Carburetor culture as I remember it... Late '50's and early '60's, the available engines were getting bigger in leaps and bounds and stroker kits were in all the catalogs for the new engines and the old ones that now seemed too small. The old way of adding lots of Strombergs was obsolescent and getting crazy as engines that could use eight of them began to appear. The 4150 Holley was available from '57 on, as noted above, but I do not remember it having any great popularity until later... The hot modern setup well into the '60's was the Carter AFB, also born in '57, and used by nearly all the manufacturers on some engines. Duals were generally the desired setup on bigger engines, and the available sizes began to go UP radically and quickly around 1960 as Detroit started cranking out the hotter top of the line engines that began the Super Stock era. By the 409-406-427-413 era, winning at the drags was vital and it seemed like every issue of HRM announced someone adding a bigger Carter to the line. Suddenly everyone hopping a '55 Chevy or whatever wanted the new 409 Carter, or whatever the latest one/pair was, and of course rodders (almost universally in '55 Chevies by this time) used them on much smaller engines than Detroit did. Honest Charley, the big mail order source of the day, always prominently featured the newest Carter in each new catalog. Ratings were by square inches of venturi...CFM of flow was an unknown piece of calibration. Some ads noted their ratings in Strombergs (!) as in "equal in square inches to X Strombergs." Ford FE engines were probably the main Holley supporters...they were long enough to stuff in 2 4 barrels of this flavor, important since the really big ones were not available then, and also used the 2 barrel relative of the 4150 in triples...again, carbs really too bulky for shorter engines. I cannot remember when Holley became important as an aftermarket carb as carter had. At some point, Holley introduced a line of purely aftermarket versions including large sizes...important since the carbs were hard to fit on most engines as duals. I do not remember a time for this development, which largely blew Carter away, but I think it was a bit late for the HAMB.
Use to love it when the the cops were after someone, those late 60's/early 70's Q-jet equipped cop cars sounded so cool.
Holley was pretty much known as a 'Ford carb' until '64 when GM installed one on the Corvette. But the ground-breaker was the 3310 dual-inlet Holley that first appeared on the '65 Z16 Chevelle. The original design was cobbled together by Smokey Yunick for Pontiac in '62-63 as an answer for the larger engines of the day that were restricted to a single carb for racing, i.e. NASCAR. Pontiac p***ed on the idea, but Chevy talked Holley into building it for their big blocks. Released for aftermarket sales in '66, between racetrack success and GMs increasing use of Holley carbs on their hi-po engines after that 'legitimatized' them with hot rodders and Holley's aggressive marketing to the aftermarket cut into Carter's sales. Carter responded with the disastrous Thermoquad (remember those?) and Holley became the 'go-to' choice.
The Holley 4bbl needs to have the secondaries opened long enough to replenish the rear bowl with fresh gasoline. This does not get done with enough frequency on gently driven street vehicles. (there are lots of guys who granny drive their Hi-Po cars) Holleys have their place on race cars. AFBs and Q-jets on street cars through normal driving replenish the bowls with fresh gasoline.
I'm not brand-loyal. I like Holleys, Edelbrock/Carter AFB, and Quadrajets. They all have shortcomings, and they all work well when they work. I am most familiar with Holleys, and the only leak I ever had from one was a worn out throttle shaft. 'Never had leaky gaskets or anything else. I would have to agree with the comment that most of the problems with Holleys are probably self-inflicted.
Not that this really applies here, but I'm a fan of the 4000 series 4 bbl Holleys. I run them on 2 cars (2 X 4) on both without problems. I'm also a real believer that MOST all carb problems are created by so called rebuilders. Oh, and I liked the old Carter Thermoquad
Holley fan here. As mentioned most problems are self inflicted. Also Holley isn't the only carb to blow power valves. The Ford 2100 2v and 4100 4v will blow power valves from backfires too. I do have one Cater AFB. Use it for a doorstop in the garage.
