fede

Hi guys, first post here!

I finally started the restoration of my '75 vette and wanted to have my idea for a top-end kit checked and a recommendation for a carb!
I have an L48 with an auto 3-speed transmission, bottom end has been redone recently by the previos owner. Exhaust is going to be changed, removing the cat and installing some high flow mufflers and X-pipe. I have no plans to take it to the track or anything like that, the car is going to be a weekend driver.

For the top end I'm planning to use TFS-K315-445-405 and TFS-21400003 lifters. Trickflow advised to use TFS-21400002 lifters but I don't think those will work for me, seem to be for newer engines. Am I wrong?

Now, on the carb... I'm planning on getting an Edelbrock or Trickflow one. I have a preference for the Edelbrock but thinking on Trickflow just for staying with the brand.
So far, I've narrowed the list down to:
Edelbrock's Thunder Series AVS 650cfm (1805 or 1806)
Edelbrock's Thunder Series AVS 800cfm (1812 or 1813)
Trickflow's TFS-20650
Trickflow's TFS-20750R

My feeling is going with Edelbrock's 800cfm one, although I'm not sure if that is going to be too much airflow. What do you think? Is the 650cfm a better match?
Trickflow advised to use the TFS-20750R but that one has no choke and I still want to start the car in winter.
(Also, I don't want an outrageous fuel consumption for the sake of it)
Any opinion on manual or electric choke? I think I prefer a manual one but I'm afraid of regretting it later.

The top-end doesn't include pushrods and Summit Racing has a million to chose from. Does anyone know a part number I should get?
I'm in Europe and to save on shipping costs I would like to place a single big order with everything in it. Am I forgetting some important part to get all this running?

Thanks!

cv67

Due to your location Id use what Trick Flow recommends probably done lots of testing so should be calibrated pretty well

Electric chokes are fantastic very reliable

thats a healthy cam youlll want to make sure your compression ratio isnt too low or order with a smaller combustion chamber/thinner head gasket

You will need a higher stall converter also wouldnt go any less than 3000 (personally id go 3500)

Rearend gear, also recurve the distributor. Should rip compared to what you have now

MelWff

I'm a little concerned about your "winter" comment. The heads and the intake dont have an exhaust crossover passage and the Trickflow carb doesnt have a choke. You also make a comment about gas mileage. In addition the intake looks like a tall intake and may not fit under your hood. As mentioned above the cam may not work with a stock torque convertor. You may want to rethink your choice.

REELAV8R

Kits like that are not built for a street driver really. At least not one that is going to make any kind of power below 3000 RPM.
A 195 cc runner head is large for a 350.
The cam has 89* of overlap and has slow ramps, think poor bottom end power.
No way this thing would idle or perform with a stock torque converter.
The head gaskets provide no info, so it would not be possible to know your squish distance without knowing the thickness of the gasket.

If these terms I'm using are not familiar to you please do some reading before your purchase.

Before you jump in to this kit I would use this to do a bit of homework;


https://www.amazon.com/David-Vizards...eywords=vizard

If there is q-jet on the car now it would be a shame to toss it. It is a good carb and can be a good high performance carb as well.

Cliff ruggles wrote a book to mod and/or rebuild the carb.

https://www.amazon.com/Rebuild-Modif...ywords=ruggles

A one time order is a good plan. That being said I'm not sure it can be done successfully unless you know what all is needed before you order. The kit can't predict your needs.
Pushrods have to be ordered after you determine the needed length.
Good luck and hopefully good reading.

Fast81

Fede -- from your indicated goals, this is not the kit for you.
The 62cc heads will put your CR requiring Super Unleaded at Euro prices
The cam wont make power before your torque converter stalls
The intake probably wont fit under your stock hood
None of them will play well if you still have stock rear gears.

fede

First of all, thank you for your comments and taking the time to provide feedback.
Let me address some of your points...

According to Trickflow's tech support, the intake would be 5.4" from the block and on the site the manifold is quoted at 4.72". This is pretty much the same as with Edelbrock's 2099, well known for the difficulty of fitting it under the hood. My idea was to use a dropped low profile filter and hopefully make it fit but If it didn't just create a hood scoop (the car is getting all the body redone) with the added benefit of fresh air but the drawback of a not standard look.

