I'm Not familiar at all with them. Never hear much about them either. Do they hurt power? Hard to tune?

Semi -easy to tune....Small float bowls, drain to easily before getting the bog out, lack of bigger squirters, and generally you never quite get the afr the way you want with metering rods and jets. Almost need custom rods....Two are best, this way you get two squirters...Great starter carbs. Tough to make them too rich.

They work great for street driven cars. They do give up a little power to a Holley design but the idle circuit is superior. I've run them on a variety of big block stroker motors and they are excellent street carbs.

Andy pretty much covered it... when my ex (Mirada) was street driven I was running the old MP .484 cam (340) and this carb had great street manners. I bought the electric choke for the 750 I had, but never installed it. Engine started quite well without it.

they are great to just bolt on a car, set the idle and go they work great, but to make power and be able to tune it rersonably a holley style is a no brainer to me anyway, the acc pump seems to me a common failure though, then they are really hard to start

Good street carb. Easy to tune - come with an excellent tuning manual. Float bowls are too small for a serious fuel drinker.

I can relate. I've been a Holley guy for a long time and recently was forced to live with Edelbrocks. My FHO Hemi has two Edelbrock 1805 Thunder Series 650 CFM carbs. These are designed for single carb applications not dual so they can dump a lot of fuel and had been leaned out considerably. So recently, I was driving it on the street and it being Fall, the air is really good around here and I when I stepped on it, I could feel the engine lean out and pop. I have a wide band O2 sensor and could also see it leaning out. I knew I was planning on running it at the Nostalgia Drags at Capitol on Saturday and knew I needed to fatten up the carbs. It was a piece of cake. I changed the front metering rods. Think of these like restricting the front jets so they control how much fuel the jets allow. The secondary jets are simple to replace. Just take the top off. It's about the same level of effort as taking the bowls off a Holley except you only have 1 fuel inlet to disconnect instead of 2 and, you need to disconnect the accelerator pump - it's easy with one clip. You can leave the fuel in the bowl while you do it. I changed the secondary jets from .086 to .092 and went to slightly smaller metering rods in the primaries - Tim Banning's suggestions . They allow more fuel through. The only thing that made it harder was the fact that I had 2 carbs to deal with.

So I took it to the track on Saturday. I had no idea how the Edelbrocks would feel. I had no idea how they would perform and if I had the jetting right. I was rewarded with a second pass of 10.03 @ 134 and 1.37 60's. I'm pretty sure I could have run some nines if I had time to experiment with them. Those carbs worked great. Zero issues. The car was deadly consistent. I'm a believer now...

http://www.tdspeedshotz.com/wp-content/g...015-CR-1225.jpg

http://www.tdspeedshotz.com/wp-content/g...015-CR-1419.jpg

I use an 850 Speed Demon and have to say it offers the best of both worlds.

Drivability is great and they perform as good or better than a similar sized Holley.

Can`t stand em, just like vac secondaries and street avengers...........Just my personal opinion, however in dual carb applications apparently they shine.......

because they suck! everyone knows that the holley is the only real carburetor for a muscle car.

oh... wait...

LOL! I like my 1406. It does a great job keeping my papers from flying away when all the doors are open in my shop.

For what its worth I tested a pair of Pro-Systems Holleys on mine this year. It went a best of 9.02 with a string of 9.0x@148+. I reinstalled my old box stock Edelbrocks went a best of 9.11 with a string of 9.1X@148. both sets were jetted very close. Air was with-in a few hundred feet on 4 different days of tests. The track was poor during the Edelbrock tests. 60 ft was off .05 average. Some of that could have been the carbs as well but I feel on a good track it could go 9.0x. The amazing thing is that both sets mph very close.
Doug

Running good with what everyone else thinks is junk is part of the satisfaction of being a mopar guy.

i believe there are two causes for the negative reviews of the AFB type carb. first is ignorance, second is OOTB calibration on the edelbrock carbs isn't ideal. they are very different to tune vs a holley but are much more forgiving when a tune-up error is made. a lot of poor internet advice doesn't help.

Sixpackgut's car ran REAL good w/ the big block and a pair of Edelbrocks on a tunnelram.

The CarterBrocks are not a bad design carb, there are just better choices today for most of us. I rarely install them mainly due to 3 issues; they often have a poor tune out of the box. They are more difficult to tune and to find tuning parts for. And there are superior designs readily available.

