Engines are like Ginger and Mary-Anne, no one special trick thing works for them both, or even one of them all the time. Let me explain . . . Mary Anne is a little cute brunette hottie, but she is also a corn fed girl who has done some work with her hands, knows where her food came from, can milk a cow and has done fun things in a hay loft. She doesn't worry about germs too much, can throw 50 lbs. on her shoulder and shovel **** out of a stall if need be. On a cold winter morning she will make you feel good, then make you coffee and help you shovel the driveway. She responds to standard touch, and does well with it, but a very skilled set of hands will take her to another stratosphere of performance and blow her mind. She is happy with a less skilled set of hands for the long term however as they have less complications and last much longer. Ginger is a beautiful redhead, elegant in fact. As such she has never worked on the lower end of things, only knows when her caviar is not fresh, not where it came from and probably thinks her champagne comes from a spring somewhere in France. Grunt work is for those people she pays and down and dirty is not an option. Everything must be absolutely sterile if she is to participate. On a cold winter morning, just forget her and take matters into your own hands. She expects the most skilled of hands to take her to ecstasy, when she wants and how she wants, and this changes by the minute. She will go through several sets of very skilled hands as she burns them out with her drama and maintenence. Is your engine a Mary Anne or a Ginger Anne? Do you have standard skills or exceptional skills? Are Ginger's high winding thrills worth all the effort, or will Mary-Anne howling and throwing you back in the seat for a hard ride to about 85% of capability do it for you? AFB's, AVS's, Thermoquads, Quadrajets, Autolites and Holley's can all be tuned for either Scenario and be very reliable, it's just a matter of how much you want to put in. Expecting a carb to run decently right out of the box is not a big stretch on a Mary-Anne, but probably not happening on Ginger. I like AFB's, haven't had much experience with Edelbrocks, and had limited success with Holley's. I look for Mary-Annes, but they always have some Ginger in them. I am confident that on a mild V8 engine, you could put a box stock Holley or Edelbrock carb on it (in a reasonable CFM rating) and have it work pretty good. I think the Edelbrock is a better design for someone who isn't looking for infinite tuning capabilities, and since most people on this board don't race their hot rods professionally or at all, I say bolt on the Eddy. Peace.
I like the Edelbrocks, always had good luck with them, easy to build and tune, I really like the fact you can change the step up springs, jets and metering rods etc. without having to remove the carb and/or spill gas everywhere. I think the biggest problem with carbs in general - Edelbrock, Holley or whatever is guys always seem to go too BIG.
The main reason for the popularity of the Edelbrocks is that the calibration is very close for a 9.5 to 10.1 , mild hyd cam 350 chevy right out of the box, and most guys dont know how to tune a carb anymore. You can bolt it on and it will run reasonably well, without messing with jets, shooters IFR's, or PVCR's. The irony is, these same small blocks would make more power AND get better mileage with a well-tuned Q-jet, but most guys cant handle the tuning part, and most of the Q-jets you run across nowadays are from the '70s, too lean.
Good post. But if Holleys arent working out for you, you might need more Ginger. Most of my motors are more like cheap ******s...
i ran on edelbrook card on my 46 chevy pickup and it sould great with it and running great too.thaanks
I ran a Holley 4bbl on my built 296 Merc flathead with an Edelbrock intake for years. It worked well there because I could set the jets to the lowest setting for the small bore of the flathead with out flooding the cylinders. I did have to do regular scheduled maintenance as in float settings and power valve replacements. It ran well and dependable. I also ran a Holley on my 289 Ford. Not much on mileage but performed well also. How ever on my SBC's I run the Edelbrock's. The only problem I have there is I usually take them out of the box and re-set the float levels. I have found that most are off from being bumped in shipment. Thanks, UPS! I will be running a Q-jet on my 401 nailhead. I guess what I’m saying is to use what best suits your needs. They all work!
I run Edelbrock on my Crack *****. Back in the day, we tried an experiment at the drag strip. On a warmed over 302 Ford ( Cam, Heads and Ignition) We ran a 600 CFM Holley all day Saturday, tuning and tweeking between rounds until we came upon the best, consistent results. On Sunday, we took a 600 Edelbrock out of the box, with several different rods, installed it and played with that all day. The best setting on the Edelbrock happened to be the out of the box set up. 3 tenths and 6 mph faster. I get that it's not scientific and I have no dyno numbers to prove anything, but I switched from Holley and have been reliably happy ever since.
In my experience, Edelbrocks seem to run pretty well and are rebuildable rather easily. Holleys on the other hand run on magic and good will, when those are gone, all hope is lost.
Ever tried to get an Edelbrock carb to run on a engine with over 500hp? Not I! Bolt a Holley, jet it, adjust the accelerator pumps and Boom! Faster then you've ever been!
As I recall Edelbrock has quite a few 600+ hp Musi built crate motors using the 800 AVS carb so I see no problem.... as well as ^^^^^^^^^^ Larry's motor there!!!
used both(carter afb and holleys) the biggest difference was the carter you set it and forgot it.the holley always leaked at some point and needed tuning all the time.one of the things you could do with a carter is remove weight from the air valve counter weights to custom the rear air valve to open sooner.always ran more consitant time with the carter.have a shed full of carters,q-jets and holleys.so will never need to buy any new carbs. 0
I am another guy with a garage full of carbs, afb's, TQ's avs's, 4150's 4500's, even a couple 950 3bbls. I dont HATE afbs by any means, but the only place I could see deliberately running one is if I needed the look for something "period". Mild street application, a well-tuned Q-jet or Thermo-quad will both outperform it and get better fuel economy. If performance is first and foremost, I would use a holley double pumper. Rip snortin BB, dominator. As far as function, I would probably even choose an AVS over an AFB, I prefer the spring-loaded air door to the counterwieghts. Its not that theres anything WRONG with the afb, just for most jobs theres a better carb out there. The main reason the edelbrock carbs are so popular is the jetting and ifr's and so on are well matched to a mild small-block, so there is no recalibration involved.
as far as i can tell from past expieriece the best place for a holley 4bbl is in the nearest appropriate dumpster! ive used q-jets and afb's with good results and great dependability but much of my current hair loss is due to trying to keep holleys in tune. ive had them on several cars and it seems that every time i went to drive the car the damn carb needed to be fiddled with to get it to run! not so with an AFB just set it and forget it.
I like edelbrocks... unless ya grossly over carb an engine with some huge edlebrock they run good.. as for quadrajets if ya know what your doing with them they are an awesome carb.. its when they get old that they go to ****. and what I have found most of the problems with quadrajets is the people working on them.
x2 ON THAT. I think if I spent as much time as Ive invested on Holleys, Q's I could figure out why edelbrocks go to ****. Edelbrocks comparing out of the box will run circles all day long around holleys. The better carb I found in terms of street is the holley "motorcraft" vac/sec style. They respond a whole lot better with annular discharge. edelbrock and q's dont have this feature.
Weber just makes them for Edelbrock (and probably just the main body)...they are a Carter AFB, with a few proprietary changes. That design isn't used on any foreign cars.
The Jalopy Journal
