Edelbrock Carb on 454 Help

[tucsonjwt]

For me, I bought a Qjet rebuild from National Carburetors for less than $200. Installed my manual choke. No fiddling with jets and rebuilds, etc. The first one came with a bad vacuum fitting thread on the baseplate, but the second replacement one was OK. Fuel economy is not as good as the original Qjet, but I kept the original for possible future quality rebuild.

I have had two 454 C20s and they both had hard hot start which a spacer did not solve. I have had a few Edelbrocks on those engines and they were never as reliable as the original Qjets. Even the Carter carbs (which Edelbrock bought out) were not very good. Also, they required a lot of cobbled modifications to make them fit all of the attaching hardware on the engine.

15 years on a GM Qjet with no spreadbore modification spacer required. Not ideal but way better than my experience with aftermarket carbs.

What year do you have? You might be better off just going back to a factory set up, but each to his or her own.

[Desert_Eagle02]

Originally Posted by tucsonjwt

What year do you have? You might be better off just going back to a factory set up, but each to his or her own.

Not sure of the year of my engine, the previous owner swapped it in. I looked briefly for the casting numbers when I first got it, but couldn't find them. I should look more closely soon, as it would be nice to know.

I have it running pretty good right now. Just adjusted the mixture screws by engine feel and sound. I have a fuel pressure regulator that I picked up, and just got a brass plug for it the other day. I didn't know the regulator had 2 out ports. I've been really busy and haven't been able to install it yet. After I do I'm going to use a vacuum gauge to get the mixture screws adjusted. And my farmer neighbor is going to help me check and or adjust the timing as I'm going to switch the vacuum advance over to manifold.

[tucsonjwt]

If you can find out your model year engine then you can order a rebuilt carb for that particular engine. The big rebuilders do go with a generalized carburetor, mostly for the later model engines, but it gets you in the right neighborhood with all of the vacuum lines and fuel lines in the correct orientation, and you won't need an adapter spacer for the spread bore intake. Also, the stock air cleaner lining up correctly is nice. I know you said that the spacer helps with hot starts, but I have never found that to be true on my BBs.

If you are close to proper operation with what you have then you don't need another carb. I hope your current setup works out.