Hi, I am thinking about trying to either rebuild my carburetor or buy a new one. It's an old Holly 4 barrel double pumper on a 350 that was rebuilt about 5 years ago. I bought a great DVD on carburetors from a place called power building videos, and the guy seems to know what he's talking about. I checked out his web sites and he builds some pretty awesome cars and engines, but he says a vaccum secondary carb is better than a double pumper and I always heard double pumpers were better. I dont want to buy a new one if I can rebuild this one for cheaper. Anyone have any experience with this stuff?

 

[] as a rule the holleys are a bit more tempermental than many other models of carbs but work well and are very adjustable. a double pumper is great for race applications but are not the greatest for street or mileage. i really like the edelbrock carbs for the average joe. so i guess it depends on your application and your experience and willingness to tune the carb and of course the wallet. if money is tight rebuild the holley you have as long as you have the experience and knowledge to rebuild and tune so its comes out a pleasant and power producing experience. if your not so into carbs and understand what each jet, orifice, port, lever and doodad does then you may be placing yourself in a position of disappointment. also keep in mind your application, most people think bigger is better and this is why we find 750cfm carbs on stock 350's and then people wonder why it doesnt ever seem to run right or produce good power. a 550 cfm carb is slightly too large for the average stock 350 engine and 650 cfm is more than enough for the slightly less than wild 350 motors. so you may want to consider the size of the carb and its compatibility to your engine. this rebuild video may be great for a rebuild but you will then need to tune it for your engine and if YOU dont understand how it works you wont be able to make necessary adjustments

dont get me wrong im not trying to guide you away from this project just understand there may be a learning curve and simply rebuilding what you have is no magic pill if things arent working perfectly now. we all need to dig into that which we play with so maybe this would be a good experience for you, maybe find a buddy with carb knowledge to back you up, or maybe come see us. maybe give us more info on your motor, specific carb(part number on air horn) you have as this info will help us help you kurt

 

Thanks for the great insight Kurt, I think I'm going to "can" this carb and go with the Edelbrock 500. The guy in the DVD I bought said pretty much everything you said, except for the part about Holly's needing adjusting more often), so that pretty much backs up what I was thinking in that smaller is better, and probably something like an Edelbrock carb would be the way to go for me. Come to find out, according to that guys web site, he's the Edelbrock installation / tech guy too!

I don't know if you've ever heard of this guy, but he has a very informative free tech tip section on all kinds of subjects on his web site and a line of videos he made. I have read his tech tips many times, which prompted me to buy his carburetor DVD. Like I said, it was a great DVD but probably something I don't want to tackle with this carb and my experience. Here is a link to his web site and another to his tech tips page in case anything in there us helpful to someone. There is a monster 69 Camaro doing a wheelie on his home page too. That's what caught my eye the first time.

http://badasscars.com/
http://www.badasscars.com/index.cfm/...=cat/cat13.htm