best carburetor

70Tom

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So, my 70 Sport Fury has a 69 440 in it right now. I'm running an Edelbrock on it, and I hate it. It is impossible to start. The air cleaner doesn't fit well on it. I am ready to get rid of it. As such, can anyone recommend what carb I should go with?

Appreciate the input.
 
The best carb would have a working choke and accelerator pump, with no vacuum leaks. And it wouldn't be a Holley!
 
So, my 70 Sport Fury has a 69 440 in it right now. I'm running an Edelbrock on it, and I hate it. It is impossible to start. The air cleaner doesn't fit well on it. I am ready to get rid of it. As such, can anyone recommend what carb I should go with?

Appreciate the input.

Perhaps your carb needs a rebuild. I run Edelbrock carbs on my cars and love them. Sometimes if the car sits for long periods of time the crappy gas available today can cause problems.
 
Call AED, tell them what you got. Buy what they recommend. I used to recommend quickfuel, but they got bought-out, and i have no first hand experience with the new company. They will both be holley style carbs.
 
The air cleaner doesn't fit well on it.
This makes me wonder if you really have an Edelbrock carb on it or not.

Could it be that you have an older Carter AFB?

Then what exactly are the non starting conditions? Is it when the car has sat for days? Cold starts? Hot starts?
 
It's one thing to not like something, but asking for recommendations and not knowing if the recommendations will be for something similar, that's an issue. What are the operational issues? Why does the air cleaner not fit? Factory air cleaner? What has been done to seek to address the operational issues? Of course, what is the carb number on the carburetor?

Just some thoughts,
CBODY67
 
So, my 70 Sport Fury has a 69 440 in it right now. I'm running an Edelbrock on it, and I hate it. It is impossible to start. The air cleaner doesn't fit well on it. I am ready to get rid of it. As such, can anyone recommend what carb I should go with?

Appreciate the input.
I have an 800 cfm Edelbrock AVS2 on my 1970 Fury convertible which also has a 1969 440. Starting is always excellent, even after more than a month sitting. I have had earlier model Edelbrock 750cfm carbs which ran rich, but with annular boosters, the AVS2 is excellent.
 
These guys are correct, maybe just rebuild the carburetor you have OR it's something different. Impossible to start could be accelerator pump, choke, or an ignition issue. Check it out closely before you buy a carb. If it comes down to it, a 3310 Holley 750 vacuum secondary is a good choice for a 440....watch for minor intake manifold interference issues (clearance some things or 1/2" spacer) and the throttle cable attachment
 
From what I've seen, Holleys can be "an acquired taste" of sorts. I'm not sure why, but back in the 1960s and 1970s, I heard lots of complaints about anything Holley from Chrysler people, but as the 3310 780cfm 4bbl was on the high-level Chevy performance engines of those times, never heard anything bad about Holleys from them, by comparison.

By the middle 1970s, I had been around some Chrysler people to ask questions as to what was wrong with Holleys, considering they were supposed to be the premier high-perf and tunable carb of those times. I heard about gasket issues, mainly. It seemed that people who knew to buy quality parts and carb kits from the right places (Holley, specifically) usually had no issues with them, but people who did not understand them did have issues.

THEN the local Chrysler dealer service manager summed it up well . . . anything with a OEM Holley 4bbl usually needed a rebuild kit once a year, along with the normal tune-up, just to keep things going well. By comparison, the OEM AFBs and AVSs were "rebuild them and forget about them", which their Chrysler customers liked, so if the particular car had an OEM Holley, when it started to cause problems, they'd get a similar OEM AFB and install it. Customer happy!

Now, let's jump up into the 1990s, I bought a new 4160 OEM Replacement for an engine I was upgrading. No issues of any kind, except by the time I needed to pull it apart and such, I was wanting a new 4175 Spreadbore, again OEM Replacement. I ran that carb for many 100K miles with no issues of gasket leaks or similar. I did replace an accel pump diaphram after ethanol'd fuels became common. Other than that, after tuning the secondary spring (with the Holley kit), it performed great and upped my mpg about 2mpg on the highway. No leaks, especially after it seems their new gaskets glue things together. Only thing I've been able to remove easily are the float bowls as the metering block is glued to the main body. Very well glued!

My '70 Monaco 383 4bbl had an OEM AVS on it. No issues. My '67 Newport 383 4bbl had an OEM AFB on it, with no aux air valve in the secondaries, for full manual secondaries. No issues. I later added a different intake and a 9801 TQuad to the '67 Chrysler. Not impressed as no increase in fuel economy or power, although it was claimed that carb was calibrated for a 383 4bbl engine.

I've had both brands and had no issues with either one. By comparison, the Holley has lots more parts in them. First time I saw an old Chrysler AFB apart, I wondered where all of the "other parts" were. I later learned there were no missing parts in that AFB, just that Holleys had many more, which made them much more tunable for non-OEM modified engines. Which was Holley's strong suit in the racing community, street or track.

At this point in time, the older OEM Replacement Holleys have been replaced with newer "lines" of carburetors which are completely aftermarket. Many can get close to the older OEM carbs, but seem to have 'gimicks' the older ones did not. It seems that one can get "in trouble" easier with these newer Holleys, following "tricks" others tell them about "that worked for them". Especially on the square-bore models.

Now that the newer AVS2 carbs are around, that's my new favorite 4bbl.

When the then-new Thunder Series AVS was introduced, it had the normal GM-style throttle hookup, for which the Chrysler adapter bracket was needed. I sent Edelbrock an email suggesting that they build ONE part number specifically for a 1969 Chrysler 440HP application, as an OEM replacement. I got no response back or saw evidence they were moving in that direction. Oh well . . .

