Bought a used Holley Carb for Lisa’s car.
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Topic: Bought a used Holley Carb for Lisa’s car.
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Subject: Bought a used Holley Carb for Lisa’s car.
Date Posted: 18 April 2008 at 9:30am
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So Lisa (FieroChicks) Fiero has a lowly 305 and a Rochester Q-Jet on it. The Carb is hooped and needs some new parts to fix it. We started searching for a Carb about a month ago. We found this one. It came from a running engine and then was put in storage. It needs to be cleaned up and there is surface rust on one of the butterfly's. However everything seems to work smooth. We bought a rebuild kit for it with new jets and new gaskets.
Installing the Carb would only help about 1/2 of her problems, she has smogger heads from the 80's on the car, so we are going to find a set of late model vortec heads and matching intake. After talking to Blair, he said the 80's 305's had Horrid heads on them and the Q-Jet aka Quadra Junk did little to help the situation. I was hoping for her to gain maybe 30-40hp with new good heads a good Carb. He said probably more like 100hp over what she has now. Which is going to kinda suck, for me as she is then going to be able to make my 4.9 5spd look like I am standing still. LOL. Well here are the pics of the Carb. Can anyone give me any details on it. I know very little about carberated engines. Blair is going to help with the rebuild, but I would like to put together as much info as I can, just so I know whats going on and don't end up working blind. 
------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |
Replies:
Posted By: Matt
Date Posted: 18 April 2008 at 9:51am
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I've run multiple series of Quadrajets on my cars. I find them to be a very good carb if they're actually taken care of. Problem is, most people don't. I rebuilt my 4 barrel Quadrajet last thanksgiving. It may look daunting but just take your time. I'm not sure exactly what details or information you're looking for. The only advice I can think of is... 1. Make sure you get all new vacuum lines 2. Don't loose any parts on the carb when you're taking it apart. Work on it somewhere clean and open so that if you drop something you'll be able to find it. 3. Try to dip the multiple sections and needles of the carb. I did it at a local garage. They come up looking great and clean!!! 4. Make sure you're intake isn't leaking either. (a good way to check is to suffocate the aspirator on the carb and see if the car dies. Another way is to take a blow torch, don't light it but open it up and run it around the intake and listen if the rpm increases.) 5. Make sure the carb has a good seal with new gaskets. 6. Check, and recheck throttle linkage length because it might not be accurate with new carb. 7. Replace all inline fuel filters 8. All you have left to do is tuning. (jets, idle, choke) I'm sure Blair can help with that. Otherwise I have a book you can borrow. **I'm sure you knew most of this, but I figured I'd throw it out there anyhow.** Good luck. (My girl's car is faster than mine too :) ) ------------- I wanna go fast. |
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Date Posted: 18 April 2008 at 11:18am
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I know how to work on engines, I can do a head job on a Fiero 2.8 without any problems. I can work on my fuel injected 4.9 caddy motor in my 85GT, however when it comes to SBC stuff, I just don't have any experience with it. We will be putting all new vacume lines on it when we do the carb and intake swap. Probably get some "ricer" type vacume lines in red to match her car. Her current engine bay looks pretty ratty due to the age and way it was put together. We did not build her V8, we bought it already done. We got the entire car for less money than what a V8 kit would cost from Archie alone. Well it serves me right for not checking the packaging on the rebuild kit we bought! :( We were at the Huge Portland Auto Swap meet while we were in Oregon. We found a guy selling carbs, we asked if he by chance had a rebuild kit for a Holley 600cfm carb. He asked a few questions and then handed us this and swapped the jets out of the package and gave us different ones. I am just today took a close look at it and it says it is for 750cfm carbs. Frack, I don't think this is going to work for our carb. So we are out the 35 bucks we gave him for it. 
------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |
Posted By: Matt
Date Posted: 18 April 2008 at 11:42am
You know WAY more than me! You could reuse the old needles. I'm sure they'd work fine. Just clean off any deposits on them and soak them in some paint thinner or gas. If he gave you 600cfm jets and you have 600cfm needles you should be fine. I'm also not too sure, but if you had the 750 jets and needles you should be able to fit them into your existing Hollie carb. But you may have to take it apart to check. (I had to remove the top plate the Quadrajet to check. Not particularly familiar with that Hollie) ------------- I wanna go fast. |
Capt Fiero wrote:Posted By: Patrick
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 2:03am
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Proper size jets make a huge difference in carbureted engines. Years (and years) ago I bought a ‘67 Chevelle SS396 for a rather low price because the rebuilt 396 just didn’t perform well at all. It would crap out something fierce at high RPM. I took the brand new Holley carb apart and discovered the jets were way too small for a big block Chevy. (It had jetting for a late '70s "smog" engine.) I put in the appropriate size jets and holy smokes, the 396 came alive! |
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 2:07am
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The car runs right now and almost passes AirCare, it passed the drive test on the dyno but failed by a tiny margin on the idle test.
