[jd0n88]

I am helping a chevy friend with a poor running car and believe it is carb related. 2 years ago he took off the quadrajet (and threw it away) and replaced it with a new Edelbrock 1806 650 cfm carb. He said it ran good until recently, after checking the basics I offered to take it apart and clean it. It is full of dirt from bad gas/ethanol/no fuel stabilizer, etc and sits for a long time. While cleaning it I noticed one of the primary jets looks unfinished from the bottom side and the jet size is restricted to about half of what it should be! I don't see how it ran correctly right out of the box. Look at the picture, what do you think? The carb has never been apart until now.

[77 TRASHCAN]

E-carbs are avoided, here, like the plague, or maybe the virus....
What you've got is nothing new or surprising from one of those carbs
Hot Rod magazine had a monthly article, they'd take your car, and repair it, regardless of what the problem. A pretty cool thing!!!
They took in an early Chevy II, had a 250 6 banger in it. Had been hopped up, some. It had an E carb on it. They performed many fixes to the engine. The E-carb, customer installed for quite a while, took a BUNCH of modifications to make to run...fair...they looked at the squirter (accelerator pump discharge nozzle). Only one side had been completely drilled through...LMAO...fixing that helped a bunch more.

It's a shame they threw away the better carb............

[Sirrotica]

Jon Hargrove (Carbking) on PY has talked many times how inferior the E carbs are compared to the original Carter series carbs that the E carbs are patterned from.

I would expect the attention to detail just is not even close to the original Carter carbs, along with Q/C.

I know from what I've read about many complaints about drivability, and poor performance I would never consider buying one.

Too bad your friend threw away a much better designed carb (Q Jet) in favor of the inferior E carb.

[jd0n88]

Yes about throwing away the better carb! I was hoping he still had the Quadrajet. He said it was running fine but decided to "upgrade" to the Ebrock. He did the same thing with his boat, throwing away the Qjet.

[Schurkey]

Wild Guess: If GM were still selling over-the-counter Q-jets, they'd be as bad as the Edelbrock carbs. At this point, carburetors are a niche market; all the processes that went into making quality product that could last 50K miles and still pass emissions regulations are long gone.

We've seen exactly the same thing happen with ignition distributors. "New Genuine GM" distributors are made in Korea or Taiwan, not by Delco.

[ponjohn]

I see so many people using the E-carbs and they are having issues getting it running well.

[Ben M.]

The only good thing about Edelbrock carbs in my experience is that people are more than willing to trade you all sorts of stuff in exchange for one. I pull them off of engines I get that have them on, trade them, and come out ahead.

While carburetors are a niche market, the manufacturers are simply neglecting their quality control in chasing money and profit. New in box stuff retails for well over $300 and is in such poor shape it's a wonder they run at all.

[tom s]

I have found over the years that the E AFBs actually race well but are a real PITA to get to drive good on any of my cars.Tom

[Bill Hanlon]

Maybe it was because I bought mine in the mid 90-s, but the 1404 model I put on my 347 Pontiac ran well for 17 years and over 120K miles. I added an electric choke and re-jetted it a couple of steps leaner.

[grandam1979]

I had the 800 version of the ecarb on a 9.25 455 street engine it ran great for 12 years with no issues.

[Sirrotica]

The Carter carbs that came on GM cars during the late 50s and early 60s were very bullet proof, and ran millions of miles, trouble free. Before the QJ came on the scene, the AFB was the predecessor of the reliable 4 BBL.

How Edelbrock took the proven AFB and AVS, and screwed up a proven design is beyond me. Bad QC, and inconsistent machining will give most any proven design a bad name.

When Edelbrock started making the AFB, I actually was happy that there would be a new source for the AFB carb, I've always had good luck with them in street engines. Circle track is another matter, the bowl vents have always had a problem dumping fuel under hard cornering.

Anyway, Edelbrocks version never lived up to the reputation that the Carter carbs had.

[george kujanski]

The E carbs are typically what the Motortrend show "Garage Squad' puts on everything. The "head mechanic" guy Joe is always giving the Qjet a bad rap.

George

[lust4speed]

I've also found two sets of Holley jets where one jet was not finished. Possibly the same manufacturer of jets for both companies? No different than everything else we are buying today.

I'm one of the ones that have had nothing but exceptionally good experiences with the Edelbrock AFB's. They are a little harder to tune than Holley carbs because of the front rods are like the Quadrajet, but much better than the Quadrajet secondary's. Quick, you want to richen up secondary jetting on a Quadrajet and you have BD rods, what rod do you grab? What rod after you find out that rod isn't available? If you have an Edelbrock AFB you go up a jet size just like on a Holley.

I'm also rather non-denominational on my carbs:
67 Blue GTO - Edelbrock 850 Quadrajet
67 GTO Cruiser (sold) - original Quadrajet
65 Bonneville HT - original Pontiac AFB
65 2+2 - Edelbrock 800 AVS AFB
68 Firebird (sold) - Holley 850 Double Pumper
65 Safari Wagon - 2 Edelbrock 600 AFB's
GTO drag car - Demon 1050 Dominator

My opinion on best idling and most trouble free carbs - AFB, either original or Edelbrock.

