With my 406 SBC progressing well, I am trying to decide which Holley style double pumper carb to buy. This is not a thread about recommendations on carbs configurations. I am installing a mechanical secondary, no choke, 750 CFM, Holley double pumper style carb. But as you know, there are multiple manufacturers (all mostly owned by Holley). Choices...Holley, QuickFuel, Brawler, etc. I am looking for any pros / cons to any particular manufacturer.

I am fortunate enough to live close enough to Summit Racing in Ohio that I can visit their superstore......its a toyland for us motorheads, and I did yesterday. On display they have FST carbs, which I never heard of before, but they are stunning in their appearance. On a wall of carbs, they are clearly the most clean and quality looking carbs out of all of them. BUT, that is not all that counts, so I am curious if any of you have used them, or had any rumor / experience. FST is based in Michigan,.....but not sure if these are made in USA or just Chinese products marketed in USA?? What you say. See pictures, they are impressive looking.

 

Those are a beautiful piece of work. Downleg boosters are good, but if you want the ultimate in the street driver I would get something with annular boosters

 

I really only recommend the HP series classic Holley......they just work so well on anything.......I run a modded 750HP on my own 406 and it is awesome.....probably flows about 780 or so.......and it uses every bit of it.......
The FST is pretty....but let some time go by before committing......
If you really want the ultimate....contact Patrick James at Pro systems and have him build a custom HP for you from your specs.......not that much more than an out of the box Holley piece.

Jebby

 

Ya your on the money with the right size carb for what you want to do, dont go for the cheaper really old 4779 carb they had no adjustment to them, never owned anything but a holley the quick fuel is one that seems to have gained a good reputation and I agree with gkull do the annular boosters and quick fuel has them in there 750s. Dont know for a 100 percent sure but I dont think the chinese have got into the carb making business. Lean torwards a new 750 double pumper that has the word street in it and the idle circuit stuff will be set up for a normal modest street cam. The race stuff will be set up with the thought you would be running a really high duration cam that has no good amount of idle vacuum. You stick one of them on your engine with your stronger idle vacuum it will pull to much fuel in through the idle feed, then you would end up having to go to a smaller idle feed and then increase the size of the idle air bleed to match. Fortunately today all the adjustments that only dominators had a lot of years ago, for many years now they have put them in the 4150 and 4160 carbs they just cost more money to buy one. I dont know without looking it up but I think holley has a street version of the hp it may or may not have the annular boosters. Holley has even gone in at least there dominator from 8 hole annular to 12 hole to help further. I doubt you could go wrong with either the holley or quick fuel lots of parts would interchange between them and they have worlds of parts you ever need them.

 

Don't know anything about those FSTs but I guess what it boils down to is availability and cost of replacement parts. With Summit just minutes away, its easy and affordable for you to obtain Holley parts. But what if FST parts are two or three times the cost and always back-ordered?

Mighty handsome looking unit though. And it appears to have the better blue gaskets on the M blocks.
You may have to shorten the vent tubes if running a drop-base air cleaner. I assume the secondary throttle shaft has an accessible adjustment screw?

 

Quick fuel 750 annular booster carb I was thinking of has an electric choke your not wanting. Not many 750 sized carbs have the annular boosters there mostly reserved for bigger carbs, not to worry the down leg would work fine on that size carb.

 

I agree.....if you size the carb proper.....you do not need the annular booster.....and annular boosters on everything I have ever run them on go pig fat upstairs.......
Everything I saw, read and desktop dyno'd said I needed an 850 carb......so I bolted a 750 on it.....put thin throttle plates and polished the venturi out to get rid of the casting mark.....it works perfect on the street.

Jebby

 

ya annular has advantages and disadvantages the down leg should work real good on a 750. be nice if holley would just throw away the strait booster stuff and forget they ever used them in anything.