I think the head gasket included is this one, which has a compressed thickness of 0.04".

The current carb is a 2-barrel unknown one. The previous owner got fed up with the high fuel consumption and replaced a 4-barrel one (no idea what it was) with this piece of junk. Fuel consumption did drop apparently but performance didn't increase...
I'm happy with getting a new one.

Fuel... my options here (Spain) are either unleaded 95 or 98. The price difference is less than 10% and I'm completely fine with using 98.

Now, onto the tranny.
I know my th350 is far from ideal, it's so far that I don't want to invest in it at all. I'm still not sure what I want but my first guess is a Bowtie's 200R4 L2. Problem is getting it here and for the time being tranny upgrades are out of scope. (However, summit racing which would ship one for around $400 has 3 options and I might end up considering it).
I got this car over a year ago but never drove it much, maybe 500km in total. Once I did a 1.5hs long trip and it was quite awful, too much noise and too much heat. No clue what the RPM was because the gauge is broken... :-/

Having said all this, I'm quite convinced that probably the kit I mentioned is too much. The most important thing is that I want a street car, fun to drive and also comfortable.
I started looking into these kits because I had a problem: the car is very slow. I considered Edelbrock's 2022 and 2099 and the Trickflow ones and liked Trickflow's better. Then I saw one with a flat tappet cam, another one with a roller cam and convinced myself that I wanted a roller cam!

Re-thinking all this, I still have the problem of a low power car and no immediate plans to change the tranny. What can I do?
Maybe a TFS-K315-350-400 or 2022 is a sensible option?

Thanks again!

REELAV8R

I have a TH350 still in my 77. I like the transmission due to it's simplicity, durability, availability and price point. A new TH350 with a shift kit good for 500 HP can be had for $1000 or less. If you are planning on driving great distances then a 4 speed transmission makes more sense. The lower 1st gear of 200R4 is definitely a bonus, the price is not.
Lower rear gearing is a possibility to make it better off the line but at the cost of higher cruise RPM's and some $$$.
I lived with my 3.08 rear diff and it performed quite well with a 2600 RPM stall torque converter and a shift kit. Not as quick as lower gearing, but still impressive.
As far as the carb goes I guess that's up to you. If it were mine I would buy a 1976 to 1979 Q-jet on ebay, one that has recieved no rebuilds and looks original, and rebuild it via Cliff's book. Not everyone has the ability to do that however and a new 4 barrel carb may be the better option.
Get the carb, recurve the timing, have a decent dual exhaust system and install a new TH350 with a shift kit and a higher stall torque converter and it will wake the engine up considerably. This is what I did to mine initially and it made a big difference.

Just keep in mind what you want in the future and ensure that the current mods you make can accomodate future mods to the engine.

For heat in the cabin there are several threads on that subject. What I did with mine was use a dynamat extreme like material (Fatmat Megamat) to line the entire cabin floor under the carpet. Then I used reflectix insulation (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Reflectix...4025/100020855) on top of that for heat. It made a HUGE difference in the driving/riding experience.
If the car does not have A/C it's going to be hot eventually no matter what, but at least this stuff can slow it down.

jim2527

The lifters Trickflow recommended lifters will not work, they're for factory roller cam blcoks.

Little Mouse

The TFS- k315-445-405 kit would be a total disaster for you. The camshaft in it it would be crazy for your 350. .246 int .254 at .050 308/316 ADV. You need at least a 406 on up size build to even consider that size camshaft. The next problem the head is to big at 195cc for a 350 but not near the big disaster of that camshaft.


You need a head no bigger then 180 cc with no more then 64cc chamber or less with your dished pistons. Hydraulic roller around .215 at .050. at the most or less.

Your L/48 camshaft has an intake dur. of 195 at .050 you don't want that monster camshaft in your engine for any reason.

fede

Thanks again for your comments guys.

To put a bit more background on this, when I said that I'm planning on doing this or that is not something that I'm going to do myself but something to get done by someone else. I personally don't have the skills, the tools or the time to do anything to my car.

