that aren't satisfied with carb until they find one they can unbox and bolt on and drive, the Holley's require float adjustment first then idle mixture adjustment second, powervalve pump cam and secondary adjustment etc.---------------------------------------------------------but when they are dialed in watch out!!!!!! :D

Originally posted by baddbob71:
The only thing I dislike about the Holleys is the common fuel leakage past the throttle shaft. I've even seen it with new carbs that feel tight---------------------------------------------------------but when they are dialed in watch out!!!!!! :D As an aside,

Are you talking about when the car sits overnight, or when its actually running? IF youre talking about after it sits, the carb has an internal leak somewhere (OR is percolating), Id bet. I fought this for a while on a Holley- turned out the "plate" on the metering plate for the secondaries was not quite "flush". Every time, that stinking thing would leak off the secondary throttle shaft...drip,drip...Until I took the good 'ol BFH to it on a piece of flat steel, and put on new gaskets- after that not one drip from anywhere.

Just a tip.

Holleys can be tricked out for cheap- and like you said, once they are WATCH OUT! I suppose the Demon is an OK carb if you get a decent one- afterall, its the same basic carb as a Holley for the most part.

Every carb car we have has a Holley on it now. All of them, from my g/f's stock 1973 350 to my 425hp 383. The big blocks got them, my dad's 383 work truck engine. ALL of them. There is not an easier to tune carb anywhere.

A couple case in points:

My dad's work truck is a 77 GMC 1 ton dually. He put a 383 in it and it runs through a 4 speed and 4.10 rearend. He wanted an Edelbrock carb, got one new. Then bought all the tuning stuff. When he was finished he had about $250 in the carb. He tuned and tuned, fixed and fiddled. Finally after about 5 months of constant tinkering, it was as good as it got. 10mpg all the time and a slight stumble leaving a stop. Not horrible, just a little one. I convince him to put a 3310 on it. So I go to a few swap meets, cobble together a dual metering block 3310 with cathedral bowls for $40. Throw in a rebuild kit, make some preliminary adjustments and put it on. Runs like a champ. Good throttle response(better than the well tuned out Edelbrock). Once the engine warms up we tune the idle. Take it on a drive to a swap meet. We get 14mpg and it drives like a dream comparatively. A 40% increase in mileage for a $75 carb at most. Plus, it runs much better and is a much more pleasurable vehicle to drive.

My g/f's 72 Nova has a high mileage stock 73 350 in it. When we got it running we put a Q Jet on it. Tuned it as best we could. Q Jets are hard to tune on the street. Lots of variables. But, it worked well, got 12mpg sometimes even 13. But when winter came and the choke started running, which it had to, the mileage started tanking. She couldn't afford to drive her car at 8mpg. So, I enlist a spreadbore Holley. A 650cfm with vacuum secondaries. Put it on after a few new gaskets. Runs nice, bit of a stumble though. So I go up one jet size. Perfect. No stumble, roasts the tires right from idle. Now the car is getting about 13mpg consistently in the middle of winter.

My 383 gets 20mpg with 3.31 rear gears, 25" tall tires and no OD. My brother's 383 also returns 20 or 21mpg same gears as me, no OD same tire height.

With results like this, I won't run another carb again. Holleys are just too easy to tune and make run well. Most people say you need a Q Jet to get the best mileage. That might be true, but you better know how to tune it damn well, and not use the secondaries. I get to use all 750cfm of my 3310, and I like that. graemlins/thumbsup.gif

I bought a 570 CFM holley with vac secondaries and pefomer intake, a long with crower 00915 cam. That should do enough for the little 283 smile.gif