The simplistic edelbrock carb!

[70chevrolet]

So as not to jack the quadrabog thread, I figured I would start a new one..

NOW hear this!
The quadrajet is the BEST carb... I understand that. They have better performance, better driveablity and get better gas mileage. Not to mention they keep the car original. BUT... for a quality rebuild you are looking at the upside of $400 plus you have to send it out. I can almost buy two brand new edelbrocks shipped to my door from summit racing for that price. Also the quads are fairly complex, preventing (or merely intimidating) a lot of do in yourselfers from rebuilding it themselves.
Edelbrocks are inexpensive, plentifull and easy to tune and rebuild.
Talking real world experience on a stock 73-77 oldsmobile emmision bogged motor. Not "I had an edelbrock on a 63 buick" or "I had an edelbrock on a 79 pontiac".
Who has an edelbrock carb on their current 73-77 SBO motor and how does it perform. because I am a stones throw away from buying a brand new electric choke Edelebrock 1406 and an adaptor plate, slamming it on my sweet & sexy 1977 'S' and calling it a day.
Thanks in advance
70 Chev

[Hurstolds1973]

I had my Quadra Jet rebuilt and off the top of my head wasnt even half of that 400....
We have had this discussion many times...
You can do a post search here.
Its all good!

[redchas]

Lets be clear here what the difference is between rebuilding a carb and a concours restoration of a carb. Rebuild is buying a kit, taking it apart, cleaning the parts and reassembling with the gaskets, etc. that come in the kit. The restoration includes recoloring, replating, surfacing, rebushing, running on a test motor, etc, etc. The result is a piece of jewelry that you will want to put on a chain and wear around your neck and it is the original carb that was on your car when it left Lansing! And, it will work far better than the brand new factory Quad! Better idle quality, throttle response, top end and fuel mileage. Nuf said!

[70chevrolet]

I don't need any more jewelry. My wife might. My 77 'S' had 170 hp from the factory. It prob has 120 now. It has 100k miles. I have a 2.41 rear end. Just wondering what a $400 concourse restoration carb is going to do for me? Maybe increase my 1/4 mile from 20 to 19 sec? I know the quad is better, but I was just hoping to hear from someone running the edelbrock as to how much worse? Because I believe it can be that much worse. And 5 years down the road when it need rebuilding, I can scrap stand buy new and still be ahead of the game.

[redchas]

Had an Ebrock on my '69 Cougar XR7 with a 390, my buddy runs one on his '72 F-250 with a 428. They are great carbs, inexpensive, run right out of the box and last. If they can make Fords run good they must be good! Maybe even get you into the 19s!

[moparnate]

im running a edelbrock carb on mine, ten years and no trouble, i love it.

[damaged442]

Maybe increase my 1/4 mile from 20 to 19 sec?

Best quote of the day!

[ragz442]

Yea, we've had this discussion a few times, most people don't like 'em, but I have a 750 1407 manual choke on my '77-350 and it's been a great, trouble free carb for the last 10 years. I'm pretty sure all they are is a retaged Carter for the most part.

[custom cutlass]

Edelbrock carbs are good carbs, great fuel mileage, usually last a long time with out any problems and easy to work on..Great wide open throttle but sacrafice light throttle response unlike a Quadrajet or Holley, I have edelbrocks on my cutlass just to keep it more streetable...would rather have the other carbs with out the malfunction...Would like to show some pictures of the car soon.

[73CS]

I have used the Edlebrock on other cars and had good results. That being said I had one that I put on my 73 with a 350 trying to get a little more MPG back when gas was $4 a gallon. It did not help and had less power at the higher RPM range. Went back to the Quad and the car ran much better.

