I am not a mechanic so pardon me for any mistakes in my question.

I have a 79 T-Top with ~60,000 miles and no rust. I have taken good care of it the past 5 years I have owned it. Last year I brought my car in to get the carburetor rebuilt since I was having troubles with acceleration. Finding anyone to even work on a four barrel was a challenge. The shop sent it to a shop that does work for clients across the country. I brought my car back to the shop and he took the carburetor back out and shipped it back to the rebuilder but they are telling me it is just plain worn out (Nice to tell me after I sunk $750 into it last year).

So I don't know if this can be true but the shop did tell me the previous owner had glued internal parts back together and this was just a bad idea.

So my question is, other than my radiator and radio everything in my car is original parts (I still have the old radiator and wished I had it re-cored). I have been thinking about either putting in a new Holley carburetor or possibly fuel injection. I have no plans to sell it but I wonder how it will look I love to see it look original and it is as clean as new under the hood.

How would a new carburetor or fuel injection system impact the car as far as performance and mileage? What about costs for either?

Thx for any help/feedback

 

What you mean to say I think is that you are not a mechanic yet.

Buy Cliff ruggles' book on the q-jet. Read it at least twice then rebuild your q-jet. If it's beyond repair get one off of ebay and rebuild that one. A well tuned q-jet equates to a well running engine.
To own one of these cars your gonna have to be willing to stretch your abilities.

 

My original Rochester carb is long gone, PO took it off, wish I had it, but he installed a Holly 650,nice carb, but it is always needing to be messed with, actually I got pretty good with it in the last few years. If you decide to go aftermarket carb I would suggest elderbrok over Holly any day, but picking up a used original for a 79 shouldn't be that hard to find and once you rebuild it you will always be able to keep it going

 

If you want to stay with a Quadra-Jet, remanufactured units are available. You do not necessarily have to go aftermarket.

 

By "worn out" the throttle plate shaft bores, on the primary side get worn, and the fix is to install bronze inserts. That is part of ther effort on rebuilding one of these 35 year old carbs. That and epoxying up the plugs on the underside of the main housing.

There are Q-Jet rebuilders on this forum, Maybe one of them could chime in.

For $750, what had been done to your carb? If part of their "rebuilding" process was tumble cleaning the main housing and air horn, then the carb may be ruined because the delicate internal passages get beat-up during the tumble clean process.

If you in fact need to get a new carb, get another Q-Jet. Sometimes on ebay there will appear Edelbrock Q-Jet and they work great. Otherwise, contact a trusted Q-Jet rebuilder about obtaining a carb outright for your application.

 

So EFI sounds like a waste of cash?

 

get the orignal Qjet back from rebuilder and send to Lars (forum member) for rebuild/repair....

 

This is the best answer. Lars can not be beat. I don't mind helping local Corvette guys out, but I can't compete with the skill and resources he has. Maybe some day I can put a spare engine on a run stand - but not today.

I would *not* buy a remanufactured Q-Jet - most places do a scary bad job of doing it. Worse than making mistakes - they deliberately ruin carburetors.

You have 3 strong solid choices for rebuilding a QuadraJet - Lars, Cliff Ruggles, Henry Olsen.

 

Nonsense. If the carb is the original carb, and if it has not been hacked up by somebody through a commercial rebuild process, the carb can be repaired, rebuilt, and set up to run like new. Either Clliff, Henry or I can get you taken care of.

Lars

 

Trust me, this is good advice. He rebuilt the carb on my 80 and set it up to fit the mods I have made. I am amazed at the difference every time I drive it, which is a lot more often now that it runs well consistently. Send an email to "v8fastcars@msn.com" for all the details.

 

The card rebuilder sounds like he is taking ownership of the issue. Sounds like he wants to replace the housing (I think is what he said) if it is going to cost I'll try and backout.

How would I find Lar's address and how long a time would it take to rebuild?

 

As stated above by CaseyJones: "Send an email to "v8fastcars@msn.com" for all the details.". That is Lars email address, get a quote from him on turn time and price.

 

Thanks for all the replies, the guy came back and fixed it for me at no charge. Runs great now.