Quadrajet vs Edelbrock

[INSIDIOUS '86]

i would agree with 1974chevyc10, i took my quadrabog of my truck and put on a holley 650 and proceded to put on craigslist for free. although i know a quadrejet is the best economy carb WHEN when WHEN you spend the ridiculus amount of time buying rods and adjusting your carb for two weeks so you can avoid getting t-boned in an intersection because your carb pukes, if your for that then do it, ive seen edelbrocks run nicely on mild motors as long as you use a heat spacer to keep the fuel from boiling. as for holley i can see how adjusting jets is a pain but percys makes a cure for that called the adjust-a-jet

[ChevyC102007]

I have a Holley 4160 series on Junior and a QJet on my Ole '71. The Holley is a PITA on cold starts but after its warmed up runs great, same goes for the QJet. Last two holleys I rebuilt turned into paperweights and the last QJet just turned into junk...........only one I havent tried is an Edelbrock and have heard good things about them. As I usually say its your choice at this point, but advice is always great to have. Just my .02.

[Hoods69BadBowTie]

I have had good luck with both carbs on different rigs. I have either got an edelbrock on a rig and just used it or been given one to rebuild and used it! Q-Jets work good if you tune em good.

[S10Fan]

I went with the Holley Street Avenger Series on both my V-8 S10 and the Heap's 454. Hands down the best out of the box carbs I've ever installed. Both carbs have electric choke and reliably start both trucks either hot or cold. The carbs came with a cheesy fuel line setup that was quickly thrown away and replaced with lines built by me.

Q-jets are great carbs when properly built by a competent carb guy. The bog in a Q-jet is an issue but can be easily fixed by a qualified carb guy.

[hawleykt]

...this may sound like a dumb question...but if i pull the intake manifold, am i going to be messing around with the distributor as well? that makes me nervous.

[07SSSC]

Yes, you will have to remove the distributor to remove the intake, just try to keep track/mark where everything is pointing if you can.

I've got a 1411 Edelbrock on my 383, after some test and tuning on a local 1/8th mile (leaning it out) it runs great. Also put an Edelbrock on my gpas C20 just because we were tired of messing with the Qjet. We even had a local shop try to combine 3 or 4 of them and still had problems. Set up right I'm sure they run fine, never had any troubles when I did run Qjets. Only problem I have with my Edelbrock is the aforementioned heat soak issue that developed after the 2nd engine rebuild. Floor it and it starts up fine though.

[jchav62]

Edelbrocks are hands down the most "user friendly" carbs...especially for the novice. They are really good carbs, except for the heat issue. We have Edelbrocks on the '62 and the '65, and a qjet on the '73. They all run great...

That being said... go with the Edelbrock. Very easy to adjust, rebuild, etc.

[ChevyC102007]

Originally Posted by hawleykt

...this may sound like a dumb question...but if i pull the intake manifold, am i going to be messing around with the distributor as well? that makes me nervous.

Yes you will have to deal with removing the distributor, but its not as daunting a task as it sounds. Just take your time and be careful, note how it comes out in put it back in the same way it came out and you will be fine. Just make sure the marks are at TDC before you start.

[hawleykt]

i guess that alignment trick by marking it scares me a bit....but what also scares me is that other "pin" or whatever that it engages down there. I have read that it sometimes needs to be ajusted slightly.....i just dont want to open up a can of worms!

[ChevyC102007]

Originally Posted by hawleykt

i guess that alignment trick by marking it scares me a bit....but what also scares me is that other "pin" or whatever that it engages down there. I have read that it sometimes needs to be ajusted slightly.....i just dont want to open up a can of worms!

That "pin" is actually the oil pump driveshaft. By moving the crank clockwise until it reads at TDC this also moves the camshaft in the engine which turns the dist. by a gear on the shaft. In turn this also turns the driveshaft of the oil pump. If you do need to adjust this, use a long flat head screw driver to turn the shaft either way you need it to get the two shafts to line up, but you shouldnt have to. As I said, take your time and the worm can will stay closed

[FBC72]

I just put an Accel HEI on last week end, and am looking at putting an Edelbrock 1406 Performer on this week end (I don't have the time or resources to rebuild a 38 year old Quad) What is the best fix for the "hot start" problem I hear mentioned? I had an Edelbrock performer carb on my 75 K-10, and never could get that problem fixed???

[boatpuller]

i have good luck with my edelbrock 1406.

[beebster]

Today i purchased a 31 year old q jet out of the classifieds. It was dirtier than crap but i just bolted it on and it fired right up! Ran perfect and plan on rebuilding it in a month of so.
People call em quadrajunks and so on but when i see someone selling em for 20 bucks on craigslist i get excited like a kid at christmas.
Those things are 350 to 400 bucks new! I never thought i'd be able to rebuild a q jet but 20 years ago a friend gave me one and i just rebuilt it through trial and error, I swear i took that thing apart 20 times trying to get it right. but once i did figure it out, i was in heaven!
for the novice i would recommend a edelbrock to bolt and go, but i think every car/truck guy should buy a used q jet and just play with it, figure it out and eventually you'll be sold on em like i am.
for performance and reliability you cant beat a well-tuned q jet!

[FBC72]

Well, I decided to rebuild the Quad and run it. A rebuild kit was $22, a new Edelbrock was $360, it was an easy choice! I have a good friend who likes workin on carbs, and volunteered to help me out with it!

