Barry Grant carbs- what's the scoop?

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I had a new 825 cfm mighty demon,I had to take it apart to clean metal shavings out of it. all the slots for the air bleeds are striped out. Quality control nonexistent. After it was clean I'm very happy with the performance of the carb now.

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yeah, they're nice once you get 'em right

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I like them. Have run on apps from my race car to my motor home.

Besides the shavings etc.. they are decent.

Important to know that BG carbs flow a little more than a holley with the same number.
Also, that the different series of them(road, speed, mighty, race, etc) are set up to respond to different camshaft durations.

I have seen lot's of posts on here in the past where there have been size and series mismatch. The results are not good.

ie... I remember a guy with a 383 with a pretty agressive cam. around 250 @ 50 duration.

He was running an 850 speed demon on it, and couldn't get it to idle.

In that situation, a 750 mighty demon would have been the correct carb. The 850 is too big, and the speed series is for smaller cam's so tuning it right was virtually impossible.

Don't buy the wrong series of carb, no matter how good of a deal it is, UNLESS going the otherway(running a mighty, where you should be using a speed)

IIRC the series are broken down like this.
Road demon-stock replacement, speed demon- up to 240 @ 50 duration, mighty demon 240- 260 @ 50, race demon - above that.

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Barry himself was on here a while back in the race section defending his company and telling everyone how he is improving customer service and quality.

He was getting thrashed on quite a few boards at the time.

You will never see any BG product on my vehicles.

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...One guy told me he wasn't going to run a "baby" carburetor on a 302 and was intent on running one of our 750's which flows over 900 cfm.

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He probably bought a 750 off ebay, and then complained that he couldn't tune it too. You just can't talk sense into some guys.

A friend of mine was having issues with his 750 speed demon, because his combo was better suited for a double pumper, and his duration was almost where he needed a mighty demon. car was a high 12 low 13 second B body.

A local shop told him an 850 speed demon they could make him a deal on, may help the problem he had. The friend of mine was ready to go for it, even though I was showing him how my car with more duration, and faster than his, only needed a 750, but a mighty, instead of speed.

He did finally buy a mighty, and it treated him well.

The size thing does get to be quite a debate. The 440 in my winni, has a 625 road demon on it. Good power, and my peak economy was 10 mp cdn g(8mp usg) towing the car over mountain passes which I thought was pretty good.

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I like them. Have run on apps from my race car to my motor home.

Besides the shavings etc.. they are decent.

Important to know that BG carbs flow a little more than a holley with the same number.
Also, that the different series of them(road, speed, mighty, race, etc) are set up to respond to different camshaft durations.

I have seen lot's of posts on here in the past where there have been size and series mismatch. The results are not good.

ie... I remember a guy with a 383 with a pretty agressive cam. around 250 @ 50 duration.

He was running an 850 speed demon on it, and couldn't get it to idle.

In that situation, a 750 mighty demon would have been the correct carb. The 850 is too big, and the speed series is for smaller cam's so tuning it right was virtually impossible.

Don't buy the wrong series of carb, no matter how good of a deal it is, UNLESS going the otherway(running a mighty, where you should be using a speed)

IIRC the series are broken down like this.
Road demon-stock replacement, speed demon- up to 240 @ 50 duration, mighty demon 240- 260 @ 50, race demon - above that.

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That sums up a lot of what we see. Guys want to run too big of a carburetor and then blame us when it doesn't work.

We have had guys call in for recommendations and then call back trying to get something different recommended and even 4 or 5 times only to get the same. One guy told me he wasn't going to run a "baby" carburetor on a 302 and was intent on running one of our 750's which flows over 900 cfm.

I have even had them call back and say "the other guy" recommended so and so thinking they have someone else but thats the nice thing about caller id's . I have even had them call and change the combination to see if we would recommend soemthing else.

In regards to the shavings, that deal was several years ago and we came on many of the forums when it was brought to our attention and admitted it as well as made numerous changes to correct it.

Now I understand there is at least one other manufacturer experiencing the same currently.

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I appreciate your posting here trying to address issues with your products. I have had my carb for two years and had the shavings issue. I can't imagine how frustrating it is sell a superbly designed,but poorly assembled product. To design a product that when assembled with care and attention to detail, performs better than expected, only to be let down by a lack of QC. I have no idea when my carb was made. It could have been on a shelf for years, I don't know. For me cleaning the carb out was no big deal,but some people may not be able to tear the carb down and clean it. Again I very happy with how it performs now. For me it wasn't a tuning issue, it wasn't a mismatched carb issue,it was the person who put it together didn't care enough to make sure it was clean. :drive

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In some cases the guys never even had our products and just wanted to look good in front of their buddies on the forums and in some of the others we were able to go back to our records and receipts and show what was posted was not even close to being factual.

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I put a new BG 600 on my 383 and it ran terrible. The secondaries were factory adjusted at 1/8" open, and there were shavings in the bowl and metering system. I called BG tech support and they said "well you just have to adjust it and clean it, this is normal for any new carb".
Right. This is just what I want to do on my new "upscale" carb. Summit had so many BG returns and problems that they stopped carrying BG carbs.

I listed my "new" BG on ebay along with all its problems, sold it for $112 and used that money towards an Edelbrock Thunder series carb, which fired right up and worked perfect out of the box...

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I like them. Have run on apps from my race car to my motor home.

Besides the shavings etc.. they are decent.

Important to know that BG carbs flow a little more than a holley with the same number.
Also, that the different series of them(road, speed, mighty, race, etc) are set up to respond to different camshaft durations.