 

what will be fun is when I go nutts and put a sportsman 1050 dominator on a HV 1002 brodix on a 337 instead of the 750 to 850 dp it should have on it, like a 337 street engine can pull enough air to need a 1050, lol will call it my always wanted carb now for the bucket list.

 

According to some Youtube video on FST, every part of their carb is made to interchange with Holley parts.....although they are careful to never say the word "Holley". It appears to me that Quickfuel, Brawler, Proform, etc. have all done the same. Must really tick Holley off to know that what they designed and started with has been copied by so many others. These FST carbs really look nice, and the pricing is not out of line. The one picture I copied, the lowest tier of FST carbs, uses cast main body and fuel bowls, with everything else billet, and they go for mid $400. The extreme versions are up around $800.

My general feeling is I would like to stick with a Holley brand, which would include Quickfuel / Brawler. I want all the features that are available, as there seems to be little financial penalty in getting them. But the 750 Brawler has it all. Still not as pretty as these FST, but pretty only goes so far. I worry about the things we do not know about FST.

 

yep there all copies of the holley that hp street holley looks to have all you need but it's a little over $500.00. Get in touch with lars talk to him about his favorite carb the edelbrock ( this is a joke ). Pretty will mostly be covered up by the air cleaner.

 

Jebby,

Thanks for your input. I tend to agree, although I am a Holley rookie. My questions about the HP Series Classic Holley:

- They do not appear to come with fuel bowl sight glasses - is this a big deal or not? I guess without sight glasses you just take out the ports and raise the fuel level till they start spilling out onto your intake manifold? Seems kinda sloppy way to do things. Seems like sight glasses make is much easier??
- Do billet metering blocks actually mean anything other than pretty looks? Is there any technical reason a cast block does not perform as well as billet?
- Is there any reason to have "coated" parts when it comes to gasoline bought in public stations? Or is it all just pretty looks?
- The Classic HP Series Holley comes in a Street Aluminum version.....is that in any way better the the original dichromate version?
- Can you compare the feature of the Brawler 750 against the Classic HP series and tell me if there are ANY diffferences between them that matter in the real world.
- Lastly, I want the cost of the carb to be not considered in this discussion. I want it to be strictly about technical issues. Once I know about the technical side, I can decide on coast and "pretty". What I don't want is "pretty" with a technical sacrifice.

 

The main reason they went to billet metering blocks is castings are porous and billet aluminum is not. The billet base plates that the better carbs use are stronger then the old cast ones that could be broke by people tightening up the bolts to tight. The site glass kind of nice but not needed you can easily put a towel on your intake if some runs out and it's very rare you need to adjust the floats. But all the adjustibilty these new carbs have you absolutely want that.

 

Sight Glasses on fuel bowls are a handy perk for float adjustment. But that glass is kind of like a oven door with glass. Looks good for a few years then gets that cloudy film. You can buy screw-in sight glass replacements. But most prefer a brass plug for inspection hole.

 

Brass plugs are outdated BS ive had very functional clear glass for 20 years and never have cleaned them

 

I have the plastic sight glass bowl plugs but only use them for initial setup. After the floats are set, they go back in the jet box. The plastic sight plugs can sieze in the threads over continuous use in my experience.

I have a quick change jet fuel bowl on the primary. Helps to have a LM1 for tuning. After that, the rest is good for bench racing.

If you can tune it, you have 98% of the problems covered.

 

You will not get my yes vote this time.

 

. I shouldn't be so harsh, musta been the spicy Thai food for lunch. I really do like sight glass bowls. I can just look at or shine a flash light in and see the level. Opening up the brass plugs was just another messy hassle. I can even bring the level up to mid to top glass just to richen the mixture a hair on a cool morning with great ADA. Then lower the level in the heat of the day

 

Never thought of that, extra high fuel level.
Yes vote.

 

I'd be tempted with a swapmeet 750 and a new Proform body with a quick rebuild and add-on's as wanted (or needed), with a little research you can build a great tunable carb.
Are you using this on a single plane intake ?, auto trans ? (curious)