Picked up what I believe is a 68 tri power setup yesterday. All carbs dated 68 and appears in mostly original condition. Can someone give me a ballpark on what its worth? Don

 

The prices are all over the place for corvette stuff. Just the carbs are worth about $750 to $900 as cores and the intake is worth a grand in that condition. If you clean it up $1500. If you go by Ebay prices you might get closer to $2K for the intake but not to many people are buying at that price. I see them listed and not moving. The rare unit is the 67 tri power, the 68-69 arent a big deal since they are lower profile. If you pull the bowls off the carbs you will have a better idea if the carbs had avlot of water in them or not. The setup I bought was really rough but it was a dream buy. One f those things I wanted since high school, only better since its a big block thing. Long story longer, the intake had a big rot hole in it that I went through the water passage which took a lot of reasearch to learn how to fix or find a repair compay only to finally have to fix myself and the original date correct carbs needed a lot of restoration work. I found a core set that needed work as well and made 2 sets into one for now.

The problems you will see are the carb bodies warp really easily, they corrode internally from standing water in the fuel bowls and the base plates can seize. If your set is free and the interior isnt all rotted out you can probably rebuild them for around $500, if all the parts are still good. You may have stripped float bowl set screws, a missing accelerator bump check ball, stripped bowl screw holes or stripped fuel inlet nut screws. The only thing you cant fix easily yourself is the fuel bowl threads. There are some good rebuild/ restoration videos for the Mopar six pack carbs that translates to our carbs

Another possiblility is buying some new Mopar six pack carbs from Jegs and changing the float bowls over so that the fuel inlet is on the correct side. THe new Holley tri power for small blocks uses different carbs on the ends that have metering blocks instead of plates and are too long to fit the big block intake. I believe if you change the float bowls from center hung to side hung floats, they may be short enough to fit

 

I was just looking at your pics and noticed you have a mechanical linkage on there, and not the stock linkage for the corvette trip power. The stock linkage only makes the carbs close, the secondaries open by vacuum. Yours is forced open by the mechanical linkage which is similar to the one Tracey Corvettes sells now. The arms are incorrect for stock corvette secondaries but they work for that linkage setup. The fuel lines arent correct either but there is plenty of good choices on the internets..

 

its worth what ever you paid for it

 

Your 3X2 looks to be in pretty good condition for being 50+ years old. Good find.

You have a 3937797rectangularthe intake manifold. I believe that is for a 1969 3X2. I think the 1968 rectaangular port manifold was 3919852. At any rate the rectangular port manifolds were the manifolds in the 435 HP cars...they really make the big blocks breath like they should. I've read the 797 is considered the better of the two. Supposedly it flows slightly better. (?) BTW the 67 rectangular port manifold is 3894374. For 67, 68, and 69 the outboard carbs were Holley R3659A with GM part number 3902353. The center carbs had different year numbers. The 69 center carb is R4055-1, GM part number 3940929. The 68 center carb is R4055-A, 3925517. The 67 center carb is R3600-A, 3902355.

I have a 69 center carb into Holley Restoration, Bowling Green KY. The quoted $300 plus any replacement part costs. Thought that was pretty reasonable.

 

Are you going to sell it? If so I'm interested

 

Real money there 75 to 90 my bet

 

Holley offers a restoration service for the 3X2 carbs. They come back looking like new. Some of the old parts will be replaced with new. If the carbs have the original ink number markings, the ink numbers will be gone. A few years ago, Holley wanted $900+ for the three. They are restored in Bowling Green, KY.

 

DO NOT EVER SEND YOUR CARBS TO HOLLEY FOR REFURB. They fucked mine all up and it cost me over $1300 dollars and I dont care what you say about my language. Those guys suck in their shop. Poor repairs and poor replating if you want to call painting the carbs replating. There are plenty of good restoration services out there and holley restoration is not one of them. Those guys can suck eggs

 

:- )) Get it all out Rogers :- )

 

OP hasn’t been active on the Forum for three years. Hopefully he found an answer to his question. Thread closed.