Compare the price, tune and design features of the new Street Demons, and I do not understand why anyone would buy a CarterBrock.

because they suck... ok to be fair they work well on a street car, meaning not raced. If you want to go racing with them you'll need two. Not hard to tune, they just don't tune well. If you run a mild BB you'll need the 800 thunder.

I've won a fair amount of races in both Pro and N/SS with them.
Doug

Ran a 1406 on a stock 400 in a big old Newyorker a while back. Came lean out of the box, but easily fixed with needle / jet change. Only issue was it had a tendency to heat soak in real hot weather. Went back to a modified TQ and the heat soak issue went away.

Now that's a sweet looking car

I had two 750 Eddy carbs on a tunnel-rammed 451, went 136 mph first time out with them! I switched to a couple custom Quickfuel carbs since they were alot easier to tune and the 60 foot was better but the Eddy carbs were cheap and worked quite well.

X2

Edelbrock sells carbs that are calibrated to be run as duals. Here is a link to an article I did a few years back with a 505 and dual Edelbrock carbs. That combo worked out great. It idled like a stocker but pulled really hard on the dyno.

http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/1007phr-big-block-mopar-engines/

The biggest problem with an Ebrock in a single, NON TUNNEL RAM application is heat soak , even with the heat riser blocked , the crap fuel we have today will literally boil off while you are driving it.

You ain't alone...

For carbs 'that suck', there sure are a lot of 'em out there kicking serious a$$...

This thread makes me wonder.

What is the fastest car on Moparts with a single Edelrock carb?

Who has the highest dyno number with a single Edelbrock carb?

They work decent for driver type cars. I still like my Holleys for race stuff.

Thanks Chip. Mine went 140 mph with a pair of Edels. I really like the carbs and they idle a lot better than Holleys

They idle a ton better than a Holley. The Edelbrock has a really sophisticated idle circuit with an internal restriction and air bleed setup that is designed to mix air in with the fuel. I don't have the technology to understand exactly how it works but the difference on a "hot rod" type of engine is usually very impressive.

I would agree the idle on mine is better with the Edelbrock"s. So is the drivability through the pits. Unmodified they will idle down to 1000 rpm with a 285@.050 cam.
Doug

your right, the idle/cruise circuts on the afb's are more sophisticated than the holleys. they may have as many as 4 idle/low speed air bleeds with a minimum of at least 2. the one i haven't figured out yet is the "economizer". the clusters are always mixing air with the fuel. i have a ch28 set-up that's a super driver and is more fuel efficient than any holley.

john, i haven't found any difference between a holley or afb when it comes to heat soak. on my junk they both have/had heat soak issues. the only solution i found for either carb was a fiber insulator gasket, and winter blend fuel really ups the tune-up misery factor for either carb.

In my limited experience is with 2 different cars, 2 different motors, but both in the same area and both with alum manifolds, and the heat riser blocked using the same type fuel ... both cars run stock iron exhaust manifolds.

The car running a 30 yr old Holley DP with the big air grabbber air cleaner and no spacer of any kind under it has no heat soak problems after two summers, ambient temp has not been a factor and no hard restart after getting the jetting close?????

The other car with a new thunder 800 and a stock dual snorkel air cleaner got hot to the point it wouldn't idle at a stop light without stalling and was hard to restart.

I really thought the Holley would have the same issues and was shocked it didn't.

john i've found that those thunder 800's are way too rich. this may contribute to some problems.

There are lots of nhra stockers running in the 10' s with one AVS. Just a AFB, edelbrock with a adjustable air door.

Probably ONLY because they HAVE to

The Carter/Edelbrock carbs have small fuel bowls where the floats take up a good percentage of the space in the bowl, and this makes them pretty sensitive to the fuel level in the bowls, but there is no easy way to see and adjust the float level like on a Holley. So you have to run the fuel pump or engine to fill the float bowls, pull the carb top off, check the fuel level, and adjust the floats if needed, then put the carb top back on, and repeat as needed.
Then if you are not careful tuning, and just throw different metering rods at it you can really upset the fuel metering as some rod changes can be like several jet sizes different, and the step size differences are all over the place. There are over 30+ different Edelbrock metering rods, and several more Carter metering rods to choose from with metering rod step size differences from 0.0000" to 0.0380". Considering each jet size change is 0.003" a single rod change could be the same at 10 or more jet sizes.
Then there is only the single accelerator pump, discharge nozzle and the AFB has the non-adjustable secondary opening rate. Also, only offered in a limited range of CFM ratings. I think all come with a choke too?

