hey guys. what carbs are ya'll using? what was/is your favorite and wat was your least favorite.

I have a couple of favorites.  The Autolite/Ford "cracker box" carbs are almost fool proof.  Alot of folks turn their noses up at them because they don't have the performance cachet of some others but the darn things just work.  The old build Holleys like the R-1850's are hard to beat also.  Recent iterations have had manufacturing flaws but my stuff (30+ years old, LOL) work well.  Not really fond of Carter/Edelbrock though they have their place too, just not my first choice.

I'm with Gekko13 as far as all around carbs, haven't had the funds to afford some of the more elite like BG's, Demons etc.

55 Vicky & customline

58 Rack Dump, 55 F350 yard truck, 57 F100

59 & 61 P 400's, 58 F100 custom cab, 69 F100, 79 F150, 82 F600 ramp truck, 90 mustang conv 7 up, 94 Mustang, Should I continue?

I'm with Gekko13 too. For running on the street you cant beat them. I'd walk past a 1000 Edelbrock/Carter carbs to get one.

Dan      Kingman Az.      86409

I've only used two so far, an Edelbrock, and a Holley Street Avenger. I don't plan on using another Edelbrock.

The Edelbrock is an alright carb. The Holley is just far more tunable and user friendly in my opinion. Many people will tell a newbie that an Edelbrock is a great first carb because it's so easy to work with, but after experiencing both, I don't agree. The "hassle" with a Holley is that the fuel has to be drained for many changes and this is not necessary on an Edelbrock. But on the Edelbrock, you have linkages, more screws, small clips to loose, etc that you don't have to deal with on a Holley. This is even more of a pain when you're tuning and have to deal with a hot carb on a hot engine. I'll take draining a little fuel over all that other stuff any day.



Edit:

I thought I'd elaborate a little more. With the Edelbrock, tuning aside, there were two things I did not like. First, when cornering, the engine would starve and begin to hesitate. I heard that it is a common problem with them. I did not try to fix that. I wasn't too happy about it. I thought if I'm experiencing this with a 45 year old, stock suspension truck, it must suck in a car that can actually handle. And this was not experienced while cruising, more often when making a left hand turn to get across two lanes of highway so it's not that big a deal, but still. Second, there was significant hesitation when the secondary air valve began to open. On a Holley, you just swap springs. On an edelbrock, you have to grind on the counterweights so it's pretty well a permanent change and you risk removing too much. But certain newer Edelbrock models do have an adjustable secondary air valve. Supposedly this is not required for most Edelbrock installs.

When I got the Holley, I had it running better in a few hours than I did in several years with the Edelbrock - and that was with zero prior Holley experience - I pretty well knew every part inside an Edelbrock like the back of my hand at that time, I had it apart so many times trying to get rid of that hesitation before I learned about the air valve modification.


Lawrenceville, GA

I'm with Charlie on this one. The Holleys run great and easy to tune.

-Gary Burnette-

I would echo the sentiment on the holley's they are super easy and straightforward however I decided to go forward with the 3x2 Holley 94s-much less easy to tune than the 4 bolts. But after getting the hang of them and tearing down a few times they are actually get easier. There is much less cussing involved. I have heard decent things about the edelbrock 94 repops, but just does not seem the same. I had a demon on my old mustang-that was a piece of junk. Maybe was just a bad one, but I will never go down that road again.

Mike Rizzo

1963 F100 "Rudy"

Daniel Island, SC

1964.. If you go with an Ford Autolite on a stk or mild 292, I'm advised that the 1.08 model works best. They were used on 289s for instance. The bigger one is the 1.12 but may be a tad overkill. For a new Holley, Ted's 4 Bbl carb tests, some time back, showed the small 465 cfm worked really well.

Paul

I'm running the Holley 465, bought it, put it on, slight adjustment and its been fantastic, 3 years and no trouble. Gary

       

Gary, 55 Vicky, St. Germain, Wisconsin

 

I've actually had pretty good luck with all three. The Edelbrock on the car now has been very easy (for me) to tune. The Holleys can be versitile as well but the intermediate circuits can require Air bleed changes which (depending on the Carb) are easier to accomplish on the Edelbrock. For a supercharger (blow thru) setup the Edelbrock secondary setup is easier to deal with than a Holley Or Teapot Vacuum arrangement. I would suspect that any of them will work great IF you select the right carb and learn how to tune it. Wally Kerstien is running in the low 12's with a normally aspirated (no Blower) single Edelbrock on Mummert headed '56. It's easy to blame the manufacturer when something goes wrong. Carb selection and educated tuning are usually the problem, not the Carb.

   I would have to disagree with the Demon assesment, I had one on a 408" Windsor powered Ranger, the truck picked up 3 tenths by switching to an 850 Demon from a 780 Holley. To clarify, and avoid arguements the Holley was built when Holley was having Quality issues, and the Demons were first introduced. Since then Demons Quality control went downhill and they went bankrupt. Holley also went out of business, and was bought and brought back to the market by another owner. It appears that their products are much better than those of the previous management. the Edelbrocks are much improved over the Carters of 40 years ago, and their tuning manuals are far and away the best I've ever seen.  

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart)