Sorry for all the love for Lars. I understand.

The truth is, my own personal research has led me to praise the qjet for being the best street carb. If you want a WOT racing carb, I'm sure you will have a ton of different opinions.

If reliability is what you want, just remember that GM developed the Quardajet and ran it on just about everything that ever required a 4 barrel

Best of luck on your research

 

You may also find during your research, that many on the forum have had issues with brand new out of the box carbs that were set up incorrectly from the factory.

 

I put Tuned Port Injection on my 79. Damn a carb!

 

We are about on the same page as far as our feelings on the qjet goes, as far as Lars goes, he is a god here each forum has their own, but if my thread become an "AD" no good unbiased tech will flow.

I hope I never gave in impression I support the off the shelf one size fits all works out of the box carbs as I do not, I checked my op here I didn't
On the other side of the coin murphy for example will sell me a qjet built to the specs I give them about my engine, heck the fellow on the phone had almost the same engine I do....so tuning on my end would be small.




I messed with TPI on my 86 that I couldnt get rid of fast enough, ( the c4, hate them ) IF I anted up for fuel injection it would be something easy o like FAST.....

 

The best all around, out of the box carb, that just about runs perfect on anything with minimal fuss, is the holley #3310 Vacuum secondary. I run them on stock 350s, to mild 454s, the jetting and how well the carb functions(power valves/air bleeds) makes it perfect on mild street motors.

I just put one on our 450hp 396" yesterday, brand new from Summit for $340 shipped. Threw it on and it fired right up and idled great with no tuning. I adjusted the air mixture screws and set the idle and it runs perfect.

This is my "go to" carb for engines 450hp or less that I never want to fool with again.

For more drag race oriented stuff, I'd use a #4779 750 double pumper for 500hp stuff and 850 double pumpers for everything else bigger/more power.

 

Do you want your "showdown" to provide a answer you already preconceived ? ? ?

Q-jet for a stock or a nice street motor is your best bet. And a box carb will not be test run and tuned on a live motor . Hence why people tell you LARS ..

But keep posting till you here what you want to here..

 

I just read the run down on that carb...pretty sweet, do any of the holley clones make their version of it?

Sorry, you are way off, I have no preconceived notions which carb I will run, might be a qjet might be that holley talked about above, but thanks for getting a pimp in for the non suppporting vender lars.....

 

A plug for a non-supporting vendor ? The carb company you mentioned twice is not a supporting vendor or even a person who visits these forums.. . . .

 

So that was your intention just to advert?

Two wrongs do not make a right 3 lefts do...
Okay, okay, neither LArs nor Murphy are supporters, pot meets kettle, sorry, BUT neither are the ONLY people who do wonderful work on qjets, to limit good qjets to one builder isnt fair...I think I changed my mind back to holley...go figure, right...

 

people recommend Lars because you're having no luck with the QJet, satisfied customers vouch for him, simple as that, not for adverts.

I prefer somebody who gets the job done whether he be a hobbyist or a vendor, or even somebody I don't agree with, if the work is that good, that is.

BTW If your're looking for a Holley clones, the best bet would be Quick Fuel carbs

 

I just do not subscribe to such a narrow field...there is more than one qjet guru in the world...

The reason I asked about the holley clones is from what I understand they got rid of some of the cons on holleys, did holley one better, so if they make a version of the holley 3310 I would like to take a look,

I read a little on the 3310 after ajrothm posted he uses them on all kinds of things with great results, see that is a fellow doing it, not repeating what he heard or going by one carb on his one car...that means a lot to me for real world hands on tech.

 

I love my Q-jet. A kit from NAPA, a good cleaning and it works well on my stock 350/270.

 

I don't know of any Holley clones (not sure what youre talking about? Like Chinese knock offs or GOOD ones like AED, Pro Systems, etc etc)

If youre sticking to a real tight budget, you can get the Holley #3310 aluminum body carb (the polished looking one) for around $300 shipped if you shop around. I have one of these on a mild 454 with a performer intake and old school comp 270H cam and it runs excellent. The one I just bought was a #3310-C which is the old green colored dichromate finish that I wanted for a stock appearing build.

You can always pick up a swap meet carb and rebuild it but...Honestly, I am not big on used carbs..I find they tend to always have some issue that a normal rebuild does not solve. I typically start out with a new carb and then rebuild them myself as need through the years.

Holleys are very easy work on, basic parts/gaskets are in stock at every O Reilys/Auto Zone around and you can literally pull the fueling components apart on one on the side of the road in 10 mins.

Between my dad's cars and mine, we own 7 Holley carbs on current running cars, I maintain/tune them all, and I would never run anything else.

