Hey gents, I need a carb.

[Kapdin]

So i can rebuild small carbs but have never touched a truck one. Mine is old and the choke don't work and.....old. Just looking for a good bang for the buck and pretty much bolt on and go kinda thing. So any advise would be great, I don't wanna spend more than $350-$400. The motor is stock 350.

 

[Christian Nelson]

Edelbrock with electric choke, or the Holley street avenger. 600cfm should be plenty.

If the choke isn't working on your current one, it may be getting stuck. An old problem on these due to the air cleaner wingnut being tightened too much, it would pull up so hard, it would slightly warp the venturi causing the choke to stick. One trick to resolve this, is to give it a very slight hammer blow on the top where the air cleaner bolt screws into the carb. A light but solid rap you don't wanna smash the thing, but just thwack it. Then test it to see if the choke is sticking. May not need to replace carb at all!

 

[Kapdin]

humm no joke huh? dirty secret is yea i have it prolli way to tight cus my setup don't fit perfect so i just snugged it down good.....maybe u just saved me a few hundred bucks. I bought one of them cheap ass carb stacks from oreily's and it never fit right so i took it off and just snugged it up rly good, i just need like 1/8in or so stack.

 

[Christian Nelson]

Yeah, you gotta be careful about after market air cleaners, and how they fit. Buddy of mine had a double stack one he installed on his camaro, didn't realize the throttle would get stuck on the bottom of the air cleaner if he pushed it past a certain point. So, he was flying down the interstate with a stuck throttle, and didn't have the presence of mind to just shut the key off, lucky his girlfriend reached over and turned the ignition off before he killed them both.

Yeah, the easy test is to wiggle the choke on and off, and if it's sticky in one spot, you just kinda look to see which way the sides need to move to get it unstuck, and give it a couple of light raps, and either go back to a stock air cleaner, or make sure yours fits right..

Good luck!

 

[Jims86]

If you still have the q-jet, I would have it rebuilt by Sean Murphy Induction.
The Q jet is a far superior carburetor than the Edelbrock/Carter options.

 

[Kapdin]

Ok guys, so i tinkered a bit on the carb. I hit the bolt a few good times and it feels solid. So i started playing with the two arms right behind the choke and they hit a catch, i could put a little force on them and they would close but every time you opened the choke it would catch again. So i blew cleaner and air in ther and still catched, so i saw a screw head right below it like the idle screw on the other side. I gave it a little turn out and boom, the two arms were all free. Is that the way its supose to be?

Also, your saying my stock carb is better than an after market? one guy at work said they kinda suck.

 

[towman]

hands down stick with the stock q jet

 

[Jims86]

Ok guys, so i tinkered a bit on the carb. I hit the bolt a few good times and it feels solid. So i started playing with the two arms right behind the choke and they hit a catch, i could put a little force on them and they would close but every time you opened the choke it would catch again. So i blew cleaner and air in ther and still catched, so i saw a screw head right below it like the idle screw on the other side. I gave it a little turn out and boom, the two arms were all free. Is that the way its supose to be?

Also, your saying my stock carb is better than an after market? one guy at work said they kinda suck.

I have found that most people who say something sucks, are just too lazy to figure out whats wrong, and just runs out to the parts store and replaces said part.
Q-Jet is the bees knees. when you want economy, you have 2 sippin barrels, when you want power, the giant secondaries kick in.
There is a reason that GM used them on every carbed production v8 Till late 1991.

 

[Driver4r]

Q-jet all the way

 

[Christian Nelson]

Q-jet is a good carb.


I thought Edelbrok/carter were essentially polished q-jets with some small mods to make them more efficient, or something?

 

[crazy4offroad]

No they are a completely different style. Q-jet is vacuum actuated secondaries, while Carter style is mechanically actuated secondaries. They're also shorter in length from front to back compared to Q-jets because of float bowl placement.

 

[Kapdin]

I got an appt. with a guy that rly knows these carbs so he can tell me wats going on. mostly just adj. the choke. At the moment i got the 14b in the rear and jacked up and waiting on u-bolts to put the front in so as soon as thats done ill see if the carb is shot or not.

 

[woodsrider250]

Qjet are arguably the best STREET carb ever made. I've helped get them working on Fords even...after the owner installed their beloved holley or POS revamped Carter (Ebrock), and got piss poor mileage while getting dusted by my 17mpg 442...LOL. I will say that a mech sec holley is less of a headache to deal with for a bracket racer/etc, but I raced one regardless. On the street they just plain work, sip fuel, and go WOT like a bat outta hell if you can deal with the .25sec quadrabog. This is a great newer article that hits a lot of points on the Qjet. Some of them are strictly for retuning for a racey cam/etc...You just need a rebuild.

http://www.carcraft.com/howto/57178/

 

[f6john]

Any particular year model of quadrajet better? I have a 85 305 and the carb is a problem.

 

[Jims86]

Any particular year model of quadrajet better? I have a 85 305 and the carb is a problem.

If yours has the electrical plugs on it, you are stuck, but SMI carburetors is the place for rebuilding...Sean can make that carb perform just as good as the regular ones.