I don't know if there's a more simple carb to tune for a hot rod engine. As is true in many facets of this stuff, when something works too easy we think we screwed up, got it wrong, that something MUST be amiss. And so it seems to have always been with Holley carbs. Those old formulas in the paperback tech books that figured out your CFM? Add 100 and that was perfect Holley for you. Jet and powervalve to your needs, stick a fork in and don't look back. Who used to apply Chapstick or spray silicone on the gasket surfaces? I did. The worst of issues with them I had was removing the old gasket and without prepping the sealing surface the mess would be there every step of the way. Not fun if you were a pit tuner at the drags. My last was a 4500 series 1050. Staggered jetting (BBC heads), no power valves, just tuned for WFO. Damn it was so easy I though I forgot something! I think my jetting was 92 and 94. I even tried those jet extensions. Anyone else use those? Made ZERO difference, so I guess I fed it enough fuel volume too. Some stuff really needs to be left alone, and yet some of those 4150s from my early efforts needed the file fix on the metering block sealing surface. Not all, I think maybe 2 in more years than I care to admit to this ****. With a Holley that old cliche' really applied; if it ain't broke, DON'T FIX IT. Quick edit: I also noticed the 4500 drawing in the blog post and thought "...this is gonna be kool..." but it turned out to be just good. And feel free to correct me if this is wrong, the 4500 was also a FORD additive for HP before it became mainstream drag fare. Yes? No? For the 427 full zoot stuff in 63-4? Another edit; I should look **** up vs digging through cobwebs in my memory. The 4500 was a NASCAR app for the Boss 429s in 69-70. My bad...
You got to admit that when Ford puts a pair of Holleys' on one of their engines, like this '63 Galaxy I'm working on, the 'Holy ****' factor goes off the charts. Even Chrysler pulled the Carters off their Super Stock hemi in '64 in favor of the Holley. The Carters just wouldn't get the job done, they used them on the street version but not for race.
I always had good luck with Holleys; never had any major leakage issues. In my day they were THE performance carb.
Yes, the 4500 Dominator was developed for the Ford by Holley, most of the development work was done at Smokey Yunicks. The guy that developed the Dominator left Holley to start Quick Fuel. Here's a pic of one I have that is similar to the illustration, it has choke towers and a provision for choke cable. I've seen really early ones that actually have a choke. There are short stacks available for these too.
BFC! I thought the inline autolites were pretty cool but never played with any...Holley's have been good for me, do set up procedure by the book, very few had bad gasket surfaces...Played with a Grant [Demon I guess] carb on a pontiac, pretty Holley part friendly..Best feature was an adjustable air bleed so you didn't have to drill [experiment] with holes in prim throttle plates for idle circut tip-in.. Note pic of base plate, screw with spring in center is the air bleed, reached with long screwdriver put down through hole for carb air cleaner stud...Couple pics of Demon carb..
I am a Q jet guy for the street and track , and work on all my freinds Holleys ( mostly Dominators) at the track , I rebuild both , I prefer the Q jet . most of the Holleys I work on are climate sensitive ( around here we can have 4 seasons and a air pressure drop and rise in one day ) and I am always looking at temps , air pressure and changing jets or Power valves to match , the q jet , set it once and leave it unless something goes wrong which is rare . and love the Q jet sound when the secondaries open .
First generation #4575 street carb on my re-flanged FE Porto-sonic. These were the only dominator built that originally had choke blades and a spark-ported vacuum source. Not pretty, but pretty functional...I do like Q-jets on mild street cars. Really have no use whatsoever for the Edelbrock AFB knock-offs.
Density goes up, jets have to get bigger if you are going to take maximum advantage of it. Doesnt really matter what kind of carb it is, the reason dense air makes more power is more oxygen to support the combustion of more fuel. If you dont, you are leaving et and MPH on the table, especially on the last half of the track. Guys always talk about engines being big air pumps, thats only half the story, and tends to lead guys down the wrong road. They make power by burning the fuel you put through them, you need more oxygen to support the combustion of all those hydrocarbons. I once had a guy whose street car I was working on at the track over the course of a couple years, we had been trying to get it into the tens all through the first season. It ran 11.03 on the first day out, flirted with the ten second barrier all year, but never quite did it. End of Sept. the day came, low humidity, cool, corrected al***ude was around -800 ft, perfect conditions. I just kept jetting it up and watching the MPH, four sizes bigger then the biggest jet we had had in it all year, it went 10.98@121+ and he got his time slip, and I was pretty damned happy. If we hadn't jetted up to take advantage of the extra oxygen, wouldn't have happened. I ALWAYS jet up as the air gets thicker. If you dont have to, you were too fat in the first place.
I didn't jet up George. I was bracket racing. Had enough data to know what it would do as the night air came in. Took me a cpl weekends to realize why it would slow down at night AFTER it picked up a round or 2. Humidity. Can't burn water, right? The number didn't matter to me at the zenith of that car's life with me, what the number would be did. The lowest ET, highest MPH was the ghost. I stopped chasing the ghost about a dozen weeks into it, learned how to tune with shoe polish.
man, i cant resist chasing that ghost. its like when a dog sees a squirrel. I dont think theres anything i find more satisfying in the car hobby. Hell, i would rather test and tune than race. At Mission, they have the High School program on Fridays, they used to have a pre-booked test n tune with 20 slots, man I LOVED those. Quiet, you could concentrate, no distractions, time to make changes, and you could make 20 hits in a day if you thrashed. man, you can learn a lot doing that!