Blane

[texxas8902]

I bought a concours quality Quadrajet rebuild for the sbo 403 in one of my 79 Trans Ams back in February of this year and only paid $234.99. plus shipping, no core charge. It looks perfect and the seller has 100% positive feedback. Carbdoctor is the eBay seller.
http://cgi3.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=carbdoctor
Edelbrocks give crappier gas milage, 2-3 mph less than a comparable Q-jet. Have you ever noticed that drag racers pretty much never use Edelbrock carbs? Lots of Holleys but no E-brocks on the strip.
I will say the E-brocks are easy to work on, but I think Q-jets are easy to rebuild and tune too. I had a 1406 E-brock I pulled in the junkyard from a 460 Ford, it was full of water and seized solid. I got it for $10 so I took it, soaked and cleaned it and got it running with out so much as a kit. It was missing linkage and a couple of small parts. I called the Edelbrock help line and they sent out the missing parts I needed for FREE when I bought a kit for the carb. The help line customer service was great but I'm just not a fan of the E-brock carbs and I've owned three.
In July I just bought a remanufactured Q-jet for a sbo 350 from Summit for $275.99. It has a new dichromate finish in the correct color and the rebuilder was Holley. I wouldn't call it concours but it looks like a new carb and went right on with very minimal tuning. $400 for a "restored" carb is too high a price, you can find one much cheaper if you look around a little.

[grumpy hvacr]

I have a 1406 on my car since the early 90's. Never messed with it.

Car no longer has emmision controls on it. Motor is mostly stock w/aftermarket camshaft and ignition.

Reliable carb, but had more power/response when it had the Q-jet.

On of my many things I would like to do with the car is to find out what I screwed up when I rebuilt the Q-jet and reinstall it.

Edit: I forgot about adding the spacer to clear the egr .

[74hurstolds]

On one of my 442's I have an Edlebrock carb and a performer manifold with the EGR option. For some reason i had to use a large spacer just to get the throttle linkage to clear the EGR. Edlebrock incompatible with Edlebrock??? I believe I bought the 1406 too.

The EGR on the manifold has blue tape over it but you can see it. And yes I don't have the actual EGR bolted up, it has the block off plate on it.

This link has a way better picture I just noticed (due to the engine paint thread going on)

http://www.73-77olds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4725

[zodiacblue442]

My brother and I started out with a brand new Edelbrock on the race car. Ran good. We then put on a Quadrajet that my brother rebuilt (he's a fantastic mechanic). The engine just flat came alive. Launches were harder, power increase was very noticeable, and the qtr. mile times were definitely quicker.

For your stock Cutlass that's not a weekend street machine or race car, an Edelbrock would probably be fine.

My choice though is I'd run a Quadrajet any day of the week over an Edelbrock. Q-jets can be harder to tune, but once set up, they are one of the best carbs. out there.

[ragz442]

Mine was on my '77 442 when I bought it back in the spring of '02, it also has a 1" spacer. I'm a poor man, so I just stuck with it. The best pass I've made with it was a 14.24 @ 99 mph with no traction [street tires]. It would be interesting to find out what it would do with a different/better carb. I rebuilt the original qjet on the Supreme about 12 years ago, it still runs perfect and gets great gas mileage.

[W451973]

Q-jet all the way. I've had several Edelbrocks and they run ok just not my first choice for anything I'm keeping.

There is a HUGE difference from rebuilding and building a carb so choose your rebuilder wisely. Sparky's does great work.

[oldsmeister]

My brother and I started out with a brand new Edelbrock on the race car. Ran good. We then put on a Quadrajet that my brother rebuilt (he's a fantastic mechanic). The engine just flat came alive. Launches were harder, power increase was very noticeable, and the qtr. mile times were definitely quicker.

For your stock Cutlass that's not a weekend street machine or race car, an Edelbrock would probably be fine.

My choice though is I'd run a Quadrajet any day of the week over an Edelbrock. Q-jets can be harder to tune, but once set up, they are one of the best carbs. out there.

That was my experience too. I had a nice running Edlebrock in my 350 Impala and it ran ok but when I put a Q jet on it really came alive. It was like going from a 305 to a 350. My buddy put one on his Chevy truck and it ran nice but didn't have the wide open power of the Qjet. I'm talking about the 600 cfm models. I guess they are ok if you don't really care about max power.

[W451973]

For those of you that like these carbs so much I "may" have one to trade for a correct 75-76 455 q-jet or 77-79 403 q-jet. Thats maybe. It depends on how things go with the sale of my 75 H/O that it's currently on. Mine is a Carter competition series #9635 with electric choke so I might need the choke heat tubes also.