I have had Quadrajets as well, some were good, some where terribly problematic...all of them were hard to work on and pretty finicky/inconsistent at best... I do still have one on a 350/270hp engine that is not in a car that ran pretty well for several years...However I never saw the "great gas mileage" that people claim for Q jets. it got 10-12 mpg just like the holleys.

For a mild 454, a #3310 will bolt on and go, you usually don't even have to set the float levels...Just bolt it on, hook up your linkage/vacuum stuff, adjust your idle mixture screws and idle speed screw, and forget about it for 20 years.

 

Many thanks!

When I said clones I meant like the demon,

On the real holley is one 3310 better than the other as far as finish goes?

From my vw days I learned the solex and webers pretty well, I really do not want to go learn about how to set up and tune a qjet, and I am not a person who can just go 100% at faith of the builder, I like to know how things work, I know the basics on holley.

While I have been reading a lot about the qjets it would seem even the people who like them admit ( even if the admit is shady and vague ) it's more geared towards the daily driver lo po car.
I believe people have good luck and performance with them but seems running one is not K.I.S.S.

While the idea of easy tuning appeals a lot to me, what really has me sold on the holley is you do hands on, you are not cut and pasting wiki or spewing how carb xxx is junk, you are sharing with me your real world experience.

 

There isn't any performance difference between the #3310-S and the #3310-C, only the colors.

There is also a #80508-SA which is basically an aluminum #3310. It only weighs 5lbs, probably dissipates heat a little quicker...Its like $330 at Summit. I have not personally used one of these.

They all run pretty well. We also have some holley 600 cfm carbs on our 327s and those run great as well, but the #3310 is easier to work on and the float system seems more reliable to me.


The only issue I EVER have with a holley, is an occasional float that sticks and will over fill the bowl. Its happened twice on my 850 in the last 3 months, once it had a piece of trash in the needle/seat, the second time I found nothing in the needle/seat so I just put it back in, slightly lowered the float level and its been fine since. I do have a race float and jet extensions in this carb and that may have something to do with it. I've never had this problem on any of the 3310s. And it literally takes 2 mins to pull the needle/seat out, blow throw it and put it back in... Try that on a q jet..LOL

 

hmm maybe I have a narrow FOV, well to each its own

personally I'm a Holley guy, 4150's, DPs & vacs, mainly because I have more experience with them

 

I like the Holley Ultra HP carbs as they are very good quality, and they have revised the metering blocks to account for the current pump gas formulations. I also like the Quickfuel Q Series, again high quality and easily tuneable.the Street Demon still has me interested as I have talked with a 4 ppl running them (3 on C3's and 1 on an Olds 442). They all like the carb, 1 had an issue with the electric choke..

 

ajrothm is spot on,

the only advantage the Demon has over the Holley in my opinion is on engines with high overlap cams the engine needs more air at idle. With the Holley you have to compensate with drilling holes in the throttle plates while trying to maintain the correct T-Slot setting (some come with the holes drilled). With the Demon they incorporate the Idle Eze system which to me is an advantage over the Holley.

I don't care to get into the Q-jet vs Holley debate, they both meter fuel as needed and to make an engine run. I prefer the Holley due to ease of tuning.

Neal

 

Bats I doubt you will ever get a consensus on which is best because everyone has had different experiences that push them to prefer one over another.

All carbs do the same thing and most do it well with only differences on how they accomplish it. All of them atomize fuel into the intake air and all can be made to run well on any application. The only real differences are how reliable they are and how difficult to rebuild or tune. Every make has its guru like Lars that have become experts at their preferred brand.

Back when I was a young teenager (25-30 years ago) I was the local go to guy for carb rebuilding. Not that I was some sort of 'expert', but, because I was able to take one apart, clean it and replace gaskets, and make it run again! Back then the kids kept the carbs that came on the car and often didn't have the money to buy new. The GM guys brought Qjets, the Ford and Mopar guys brought Carters and the rest brought Holleys. Since back even then, Qjets and Carters were no longer being produced in large numbers, you bought a Holly if you needed a 'new' carb. No one was 'restoring' old cars then!

Now it seems that most people building a non-restoration project, or, a performance project will use one of the Holly based carbs. At the local shows and cruise nights you will also see quite a few guys using the Eldebrock (Carter design) with great success. Personally I am still using the original Qjet on my L-48, a polished Holly 4150 for the 383 I have ready to swap in and an Eldebrock new in a box under the workbench. See, no real consensus!!

 

For awhile I picked up every decent spare Q-Jet I could find, usually for around $25 ea. and scavenged them for parts. Needless to say I have a nice supply of parts.