I am going to sell of the 750 kit and buy a 600cfm kit. ------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |
Posted By: Patrick
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 2:22am
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I guess you must have a cat installed. Are you positive it's good? What are the AirCare readings based on for this Fiero - the current V8 engine or the engine (V6?) that originally came in the car? |
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 2:29am
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Aircare requires that the car pass at 2.8 Fuel Injected V6.
The car has an 82 Chevy Camaro 305 with a Rochester Q-Jet and smoger heads on it. It has 2.5 inch headers into a 3" collector and then into a 3" inlet muffler with twin 2.5 outs that feed to the tips. There is no cat on the car and really no place to stuff one on. I will try and find the failed air-care scan and post it up tomorrow night. ------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |
Posted By: Patrick
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 2:39am
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I looked this up at AirCare: "A catalytic converter is necessary for all 1988 and newer vehicles to pass an AirCare inspection. Older vehicles may be able to pass inspection without a catalytic converter." I guess that explains why you're allowed to take the car through the test without a cat. However, you may find it awfully difficult to actually pass the test without one when you're trying to get a carbureted V8 to squeak below fuel injected V6 limits. |
Posted By: Dr.Fiero
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 8:11am
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My 77 trans-am with a 400/4bbl & headers passed cleaner than my injected '86 2.8 pick up, so.... ummm... ;) Anyhow, in the 2nd picture down, you can read the front of the air horn. It says "List xxxxx" but I can't read it. That's the number you need to get the CORRECT rebuild kit. The kit you have is for a 3310 Holley, which is not the carb you have. Look for a ripped power valve diaphragm when you tear the carb down - Holleys are bad for popping those. Yes, I've rebuilt a 'couple' of these. :) |
Posted By: CFoss
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 3:12pm
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Carbs 'Insert smoke and mirrors here' are great. Well, they can be anyway. I have a Quadrajet (Junk, bog) on my 350 marine engine and it's good, after tuning it up. People junk them because they don't understand them. They are like early fuel injection in that the have an idle circuit, a progression circuit with a 'power piston' which meters fuel based on need, then it has secondaries which open based on demand (Air requirements), not throttle position. The bog in quadrabog comes from people setting up these secondaries too loose and the open before they should causing a bog. Incedentally, the new pricey Demons do the same thing now. The quads have to be kept clean so the popwer piston functions properly. Tuned, the same carb can handle a 175hp 305 and a 400 hp 350. Pretty Cool. Anyway, your question is about a holley. I'm not really sure how they work in detail, but tuning will likely be required on the head change and you may as well do the cam too while you're at it? This will mean jetting changes. The best way to dial it in will still be a wideband 02 sensor, othwerwise you're stuck reading the plugs and set-of-pants/ping/detonationometer (Especially cause you're likely to be lean). I'm going to get a 02 wideband from Innovative eventually to tune the 3.4 (Setting up for turbo eventually)...It has a sensor, driver, readout and a 6 channel logger for $350. Not bad at all. I have a bunch of info on the quad (Diagrams, exploded views, tuning info) if you want, otherwise good luck with the holley. Chay ------------- 86 SE 3.4 |
Posted By: Patrick
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 3:38pm
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Me thinks there were some other variables involved.
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Posted By: Dr.Fiero
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 7:07pm
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Truck passed - met all the current specs it needed too. Car passed - just got lower numbers (yes, the same numbers!) than the truck. |
Posted By: Patrick
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 8:01pm
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Oh, I fully believe it's possible, it's just that everything else being equal (engine condition, cats, etc), a fuel injected V6 should run cleaner than a carbureted V8. Having said that, I have a retired 1978 Z28 Camaro rusting away in the back yard with a non-stock 350 (mild performance cam, headers, aluminum high-rise intake and a Thermoquad if I remember correctly) which passed AirCare with flying colors every year without a cat (even though it originally came with one). |