There is nothing really wrong, but they can be a challange to tune them, and this dosen't even compare to a higher end 4150 or 4500 carb that has adjustable (screw-in) restrictions, air and emulsion bleeds.

Carb comparisons on a drag car can be misleading because the carb is only operated at idle and wide open throttle in usually warm weather, not to mention most drag cars have high stall converters or launch at a high RPM so the secondarys will come in really quick because the engine is always operating at high RPM.

The Carter/Edelbrock carbs do seem to usually work well on street cars out of the box (if the floats are adjusted correctly.) Most have electric chokes for cold weather operation, and they are less expensive than the Holley type carbs.

Other reasons the Holley carbs are referenced here more (in the race section) is many of us are running 950+ CFM chokless race carbs.

If you put the time in to learn how they work and how to modify them they run just as well as a Holley of comparable size.

I think that I spent more money on tuning parts for my carbs than what the carbs cost. I must have over $1,000 in jets, rods, power valves, screw in restrictions, air bleeds, step-up springs, discharge nozzles, vacuum secondary springs, accelerator pumps and pump cams, pin drills, and other specialized carb tools.

I have 2-3 Carter strip kits (because I'm running 3 AFBs currently) and a pin drill set, pretty much all you need to make them go. A touch of epoxy here, an adjustment there and you are off and running.

Oh- The secondaries are adjustable on the AFB, you just need to know how to do it and there is more than one way.

If I have a complaint about the AFB series of carbs it is the fact the newer fuels do boil out quicker when the car is parked due to the aluminum construction. Since I run electric fuel pumps (for one reason or another) its really a non-issue for me.

When I take the 5.9 magnum Duster back out in the spring I'm going to give a Holley (780 vacuum sec) I have here a shot to see if the car turns different numbers. When things are less hectic in a few weeks I'll make a posting inquiring about how the carb should be setup for the application.

Since it is comparable in size (Current carb is an older Carter 750 cfm AFB) it should be an apples to apples comparison aside from the fact one has mechanical secondaries and the other has vacuum.

Even though I use Edelbrocks ultimately the lack of pump shot and secondary opening does seem to slow 60 ft some what. But when $ are compared I didn't find it cost effective for my program to pony up $1600 or so for a pair of modified Holley's to gain approximately .05 in ET.
Doug

if your running 750's then there's probably a way to open up the accelerator pump well for the larger volume 800 pump.

if one will study the tuning booklet supplied with the edelbrock carbs they will notice that a "step" in metering is 4%. what i have done is use the percentage of change to dictate a step and not orifice sizes. i put together a cheat sheet that gives the square inches of area for all jet and metering rod sizes/steps. i figure everything on percentage of change using both jet area and rod step area. never do i grab a jet or rod out of the box and just figure i'm changing "one step".

as far as the pump nozzles go you can make them anything you want with small pin drills.

to my knowledge there were two types of floats made for afb's, small and large. none of the edelbrocks have the large but some OEM carbs did, like a 440 avs. i don't think the smaller float gives as good of fuel control as the larger. i have found that for what i do the smaller needle and seats seem to perform and drive better and i think that's due to poorer control with the smaller float.

The AFB on my Duster is exceptionally crisp, its all in the tune.

There is no bogging; you stab it and the car stands up and goes.

Didn't even touch the shooters.

I'll give you a clue though- The number one problem I have noted on some models of the AFB is they mix far to much air with the fuel in the booster emulsion circuit. Restricting the amount of air that is mixed with the fuel in that circuit speeds up how quickly fuel is being pulled out of the booster.

No need for a larger pump shot if the fuel is being drawn out of the booster darn near instantly. You will have to re-jet of course if you are going to take this route as it does change the calibration.

the upper holes in the emulsion tube can be soldered up. there's also a hole high up where the tube enters the cluster that i believe is the "economizer" that can be plugged and is absent in some carbs. i think too much is made of having a lot of pump shot. it's part of the bracket racer mentality to go for big pump shots, whether it's needed or not. to me it shows the lack of ability to tune a carb.

Been using narrow band O2 for tuning since the late 80's, the gauge tells you all you need to know. Just work on it circuit by circuit and they run like a top in no time flat.

