QuadraJet Carbs

[Pyre]

I have found alot of opinions on QuadraJet carbs. It seems mostly two sided. Either people love them, or they hate them. I have noted a few design flaws, and issues with this carb, however they seem to be easily repaired. I have also heard that these carbs are pretty difficult to set vs other types.

After spending time looking up and researching information on this particular type of carb, They dont seem to be all that terrible of a carb to me provided that you actually fix the known issues that they have and rebuild them with quality parts.

If you actually take the time to understand the QuadraJet carbs they dont really seem that hard to tune properly either. It is after all only 4 screws... Slow Idle / Choke, Fast Idle, and a fuel / air mixture screw on the front of the carb on driver / passanger side. It is more than other carbs, such as Holly which I have found to have 2 screws on the common models.

What is the experiance of the other Guys / Gals here at the forum with them?
Please explain what you do and dont like about them. I am planning to use one on my 305 and want to know what issues / advantages others have had with them.

 

[melsg5]

It appears you have already done all the ground work. A person who truely understands carburetion should have no issue with them. The secondary side is very forgiving since it works purely on demand and will prevent you from over sizing the carburetor. If you havent already found it an excellant book is How to Rebuild and Modify Rochester Quadrajet Carburetors by Cliff Ruggles. You can find it at large bookstores like Borders or order it direct from http://www.cliffshighperformance.com/buy_book_2.html

 

[Pyre]

There are a few reasons I am looking at the QuadraJet.

They are long term reliable, not needing frequent rebuilding. You rebuild and set them, and forget them. I have heard on average about 5 years or more between rebuilds depending on use / application.

They are very versitile, they can be used on a daily driver or a more of a hotrod application. They are a carb that basically grows with and adapts to the engine. If you build the engine up, the carb can be tuned to match your need. Usually they are able to push high CFM to the motors that can use it (383 and up), or lower amounts to the engines that typically cant (305 / 350).

They are a well documented, and common carbs. Although many do hate them, they probably have heard about them. I have actually learned the most by talking to people that hate or love them, because they tend to point out the flaws, and how to fix them respecively. It seems that onyone that has heard of them or owned one has information about them.

If anyone is interested, I can provide links for teardown / assembly and some tuning / identification stuff I found to be useful. I found close to 2-3 hours of videos online.