[beebster]

here's my crazy BOIL story:

I was a kid and heard some mechanic talk about "boiling" his carbs when he rebuilt them.
So, as a young,dumb kid i went home, got a big pot of water, heated it up to boiling and dropped my old disassembled q jet in there!
2 days later , i told a freind who was visiting and after he expained that "boiling" was dipping your carb in a special "solution" we busted up laughing. After i got it back together, that thing ran great !
I wouldn't recommend it though.

lesson learned. "don't boil your carb on the stove"

[pilzy1]

Does anyone know a specific model # Q-jet w/electric choke that would work well on a stock crate 350 w/HEI distributor? Early 70's application possibly? I'm combining 2 parts trucks into 1 runner and have a crate 350 with the stock manifold but no carb, will be ran on the street so just need a putt-putt carb for milage/reliability. Thanks in advance, this board is FULL of knowledge and @ 40 I'm still learning new tricks/ideas every time I'm on here.

[nbpro]

The Edelbrocks are very prone to fuel boiling in the float bowls on a hot engine. When it boils it goes right into the intake and floods out the engine. I would look for some kind of composite spacer or heat reducing gasket to run between the manifold and carburetor.
I was having the hard hot start/flooding issue bad. I finally noticed that one tiny paragraph in the owners manual that more than 10% alcohol in the gas will cause these problems.also

[Malo83]

Originally Posted by pilzy1

Does anyone know a specific model # Q-jet w/electric choke that would work well on a stock crate 350 w/HEI distributor? Early 70's application possibly? I'm combining 2 parts trucks into 1 runner and have a crate 350 with the stock manifold but no carb, will be ran on the street so just need a putt-putt carb for milage/reliability. Thanks in advance, this board is FULL of knowledge and @ 40 I'm still learning new tricks/ideas every time I'm on here.

Give sean a call,he's a Wizard with Qjets.


http://www.smicarburetor.com/

[sixshooter798]

My vote is for the Edelbrock. There is a reason they call them "Quadrajunks"

[Restrorob]

Originally Posted by sixshooter798

My vote is for the Edelbrock. There is a reason they call them "Quadrajunks"

Yeah...."they" call them that because "they" are lacking in tuning/rebuilding one properly......


Soon as funds are available my 502 is getting a intake change and one of my built Q-jets.

[BigRed76]

I've got a 2 year old 750 cfm edelbrock, manual choke, tuned 6% lean for the altitude on my cutlass and i have had absolutely no problems with it. Starts like a dream hot or cold and still does good on mpg's. On the other hand...my 76 k10 still has the original q-jet w/stock rods & jets, starts hard when hot because the carb leaks into the intake when you shut it off, but im still getting 13 mpg and when those secondaries kick in it puts you in your seat, i think between these 2 carbs its a matter of preference. For someone who is learning about carbs i would go with the edelbrock though since they are super easy to play with.

[cor86]

A properly tuned Q-jet will slightly edge out a properly tuned Edelbrock, in performance and economy, but the key term is properly tuned. In order to properly tune one, you need a dyno, wideband o2, or far more wisdom/experience than I have. For out of the box performance, economy, and ease of tuning, my nod goes to the Eddy. It takes about 2 minutes and a torx key to change rods, and jets are just as easy. Heat soak can be an issue, but a thick gasket or thin spacer will help out a bunch. Also, do not run more than 5 psi to an Eddy. The alum. intake will be a def. improvement, just make sure to get some decent intake gaskets and torque it to spec. The distributor removal isn't that bad, just mark where the rotor is pointing before you pull it out. It will turn on you as you remove it, and you will need to turn it back that amount x2 before you drop it back in. If all is lost, just do the TDC deal. There are a ton of videos on Youtube that show this procedure. Oh yeah, since the dizzy will be out, now would be a good time to renew it with new springs, weights, module, coil, cap, and rotor. And...while the intake is off, it would be a good time to adjust your rockers. Good luck.

[BigRed76]

Originally Posted by FBC72

I just put an Accel HEI on last week end, and am looking at putting an Edelbrock 1406 Performer on this week end (I don't have the time or resources to rebuild a 38 year old Quad) What is the best fix for the "hot start" problem I hear mentioned? I had an Edelbrock performer carb on my 75 K-10, and never could get that problem fixed???

My dad had this problem on his 69 c10, he put a 1" spacer between the carb and intake w/ 1/4" gaskets on both sides of the spacer and it fixed the problem, so im assuming it works pretty good.

[BigRed76]

Originally Posted by ChevyC102007

Yes you will have to deal with removing the distributor, but its not as daunting a task as it sounds. Just take your time and be careful, note how it comes out in put it back in the same way it came out and you will be fine. Just make sure the marks are at TDC before you start.

Speaking off this, just did my very first distributor removal and reinstall 2 days ago on my 350, i was a little weary about it since it was my first time but it took me about 20 minutes to get er back in and timed correctly and that was it lol as long as you know why you're doing what you're doing it'll go smooth.

[benoit454]

I hate quadrajunks and I hate holleys edelbrocks are easy and cheap to rebuild too. I wouldn't run anything else. If you run one on a 4 hole quadrajet intake you need a spread bore to square bore adapter and if you run egr you need an adapter to move it out of the way or block it off all together, my vote the eddy intake with no egr unless you have smog and the eddy carb.

I love em and used em to replace holleys that ran aweful and quads that sucked as well.

For me I've changed the working condition holley or quad and when I say this I mean nothing wrong with them, and actually felt better and ran better with the edelbrock, it just always seemed to work better for me, but I mostly replaced junk non working carbs for edelbrocks. Ones that would flood or starve out, or pop and backfire or other carb problems.