I have seen lot's of posts on here in the past where there have been size and series mismatch. The results are not good.

ie... I remember a guy with a 383 with a pretty agressive cam. around 250 @ 50 duration.

He was running an 850 speed demon on it, and couldn't get it to idle.

In that situation, a 750 mighty demon would have been the correct carb. The 850 is too big, and the speed series is for smaller cam's so tuning it right was virtually impossible.

Don't buy the wrong series of carb, no matter how good of a deal it is, UNLESS going the otherway(running a mighty, where you should be using a speed)

IIRC the series are broken down like this.
Road demon-stock replacement, speed demon- up to 240 @ 50 duration, mighty demon 240- 260 @ 50, race demon - above that.

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That sums up a lot of what we see. Guys want to run too big of a carburetor and then blame us when it doesn't work.

We have had guys call in for recommendations and then call back trying to get something different recommended and even 4 or 5 times only to get the same. One guy told me he wasn't going to run a "baby" carburetor on a 302 and was intent on running one of our 750's which flows over 900 cfm.

I have even had them call back and say "the other guy" recommended so and so thinking they have someone else but thats the nice thing about caller id's . I have even had them call and change the combination to see if we would recommend soemthing else.

In regards to the shavings, that deal was several years ago and we came on many of the forums when it was brought to our attention and admitted it as well as made numerous changes to correct it.

Now I understand there is at least one other manufacturer experiencing the same currently.

---

I appreciate your posting here trying to address issues with your products. I have had my carb for two years and had the shavings issue. I can't imagine how frustrating it is sell a superbly designed,but poorly assembled product. To design a product that when assembled with care and attention to detail, performs better than expected, only to be let down by a lack of QC. I have no idea when my carb was made. It could have been on a shelf for years, I don't know. For me cleaning the carb out was no big deal,but some people may not be able to tear the carb down and clean it. Again I very happy with how it performs now. For me it wasn't a tuning issue, it wasn't a mismatched carb issue,it was the person who put it together didn't care enough to make sure it was clean. :drive

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I like them. Have run on apps from my race car to my motor home.

Besides the shavings etc.. they are decent.

Important to know that BG carbs flow a little more than a holley with the same number.
Also, that the different series of them(road, speed, mighty, race, etc) are set up to respond to different camshaft durations.

I have seen lot's of posts on here in the past where there have been size and series mismatch. The results are not good.

ie... I remember a guy with a 383 with a pretty agressive cam. around 250 @ 50 duration.

He was running an 850 speed demon on it, and couldn't get it to idle.

In that situation, a 750 mighty demon would have been the correct carb. The 850 is too big, and the speed series is for smaller cam's so tuning it right was virtually impossible.

Don't buy the wrong series of carb, no matter how good of a deal it is, UNLESS going the otherway(running a mighty, where you should be using a speed)

IIRC the series are broken down like this.
Road demon-stock replacement, speed demon- up to 240 @ 50 duration, mighty demon 240- 260 @ 50, race demon - above that.

---

That sums up a lot of what we see. Guys want to run too big of a carburetor and then blame us when it doesn't work.

We have had guys call in for recommendations and then call back trying to get something different recommended and even 4 or 5 times only to get the same. One guy told me he wasn't going to run a "baby" carburetor on a 302 and was intent on running one of our 750's which flows over 900 cfm.

I have even had them call back and say "the other guy" recommended so and so thinking they have someone else but thats the nice thing about caller id's . I have even had them call and change the combination to see if we would recommend soemthing else.

In regards to the shavings, that deal was several years ago and we came on many of the forums when it was brought to our attention and admitted it as well as made numerous changes to correct it.

Now I understand there is at least one other manufacturer experiencing the same currently.

---

I appreciate your posting here trying to address issues with your products. I have had my carb for two years and had the shavings issue. I can't imagine how frustrating it is sell a superbly designed,but poorly assembled product. To design a product that when assembled with care and attention to detail, performs better than expected, only to be let down by a lack of QC. I have no idea when my carb was made. It could have been on a shelf for years, I don't know. For me cleaning the carb out was no big deal,but some people may not be able to tear the carb down and clean it. Again I very happy with how it performs now. For me it wasn't a tuning issue, it wasn't a mismatched carb issue,it was the person who put it together didn't care enough to make sure it was clean. :drive

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Thanks. Your carb would have prob been on the shelf for about a year based on when we had the issue and the time you had it.

As posted one should not have to take a new carburetor apart to clean it and I have been spot inspecting them now coming off the line for about 2 1/2 years and rarely see any with any shavings at all.

Some of the shaving problems were not caused by employees not caring though as we were able to track part of it back to the way we were machining parts. The tool would cut a hole in one direction and then cut the hole 90 degrees to that and it would pack the shavings in the bottom. Standard cleaning practices didn't get this stuff out nor catch it so we had to change the way some parts were machined.

Other issues had to due with the way parts were being moved and/or stored so we wnet to mesh baskets for this and moved the gaskets off the benches and into clean dispensor boxes. We also put vacuum systems under the assembly benches and installed a timed sonic wash.

Even with all of this you will still have the human factor involved as you mentioned and whether somebody just misses something or has a bad day or any number of things there will always be issues but we continue to put checks and balances into place and the qc has greatly improved over what it was a few years back.

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I do really appreciate your response. To be fair I have never contacted your company. I was able to fix my issues on my own so never sought out any response/assistance from your company. I'm sure it was not the first time you have outlined the steps your company has taken to improve quality control, but it was first time I personally had heard. Thank you again.