Highlander, when it went 10.98, I had 93's in the primarys with a power valve and 100's in the back. The 100's were the biggest I had with me, and the MPH still hadn't nosed over! I could have thrown more fuel at it, and it would have went faster. Team G with a fence across #2 to correct the fuel distribution, if 1 and 3 looked good, 2 would always be fat. Just a little .080 fence across the bottom of the runner entry cleaned it up. I never bothered with the jet extensions, just set the back at the top of the window.
In reality, its all about getting air to the engine, look down into FalconGeorge's Dominator and its' obvious why the holley run faster. Carters and Rochesters had all mannor of stuff hangin in the air stream.
Some years ago I did the 'Bounty Hunters' super stocker, Tom Sneeden had given me the original Carters that came on the car from Chrysler and we were trying to get them to work on the original intake - period correct thing. I just couldn't get it to work - remember Chrysler had replaced all these Carters with Holley half way thru '64 as they couldn't get the Carters to work either. I took those carbs to Zeke at John ****y's shop (AED) and we put them on thier flow bench, at about 500cfm a halo of gas formed about the Carter, at 600cfm the halo started to disrupt the airflow and droplets of fuel would fall into the carb causing it to pop and bang at the top of each gear. If you get the oppertunity look at an original air cleaner from Chrysler back then and you'll see a tall neck before opening to the air filter element, it was how they controlled the gas halo. Whats the first thing a drag racer got rid of? That air filter.
the last time i saw a halo of fuel over a carb was on a truck that turned out had a clogged exhaust. tried to start it and a "fog" would rise at the opening of the carb. i wonder if those engines needed bigger exhaust?
I used to buy holleys at swap meets [when they were cheap] , clean 'em, repair what some ****head had done to them , put a kit in 'em & resell 'em , made some decent money doing it !! Simple , easy to work on & if ***embled correctly , pretty much bullet proof ! dave
I never had too many issues with them,just replace the power valve every few years with a Holley part and they keep on working fine.
Its funny, this ties into something I have had on my brain for a while. I have a pair of Cal-Custom 40-40's, I think it was Tony that tried them on Holleys on the dyno and lost 35 or 40 hp, or something like that. I was thinking they would probably work better on AFB's because of the shape of the neck, and the location of the bowl vents on the AFB, my guess is the 40-40s were causing a pressure drop across the holley bowl vents.
I've always been partial to the model 4777 myself. The good old 650 double pumper. WHEN they are working right, with the big cc accelerator pumps; no other 4 barrel has the same kick on a hot 327.
I think you've just discovered the difference in design philosophy and intended usage between Holley and Carter/Rochester carburetors. All carburetors present a compromise of some sort. For delivering air and fuel in high volumes at or near wide open throttle, there's a reason why Holley and Holley style carbs are popular. They do their job well and mixture adjustments are quick and easy. But when tuned this way their street driveability and efficiency often suffers. Carter and Rochester carbs do have what appears to be "all manner of stuff hanging in the airstream". But most of that "stuff" is there to increase air speeds thru the throttle bores, especially during light and mid-throttle driving. Like pulling away from a stop light or stop-and-go driving in town. When properly tuned, the higher air speeds improve throttle response, atomize fuel better, keeps spark plugs and engine oil cleaner and can provide better mileage. If you have a heavily modified engine and need maximum performance, then a Holley is the way to go. There's a reason why they're so popular for this kind of usage. But for a stock, or even moderately hopped up engine in a street driven car I'd go with a Carter (an AVS if I had my 'druthers) or a Rochester Q-Jet. Good throttle response from idle to wide-open, sufficient air flow and better suited to fine tuning.
^^No its not, and all that "stuff" in the airstream is not the reason why the Q-jet works so well on transition, its because the primary side fuel metering system is better. The "stuff" is there because its cheaper to make them that way. In fact, if the venturi size stays the same, and flow through the venturi increases by removing all that **** in the way, booster signal doesn't decrease, it IMPROVES. This is a demonstrable fact on a flow bench, and I have measured it myself.
Venturi???????? boosters????????? Ya'll are confusing me, let me go look at the secondary side of that Quadrajet again.
Yeah...backdoors of a Qjet are at least as open as the Holley 3 barrel (3160, I think?) that preceded the dominators... Nothing in there, if your engine pulls enough air to open it all the way, except a blade to help the air turn in. The whole hole forms a sort of linear side-to-side venturi AND an automatic pumpless accelerator pump. Most Qjets are rated at 750, and with bigger front ****erflies and some grinding of casting warts can flow 1000. The primary boosters and air valve system allowed the same 750 basic carb to function in OEM applications as small as 230 CI.
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