Enjoy!
CBODY67
 
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So, my 70 Sport Fury has a 69 440 in it right now. I'm running an Edelbrock on it, and I hate it. It is impossible to start. The air cleaner doesn't fit well on it. I am ready to get rid of it. As such, can anyone recommend what carb I should go with?

Appreciate the input.
As mentioned, a holley 3310 or a quick fuel. The brawler line is very good. You'll notice a definite performance increase.
 
The only Holleys I've had good luck with were brand new out of the box. Easy to tune. Really decent for performance/race cars. Cruising in a C body? Give me a Carter or Edelbrock.

Sounds like yours needs a rebuild and/or some tweaks and it'll serve you well.
 
How about a TQ????
I've had good luck with them on a cruiser
. For a 1/4 miler not sure.

I've also had good luck with AFB/Edelbrock except:
On a couple of them with afb's, when in hot weather especially/, I have had trouble with fuel percolating when I would shut them down and went to restart shortly after. Seems my diplomat had more problems with that than my trucks did. A C body has more room under the hood than an M body, maybe those didn't dissipate heat as well. On my Dodge trucks I seemed to have less problems with that, definitely more space under there to dissipate heat when not moving....
But man they would sure start easy when not smokin hot .my son has Edelbrock AFBs on both his 72 fury wagon and his ramcharger, and raves how easy both start, even compared to his fuel injected daily drivers.
. I've since gotten a couple of 1/2", phenolic (same material as the TQ bowls) spacers to pair with each of my afb's to at least cut down on the heat soak


I have a similar "which carb do I want to use" on a b body fury w/a 318. It will be one or the other I have listed here, partly because that's what I have already. It's either gonna get a TQ or a 500 cfm AFB.

I just dug in the attic yesterday and I have more TQ's than I thought I did. I knew of 3, turns out that I have 4. On one of those the carb number comes back to a 77 HP 440. That's the one that I don't remember having. It's actually a very clean carb, and has very little in the way of extra "emissions" BS..... Probably gonna use one of the other ones that I have since I'm not running a big block.
 
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@saforwardlook Steve , you were working on fuelsystems for Chrysler iiac....?!
I have not been following this thread but in reading through the issues herein all I can say is that the original Holley 4160 carbs were junk after about the first two years of normal use because they warped badly, mostly the center metering blocks, that made them not worth trying to rebuild. When new, they ran very well, much better than the AFB/AVS Carter carbs - better low end rich curves to help acceleration and better accelerator pump discharge characteristics (despite the diaphragms that tended to split and cause fire hazards with time). The Holley's were much more complex in their designs back then than the Carters and in order to be competitive in cost to the Carters, Holley ended up using casting materials much softer and with a tendency to warp with engine heat cycles and time.

I mentioned before on this site that I joined Chrysler in 1969 as a part of their Chrysler Institute of Engineering program and they let me rotate throughout the company in various departments over the first two years and then go permanent in the one I liked best, and that was fuel systems. I knew both the Carter and Holley reps that were stationed in Highland Park engineering in the fuel systems department full time. I bought my 1970 avatar car shown at the left in 1971 (used) with 29K miles. It ran great with its original Holley 4160 on it but after a year or so of driving it, it ran very poorly and I attempted to rebuild it but couldn't get it to run right. So I asked Gary Congden, the Holley rep at the time, why I couldn't seem to get it to run right. He said just wait a minute and he went into the storeroom and pulled out a brand new one and gave it to me and said this is the only way to get it to run right, and he was correct. He knew full well that the center metering blocks would warp over a period of about 2 years and couldn't be fixed to last over time. Because Holley needed to compete in cost with the more simple Carters, they made poor choices in casting materials. I might add that even Holley 2 barrel carburetors would not last very long before starting to drive poorly or even idle after a couple years of use because of the poor casting materials and the tendency to warp when the air cleaners are tightened down too much (and also using the top horn on those to hold down the air cleaner rather than having the air cleaner rod attached to the base of the carburetor that is better able to resist the tendency to warp due to over tightening. Chrysler stopped using Holley carburetors completely after about 1972-3 due to all the problems with them. They then also went to Carter Thermoquad 4 bbls and they had their fair share of longevity issues with their plastic bodies as well due to warpage among others.

I now run AVS2 carbs on my Chrysler 300s and have found them to be excellent in driveability and acceleration, especially off the line with their more atomized fuel delivery right out of the fuel nozzles. One of the worst aspects of the original Carter 4 bbls is that during warm up there are very noticeable stumbles and pass outs sometimes upon low speed accelerations until the intake manifold crossover passage heats up to help atomize the fuel. The AVS2 carbs help eliminate that issue. The AVS2 carbs also have much better off the line acceleration (instant throttle response) as well in any condition of warm up or fully warm operation.

Hard starting isn't likely to be a carb issue but rather more likely a clogged pick up filter in the fuel tank or a failing fuel pump or worn fuel pump actuation push rod and going to a mini starter with higher than standard torque and speed than the original starter would aid in getting quicker cold starts. If you have hard starting when warm/hot, then you likely need to check your bowl vent adjustment (if equipped) or get a carb with a bowl vent (aftermarket Holleys don't seem to have those available last time I looked).

I would also estimate that any new aftermarket Holley 4 bbl should run quite well out of the box from the limited experience some of my friends have had with them and they don't warp over time but are relatively expensive.
 
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The only Holley carbs I've ever had even decent luck with were the 2210and 2245 also the 2 bbl ones they replaced the bbd with. And even the 2210/2245s have been a crapshoot, as to whether they would run worth a ****.
 
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