[Cliff R]

"The E carbs are typically what the Motortrend show "Garage Squad' puts on everything. The "head mechanic" guy Joe is always giving the Qjet a bad rap."

I saw one of those videos recently on another site, removing a stock intake and carb from a smog era Olds 350 engine. He went into some long drawn out explanation as to how great the E-carbs are and that the engine will run and work better everyplace with the smaller carb on it. He also (and he's completely 100 percent wrong here) that the wider spread bore intake HURTS power compared to an aftermarket square flange intake with narrower plenum areas and tighter turns into the intake runners. He also went into some useless explanation about engine CFM and web base CFM calculators and why the smaller carb was a better choice, blah, blah, blah, wrong once again but in 50 years who's really going to care? I also seriously doubt that he will be around when that long length of rubber hose from the hack-sawed fuel line slips off the end or rots and starts leaking ending up with a MAJOR engine fire and loss of that vehicle....LOL

Anyhow, it's just a "dog and pony" show for the most part, full of all sorts of useless information to get folks to continue to dump money into aftermarket parts that are poorly designed and low quality....FWIW.

In any case the Edelbrock carburetors find their way onto 3 out of 4 (if not more) engines you'll see with the hoods up at a car show or cruise for ONE reason, and one reason only........they are DIRT CHEAP. One has to realize here that with the Internet/social media that PRICE drives the market, not quality. With few exceptions Google is used to source out the lowest possible price on nearly everything purchased. If you don't think so look around at all your local retailers closing the doors and the carriers running their arses off to keep up with Amazon shipments. All the other secondary reasons, like folks being miss-informed, not skilled enough to make what they have work, believing old/outdated information that still exists to this day on factory parts, etc, is really not why they end up with a new shiny intake and carburetor instead of the factory parts, it's about being CHEAP!

I'd also mention here that the folks making all those parts are marketing genius's and have convinced at least 3 out of 4 if not more of the uneducated customer base that using their parts will now allow them to leap taller buildings and walk on more water than what the removed. It's been that way since I got into this hobby nearly 50 years ago and unlikely to change anytime soon......Cliff

[dragracerx2813]

I have had horrible luck with the E-carbs. We don’t even mess with them anymore. If we buy a car with one on it now , we pull them off and sell them.

[mgarblik]

I am no defender of the Edelbrock carburetors and much prefer a spread bore Q-jet for too many reasons to list here. But just a question: If the E-AFB's are a faithful copy of the original AFB's, made from the OE dies, has anyone figured out what the real issue is with them running lousy? If the jets, clusters, metering rods and springs are all removable, couldn't proper tuning parts and pieces be installed in E castings and end up with a decent carburetor? Just trying to learn a little more about them.

[Mike Davis]

I have a set if 800 E-AFB's and have been 9.90's with them. They are not as quick as my Competition Series AFB 750's but run good. On the street they idle well, mid throttle cruise is good. I take any new carb apart and clean it before I put it on anything. Have seen trash and mismatched jets in all of them from Holley', BG's, Quickfuel and E carbs. These carbs get a bad rap but I think allot of time it's the tuning. These carbs are sensitive to fuel pressure. I only run 5lbs. They are probably one of the easiest carbs to tune.

[HWYSTR455]

Originally Posted by Mike Davis

I have a set if 800 E-AFB's and have been 9.90's with them. They are not as quick as my Competition Series AFB 750's but run good. On the street they idle well, mid throttle cruise is good. I take any new carb apart and clean it before I put it on anything. Have seen trash and mismatched jets in all of them from Holley', BG's, Quickfuel and E carbs. These carbs get a bad rap but I think allot of time it's the tuning. These carbs are sensitive to fuel pressure. I only run 5lbs. They are probably one of the easiest carbs to tune.

Yup. You have to check EVERYTHING, period.

I fixed a E carb, it too had trash in it and some casting flash that needed doctoring, but did get it to run well. I've run AFBs before, like them, but usually stick to Holleys.

There's something about the E carb secondaries that leaves something to be desired, but can't recall at the moment. I think in general they do get a bad rap they don't deserve.

Should be no reason why you can't go thru it and make it run acceptably well.

.

[Mr Anonymous]

I've had mixed results with them, but recently stuffed a 1405 carb onto a car I'm working on. Been sitting for years, plopped it on, ran fuel into it, and its been really good.

I love Qjets, but if you spend time on it, most any common 4bbl carb can be made to run well.

[77 TRASHCAN]

Originally Posted by HWYSTR455

Yup. You have to check EVERYTHING, period.

I fixed a E carb, it too had trash in it and some casting flash that needed doctoring, but did get it to run well. I've run AFBs before, like them, but usually stick to Holleys.

There's something about the E carb secondaries that leaves something to be desired, but can't recall at the moment. I think in general they do get a bad rap they don't deserve.

Should be no reason why you can't go thru it and make it run acceptably well.

.

Secondaries come in at same rate, whether it's a 454 or a 283. Weighted arm controls rate