Thread: edelbrock carb-worth rebuilding?

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Originally Posted by C9x

"Someone told me to forget the rebuild of edelbrock carb and get a holley"

If it was me, I would have elaborated with "if you are using the car for most street driving with very little time on the track then rebuild the Edelbrock carb with the help of their tech line. HOWEVER, if you are looking for a performance carb where you have a more spirited driving style and you expect snap performance from the "go pedal", then a Holley carb is the way to go". Of course not all of us have access to $85,000 worth of computerize, weather compensating portable chassis dyno hardware as I have over the past 5 years (not mine, just a friend who allows me access to it when I need to tune one of my cars)....Edelbrock and the Avenger series of carb are great for the street driven "cruiser", but once again, if you are trying to wring out performance using those particular carbs, you are doing yourself and your engine a disservice."


Bill S.

What Bob says about the returns makes good sense. Most large companies that have a "no questions asked" return policy have an understanding with their vendors. Basically, it says " we are going to buy a ton of (whatever) from you, but you are going to get back a certain percentage of those as defective. We need you to build that into the buying agreement, and never hassle us about a return."

When I worked for companies like Boat U/S and West Marine, the policy was to never ever question a customer who wanted to return something. You simply smiled and graciously gave him or her back their money and apologized for the problem. The people at headquarters knew that the vendor of that product was going to take back the "defective" item as part of their deal.

More and more companies are getting away from this though, as they were losing lots of profit for no reason...........even Walmart has tightened up, and they pretty much started this policy.

Don

Discussing Edelbrock Vs. Holley on carbs is like discussing Chebbie Vs. Mopar for cars.....

Eventually you guys will realize that a Fuel Injected Ford is the BEST and make the changeover to a good setup!!!!!!!

I'm like Bill, I really appreciate having a friend with a chassis dyno and all the computer gear and knowledge to make it work!!!!!

Edelbrock's are somewhat self-regulating if an oversized carb is used.
The engine doesn't pull the air controlled secondary valves open all the way if the carb's CFM rating is not reached.
By the same token an undersized carb will pass more air than it's CFM rating if the engine can pull the CFM.

Since the 600 carb is already installed, make the best of it, jet, rod & spring it to suit the purpose and run it for a while.
Since the carb will seldom be under full throttle I'm sure you'll find the car to have good manners in the driveability dept when on the primaries.
Speaking for myself, if I was running a 283 I wouldn't worry about replacing the 600 Edelbrock.

Years ago, a friend stuck an 850 Holley on a 283 powered El Camino.
I thought he was crazy, but it ran prety good.
He did go to a smaller Carter later on and the 850 Holley was a temporary expedient.
Interesting to see though.

Along those same lines, I oughta con my pal into sticking one of my jetted-for-the-altitude 750 Edelbrock carbs onto his 327 powered 29 roadster.
He's running an overly rich 600 Edelbrock right now and it runs quite well.
Pretty much a stock 327 with a bit of a cam, headers (inefficient block huggers) and a whiny gear drive.
I'm betting the 750 would run pretty good.


Fwiw - couple of years back, Car Craft ran some dyno tests on what were considered oversize carbs and had very good results.
Not sure if it was in the same article or not, but they also found not a whole lot was to be gained by port matching - as long as things were fairly close, good enough.

That article and personal experience makes the old carb size formula an ok place to start, but it ain't the end-all and be-all far as carbs go.


Quite a few years back, Holley ran a vendor/tech help tent at the WinterNats.
They found most problems were cured by returning the carb to factory baseline.

My opinion is that most carb problems with new carbs are simply an incorrect choice by the purchaser.


One last story and then I'll shut up.
About three years ago I went into my favorite speed shop.
A small one in Farmersville, California that carried a lot of genuine speed equipment and stuff for the hard-core drag race crowd.
No bling wheels here although there was a stack of gennie Halibrands on a big shelf high up on the wall.
Along with $30,000. worth of Earls fittings on the other wall.

The owner always had a few intakes, some with carbs, a couple boxes full of used stuff at good prices etc.

One bright and sunny day, I spotted a brand new looking 750 Edelbrock sitting on top of the stuff in one of the boxes.
It was about two weeks old and the speed shop owner thought the kid who bought it had mis-jetted/rodded it.
The kid brought it back cuz he wasn't happy with it and had gone to a Holley.
Which is ok, but since he couldn't make the Edel run, my bet was it wouldn't be long until he painted himself into a corner with the uber-adjustable Holley.
Said adjustments not being a bad thing, in fact a very good thing for some.

Anyway, I asked how much for the carb that the owner had bought from the kid and the price was $125.
Not bad considering the thing cost bout $287. at the time

I bought it, jetted it to the factory baseline level and it ran great.
It's the same carb mentioned above that was later jetted for 3400' altitude and it still runs great.

I don't know what happened to the kid, but I sure am enjoying his 'old' carb....

Originally Posted by DennyW

You mean you don't have a large syringe to suck the fuel out of the float level site hole ? (on most models of Holley).

Just like the commercials. And, only 1.99 at most stores.

Denny,
That's about as much fun as hitting your thumb with a 2# ball pein hammer - especially thru that little bitty 1/4" sight hole, working your way around a float, a needle & seat(side pivoted) and in some cases a baffle - been there..... C9's tuna can works about as well as anything but you still drip some nice, soon to be a gummy, black crud gasoline on that nice new bright and shiny rough cast aluminum intake manifold that is only cleanable with a fresh glass beading

the only vehicle ive ridden in that has an edelbrock carb was a blown 350 in a 55 with 2 of them, for the street if you can make them work i suppose. but i still like the beloved holley for street/strip use. i have alot of problems with mine because i use that POS proform center section which is in the process of going by by! once you mess the air bleeds up theres no turning back. leave them alone lol. but anyway, that 570 street avenger would be an excellent carb for the street. even a good old fashioned 600 holley.

Originally Posted by Irelands child

DC9's tuna can works about as well as anything but you still drip some nice, soon to be a gummy, black crud gasoline on that nice new bright and shiny rough cast aluminum intake manifold that is only cleanable with a fresh glass beading

Red rag under the tuna can helps, but like you say, not long until the aluminum intake is stained.

Last couple of aluminum intakes I've had I took em out of the box and straight to the powder guy.

Powdered black, they still look good after several years of use.

I believe they have a powder 'color' now that's very close to brushed aluminum.
Thinking of using that on the 31's calipers.

Guess I've never had much trouble dialing in either carb, though admittedly the Edelbrock does take some thorough studying of the Edelbrock calibration guide. The main thing I like about the Edelbrock's is that once they are properly calibrated, they seem to hold the tune much longer then the Holley's. If I'm going racing or any kind of performance driving then it's definitely time for a Holley. Then I go for a ride with a friend of mine who has a pair of Edelbrock's on his blown BBF. Guess it all depends on which you want to run and how much time you want to spend learning to calibrate, then properly calibrating it....