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Best carburetors

jpstaxjpstax Member Posts: 250
in General
I thought that no one had brought this up, so why
not discuss it?
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    gkelly3gkelly3 Member Posts: 38
    Carter carbs were as simple as they come-I had and AMC Concord (1976), with a 232 I-6, single barrel carter. The rebuild kif was $5.00, and the rebuild took me all of 30 minutes!
    The WORST carbs-SU's! Those g-d things would always freeze up un cold, damp weather, and were impossible to synchronize!
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    isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    Were pretty good. I remember when the quadrajets came out in 1966, everybody was afraid of them!
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    carnut4carnut4 Member Posts: 574
    I remember buying one of these brand new at an auto parts store in 1966-for $34.95! This was the BIG Carter that had the huge airhorn. Supposedly they were the ones used on the NASCAR cars, and others, and was the biggest four barrel you could by. Sure was a great one-fairly simple. Never had any trouble. I've seen new carburetors that look just like this one with the Edelbrock name on it-and with a silvery plated surface. Anyone know if these new ones are the same Carters-sold the rights to Edelbrock?
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    isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    The younger people here probably wonder what us old farts are even talking about!

    A carburator? what's that?
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    carnut4carnut4 Member Posts: 574
    and also an old former hotrodder has a son who's a senior in highschool. They bought a project car last November-a 76 Nova coupe with an old six they yanked out-for $350. Body's in perfect shape. The kid put in a rebuilt 350 smallblock, and has learned a bunch about the whole thing-including carburetors. He reads Super Chevy magazine and has a Summit catalog. I've been in on that project, watched it in stages, and given advice. They put on a Holley 750cfm carburetor-paid $260 or so. Found a Muncie 4-speed-put that in. The kid fabricated the exhaust himself with a wire feed welder. Right now, they're shopping for a wilder cam-what they have is a stock 350 whatever. Anyway, it's been fun for me and my friend to wath and help the kid with his project! Now, though, we {Me and my friend Bill] think we need a project of our own, after watching the kid shop the speed parts and put things together. And-the kid really appreciates the advice and help from us old farts! Fun stuff....but you're right. Carburetors are definitely from the past, even though they're widely available for hot rods. Wonder what it'll be like in another 20 years...
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    isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    Somewhere I read that the Honda Civic is yesterday's '57 Chevy.

    Sorry...I disagree. Somehow, a slammed 96 Civic Coupe with a loud tin can exhaust doesn't do it for me.
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    speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    The Edelbrock carb is the old Carter AFB. My vote, at least for a street performance carb, goes to the Q-Jet. Small primaries, big secondaries, and you can fine-tune the secondaries by changing the metering rods--without disassembling the carb. I seem to recall it flowing around 700 cfm. Not hard to rebuild, although re-attaching the choke rod to the bi-metallic coil was a real bear if the carb was still on the engine. I guess the spreadbore design limited its ultimate performance potential, but it was a great street carb.

    Carnut, I recommend a cam from Competition Cams. The last time I built an engine, a 390, their hottest hydraulic cam really woke it up. I can only imagine what they could do for an engine that actually breathed.
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    isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    Had a nasty problem of dropping the little "freeze plugs" into the intake manifold which would cause catatrophic engine damage.

    The mechanics learned to epoxy them into place!
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    speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    Well, that could be considered a drawback.
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    dranoeldranoel Member Posts: 79
    Anyone have any Solex, SU, or Weber stories ? I use to enjoy the sync process on twin SUs--and how about topping off the dashpots on SUs ?
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    Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    I always hated Solexes...I thought they were overcomplicated and a real pain to get right...SUs are great...simple and efficient and easy as pie to synchronize if you bother to read the directions and don't use a pipe wrench on them like Bo over in the Arco station.

    Webers are terrific carbs but it takes a while to dial them into each particular car. And you need lots of extra jets and manuals. In general, Weber conversions put on cars that never had them don't seem to work out very well...for all the expense, you get poor gas mileage and on some cars no noticeable power gain (like MGs--waste of money). But they can save your life on cars like the Mercedes 190SL or BMW Bavaria, which have very inferior stock carburetors from the factory... so even if you have to spend $1,000 and you waste gas, at least you get a car that will run every day.
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