Technical Best choice of a 4bbl carb for a stock 350?

To the OP - The one on the left has promise.

Bandit Billy - If the OP's not interested, shoot me a pm with the part #. I might be.

 

If a holy needs adjusted frequently it is because you have problems. Normally they are not problems with the carb, more often than not they are problems with the mechanic and sometimes they are indicative of mechanical problems. they are a set it and forget it carb and always have been.

The bottom line is this and I have mentioned this on several threads in the last few days and I am going to keep saying it until it gets through some of the thick skulls on this site (some of good enough for me). The carb meters air/fuel to the intake manifold. That is all that it does. A CFM rating is cubic feet a minute of air, the fuel that mixes with it is a by product of the air that the carb flows. CFM does not mean how much "gas" your engine gets, that is controlled by your jet sizes and does not have any effect on the CFM at all (or very little a topic for a different discussion). You only need enough carb to keep your plenum full. If your engine sucks the plenum dry then you do not have enough carb or if you have a large plenum to keep full you need enough carb to supply it. Its that simple.

A stock 350 with a stockish intake does not need a lot of air to run.

 

I had a 600cfm Holley on the old 390FE and worked a treat and assume it would be more than adequate for a SBC once set up correctly. In all the years I drove the car, the Holley never needed any major work once it was tuned. My 2 cents worth. There are others here with a LOT more real world experience, skills and knowledge than me.

 

Im running a carter square base 650 AFB on the stock Rochester 4gc intake on my 55 chevy. used a adapter and put hedders on it. and it will haul the mail. its a used 283 power pack engine with about 80,000 miles on it. I did install a new timing chain.

 

It seems like things go in cycles and lately there have been a lot of good carb deals on the local CR. I bought a Holley 4165 in it's original box for $25. Other than being dusty it looks like it never had gas in it. I ordered a rebuild kit from Jegs for $37.95 and freshened it up. The 4165 was the Holley replacement for the Quadrajet and it has mechanical secondaries with double pumps. It has all of the good designs from Holley and the small primaries of the Q-jet.. They also made a 4175 that has vacuum secondaries.