I've been waiting about a year for a chance to get it in the garage and restored. They are going to strip it completely and fix/redo everything necessary. That includes chasis, body, interior, suspension, brakes, etc.
Something to note is that here we have no expertise on these kind of cars, I've never seen a C3 before I bought mine and I only know of a friend who saw another one. That lack of knowledge and parts is what points me towards getting as much as possible on out of the box parts and not spending time and money on things that have more unknowns.For example, sourcing a QJ, getting parts and rebuilding it is going to probably cost way more than getting a new one.
I know that the valves and heads need work, although not sure to what extent. Also, because the car is going through this restoration process is kind of 'cheaper' to get everything done now instead of taking it in parts.
The tranny is the only thing I'm holding back for the time being.

Based on the overwhelming feedback I know that the original plan with the TFS-K315-445-405 is clearly not the way forward.
Revised idea for the engine:
TFS-K315-350-400 or 2022 (TF's is 195/62cc while EB's is 185/64cc, you all seem to agree that TF's option is still too much. Should I go EB?)
Edelbrock Thunder Series AVS Carburetors 1812 + tunning kit
2600/2800/3000 torque converter (need advice on this, I've never drove a car with a non-stock converter)
MagnaFlow mufflers 11226 (pipping will be done over here)

Rest of the tranny leave as is, I prefer lower RPMs at high speed above everything else.

What do you think of that setup? Still stupid?

Cheers!

CanadaGrant

Not sure about your carb choice. I would rather go on the small side than too big. I installed a ZZ4 crate (58 cc. heads) with the GM "hot" cam and 1:6 roller rockers in my wife's 78. I used the thunder series 1806 (650cfm) and it has been trouble and tuning free for the last 10 years. When they say "go big or go home" it doesn't work with carbs or cams.

cv67

If you want good low end tq at higher speeds may want to look into a larger CI crate motor, done. You can get over 400ci with a dart block that doesnt need to be cammed heavily to make power.
CNC motorsports comes to mind among others.

fede

Yes, I also thought that 800CFM might be more than necessary but the original carb is 750 CFM and feels strange going smaller.


I thought about that but the bottom end of my engine is in very good conditions (done 1K kilometers ago) and the overall price skyrockets with a crate engine. I also like the idea of having the original even if improved.

Little Mouse

Flat tappet cam like in 400 tfs is ok on size, head still to big. Flat tappet cam is far more risk for a failure along with overall power loss. Could be a bad risk for someone in europe.

You could put a good combination of of parts together without a kit and get it all from one source and one order. www.summitracing would be a good place.

You will need something to give you good low and mid range power with your 3 speed auto and most likely 3.08 rear end. My first vette at 19 was a 72 L/48 auto with 3.08.

Fast81

For your stated goals, the Edelbrock 2202 kit would be the far better choice of the options you have given

Oh, and the 650 carb would be plenty for this mild-medium kit

CanadaGrant

Something else is that that same quadrajet was used not only on the small block, but the big block too. Same size, just not jetted the same.
Don't go overboard with size on an edelbrock.

rcread

Both of those carbs are less than ideal. I bought a Q Jet for $38 and a rebuild kit for less than $100, from Cliff's High Performance, and it runs great on my newly built small block. If you have to have a new carb, a Holley would also be a better choice.

fede

As you all agree and my initial feeling was the same, I will look into the smaller carb. Still thinking of manual choke though.

What makes both Edelbrock carbs less than ideal? and why would a Holley be better? Is just a brand preference?

Cheers!

Little Mouse

Nothing wrong with an edelbrock carb for what you want to do. Chrysler used what they are on there production line cars for a long time, they were reliable. I see more of them being put on street cars then anything else.

rcread

I like Edelbrock products and use them extensively. The Q Jet and Holley both have better driveability, get better mpg and will perform better. The Edelbrock carb is based on the ancient Carter AFB design. Edelbrock has improved it a bit, but some of the basic flaws are still there. Transition to open secondaries, for example, is better on the Q-Jet or Holley. Why not pick the best product?