well friday, it was nice out....i take the tops off, put the shades on and i'm crusin home....

make it about 3 miles down the road and it dies.... just quit running...

so i pull over, call the town truck.... he takes it away on the flatbed. so i call them the next morning, the guy looks at it...

diagnosis...

rotor under the distributer cap has a hole in it, and some wires are fried bc they were on the exhaust manifold! tow + parts + labor + oil change = $325

the guy mentions to me that he used to have a 77, that it was a common problem with them, and that its nothing u can really do to prevent it other than change it every so many thousand miles... then recommends i get rid of my "Q-****" and "Q-*****" and "Q-Bitch"...and all this time i am trying to figure out what he is mummbling about...come to realize its my carb he's talkin about (Q-Jet)... that i should get a 600 Holly (small). said it'll increase performance and efficiency.

Is there a 600 big one? he said i dont need a "f'n 700 or 750 or whatever these f'n salesman try to sell me. that they are just BS tthat i dont need." what should this cost me? is this something i can do (keep in mind i dont know anything about doing it) and i hear its not hard putting it on, but tuning it is....

now keep in mind i dont know squat about the mechanics of my car or cars in general...but i'm trying to learn!

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN!??!! (please dont laugh at me)

ANYONE IN THE PITTSBURGH (BUTLER) AREA WANT TO HELP/LOOK AT MY CAR.... i am beginning to wonder what i bought!!

i mean i still love my "mistress" (gf takes offense when i call my car "my baby"), but damn... someone reinstall my confidence in my car.

 

If it's running to your liking, leave it alone. If not, research the upgrade paths and start buying parts.

As far as your failure and tow...lt was way cheaper than a new car would've been for a similar failure. Make sure those new wires get a loom oput on them to keep the same thing from happening again.

 

you'd better straighten the girl friend out fast, because your love/hate relationship with the vette will take you places you haven't even contemplated yet....

 

A q-jet carb is one of the best made.... Provided that a rebuilder doesn't get to it.. Q-jets rebuilt by Hol## are the worst. Edelbrock makes new Q-jets that are pretty good if you really need a new carb. If you have the original carb hang onto it so you can have it rebuilt by someone like Lars.

 

 

Dave,

If your having problems with your carb then have Lars rebuild it. He is the absolute best.

But the main issue is that Vette of yours is going to get to be the cost of a Rolls Royce if you don't start doing some of the basics yourself.

It's really not that hard. Start by buying an AIM (assembly instruction manual).

 

Its a helluva pain in the ***, but even more fun to do it yourself dude. The sense of pride you can get out of saying YOU did this to YOUR car....unmatched. Plus you save hella cash.

BTW, Q-jets are alright, but youll never match the efficiency of a new holly or edlebrock if you get one, its a good investement if you ask me.

 

ok, an AIM..... are they year specific or C3 specific? i checked real quick on ebay... found one for a 74. my car is a 75....

is ebay the best place to get it? who prints them? where else could i get one? anyone photocopy theirs for me? (or is that wrong of me to ask) i'm a newbie and dont know the rules! i need help it seems!

what does a "rebuild" of my Q-Jet do for me? what does it cost?

i would love to be able to fix my car myself.... dont know where to start tho! maybe this AIM will be that place! anything else i should get??

 

Most carbs are ENGINE specific, ie L88, SBC283-400, etc etc etc.

Ebay is alright, cheapest rout normally, then again its always Cevat Emptor (buyer beware) I get all my stuff through local parts suppliers, catalogues such as summit or jegs, or straight from the manufacturer.

A rebuild of a carb will replace the parts that most normally wear out and cause you problems, itll also diagnose any other ones that werent superficial. It will also clean the carb out nicely. In other words, it will make it run about 300% better than it did before. Itll cost whatever the carb kit, cleaner, and labour is, which Id say should be around 150 bucks or so.

Anything else? Fuel filter, spark plugs if you havent, air cleaner, etc.

 

Try a new fuel filter in addition to replacing the wires in question. Might be enough to get you running right.

Rebuilding a carb can mean just tear down, clean and replace a few parts and gaskets then reassemble. Needs a few settings too. If it was running decent before it died I would not do much more than change the filter first. The carb gets blamed for a lot of ignition problems. Try that and see how it works for you.

As always, JMO.

-Mark.

 

a cap and rotor on the distributor is NEVER a bad idea. You never know, you might have sever arching.

 

yeah, thats what he said... the rotor under the dist cap had a hole in.... sounds bad to me, but he said it was a common problem in that car.

i have noticed a difference in performance since he fixed it, re wired it.... runs smoother, and transition btwn gears is smoother. dont know if that has any correlation or not. my guess is that i wasnt running on 8 cylinders before! who knows! and at idle is 10times better...

i guess thats what i dont know about this car, as to how it SHOULD run... i didnt think it ran bad before. it wasnt running awesome, but it was good. and now its better. its run better since i bought this "carb cleaner" stuff i put in with the gas as well. i use it every other tank.... (is that ok stuff to use? does it really do anything for me? at 88cents a bottle i wonder. i think its a mental thing)

thanks so much for your help guys! i owe ya big time

-dave

 

Scrap the Q-jet and get a Holley 670 Street Avenger.

Just bolt it on and go.

I had to adjust the idle a little...that's it.

Holley has a tech line that you can call on your cordless and they'll walk you through the whole install process. But it's really not that hard.

I know the purist will balk, but trust me, it'll be the best trouble free $400 you'll ever spend.

 

I don't think a Holley will bolt onto a spread bore intake manifold.

 

Fully nod on that one the Quad orig will rock with a proper rebuild, I'm sticking a rebuilt low jetted 650 holly on my LT and crossing my fingers, don't have the origonal, people threw stuff like that out for so many years, so sad...

 

Quadrajets when setup properly are a much better carb than a Holley. The trouble is if you do not know what you are doing they can be a real pain.

I have a 76 that I have four separate Quadrajets setup for with different jets for different uses. My cam only pulls 15 inches of vacuum at idle so I had to learn how to modify my carbs. It isn't hard. My car flys.

I found a posting on Corvette Faqs written by Lars that is really great.

 

Dave,

I've purchased about 10 books from http://www.cartechbooks.com they've been a good help performance wise.

 

Dave

The HEI meaning High Energy Ignition came out in 75, then GM put it in about everything for many years. Checking the dist. cap & rotor has been a normal part of preventative maintenance for many years. The HEI eliminates the points. Yes, the High Energy Ignition can burn through the rotor, the underneath of the rotor should be checked when checking the dist. cap & rotor. Instead of points adjustment & replacement regularily, the ignition module should be replaced about every 10 years.
HEI is ideal for many. Sound like a problem w/it to to you? Of course not!



If you were going to replace the carb, then he is correct that 600 is the right size for stock & mild 350s. Normally you can expect anyone calling a Q-J a "Quadrajunk" doesn't know anything about carbs.
Note that is coming from a hotrodder running Holleys on both hot rods.

 

Bolt on an aftermarket carb and just go? What about jets, etc.? Do they (Holley) know what you have in your engine? You can p*ss around with what ever carb you like, but until you get an A/F curve read out on a dyno, you are just guessing. Every engine is different. Q-Jet by Lars will work fine.