I think in the early 90's I was given one of the new aluminum Holleys to play with. A LOT of time was spent trying to get it right, it was incredible how crude the fuel circuits were and rough the transitions were from circuit to circuit. Had to drill the shooters and adapt a 50 cc pump to get rid of a lean spot on the primary side. The thing would go from full rich to full lean on the gauge in a heartbeat, there was almost no in between. I think the Holley strategy was to just have it "run rich" all the time to cover the transitions, stands out like a sore thumb if you have the tools though.

Still have it hanging from the garage wall.

I'm willing to give the 780 I have a shot as it is only a couple years old and perhaps Holley has made some strides since the 90's on calibrations and circuits.

So, what PSI do you other Edelbrock folks use for your fuel supply? I've heard that they are very sensitive to fuel pressure greater than 5.5 PSI.

I can't comment on the Edelbrocks as I have a fine collection of Carter AFBs I tinker with but I don't even bother running a regulator. The Duster just runs an electric self-regulated pump and the GTX runs an electric feeding a Carter race mechanical. When I was running the 6-pack hood with a fuel gauge I'd see as high as 12 psi which never seems to bother it.

I run 6 psi.
Doug

Right...

Brand X strikes again...

I've tuned cars w/ both Holleys and Carters and don't really have a preference. They each have their own pros and cons.

I've ridden in cars w/ each...some run well, some not. It undoubtedly comes down more to the person doing the tuning than the carb itself.

i agree.

i think the psi issue has more to do with the small floats lack of control. the 5-6 psi thing keeps the fuel control happy with the availiable parts. i have run and do run a little higher without issue but i juggle parts.

I knew all of the above statements would be made.

apples to onions. you are running TWO and most NSS guys would LOVE to run a pair of Holleys if they could. In a SINGLE carb configuration a Holley is far better.

I have one on my 427" SBF Stroker in my Cobra replica and after some minor tuning of the rods and springs it works better ON THIS CAR than any holley.

I have a fair amount of experience tuning the old 68-71 440 AVS's and the cobra really needed a tractable roll-on to the secondaries, the double pumper worked awesome but when you roll on the power in a curve just slightly too hard on street tires a Cobra can try to swap ends on you. The Thunder AVS works just right for this combo, the only other thing the Edelbrock needed was to convert it to a dual line feed because without it you rely on the flow passing through the body to keep both sides/bowls filled. AT WOT in a light car the single feed wasn't keeping up and would go lean under hard acceleration. The dual line feed did the trick.

On the track I can run race tires and use a DP more effectively, but honestly I've got the AVS so well-tuned now I don't really worry about it.

Think they recommend 5.

pretty sure the recommendation is no more than 6psi. i've fudged on that a little without issue. i firmy believe the floats are the control issue.

Well in the NMCA NSS class if you are running in the AFX 9.75 or quicker classes you are allowed to run the Holley or QuickFuel carbs. Some do and some do not as there is really not a huge difference if any. Some may gain .10 or .05 and some I do know stayed the same. So why all the added expense with a not so much improvement

because those people are very knowledgeable with crabs and CAN do the work themselves. The simple muscle head (like myself) does not have those tuning skills, or the need for a 2 carb set-up (although I like 3), I tuned the heck out of a Eddy 750 for a 383 dart. It ran good. A buddy gave me a 750DP holley he had set up for his 11 second 360 and w/o a tune I dropped a tenth. After 10-15 minutes of tuning I dropped another .8 tenth. I've used both. the eddy's aren't bad they just aren't as easy to work on and they will not match a Holley at the track (for us weekend racers). A used Holley can be had for $75-100, rebuilt in an hour w/ a $50 kit and it will out perform a brand new Eddy 750.

I took a box stock Holley 750 which replaced a Holley Avenger vc carb and did my mods including making ALL circuits tunable for a Cobra replica w/a Rouch(sp) 500 hp small block and it came alive. He could barely blow the tires off and now he can barely keep em hooked up. Was even going to sell the Cobra and keep the blown Nova but the Nova`s gone........I have messed w/AFB`s and e-brocks for years just like the simplicity of Holleys.......

Next time you're at a N/SS race look and see how many cars can run A/FX. Mine can with Edelbrocks. Many cars run Holleys and can not even run B/FX.
Doug

Doug...

Yer wasting your time...


This has been REPEATEDLY beat to death with this guy...

Obviously, multiple successes by multiple pros, and 'non-pro's' going back many years means nothing...


The blinders ain't coming off...