My brother is looking into the possibility of putting a non-cc Q-Jet onto his '82. I pulled the Q-Jet off the old engine from my Nova and checked some numbers for him. On the Q-jet it said that it was made by "Carter for GMC". I guess Rochester wasn't the only ones making Q-jets?

Does anyone know anything about these carbs? Are their any differences from the Rochesters? It kind of surprised both of us to see Carter making them. I guess we hadn't heard of anyone other than Rochester making Qs.

Ben71

 

I'd heard that Carter made Quadrajets under contract for a while, but I can't recall the reason. I just checked in one of my car books but there was no mention.

I'll keep my eyes open and post if I find something.

 

Cool. Thanks.

Ben71

 

Well, here's a clue. I found this line on a guy's '68 Chevelle SS restoration website:

"Another point I find interesting is the carb. It's a Carter quadrajet, not a Rochester like most. From what I have found out, the Rochester factory had a damaging fire and GM contracted Carter to manufacture them."

The plot thickens...

 

i read something about Carter manufacturing Q-jets under license from GM for awhile, in Doug Roe's book "Rochester Carburaters". it is an excellent book. i cant remember all the details, and i dont own the book, but i know i read it in there.

 

The first q-jet I ever saw, on a '66 Impala SS 327, had a Carter q-jet on it. I thought for years that it was their design.

 

I've seen more Carter-made ones than others among the older ones.... doesn't seem to make any difference though, nothing is different inside that I know of.

 

Our 71 blazer had has one on it now. My father didnt beleive me when I was taking it off and was like "what the hell is a carter doing on here?" It says carter quadrajet right on it. I think what happened is rochester couldnt keep up with the demand and contracted carter to make them to or something

 

when i first bought my 84 there was a sticker on the cc Q-jet that said "remanufactured by holley". sounds like there were a few companies building and rebuilding them.

 

That ain't the same thing. Anyone can remanufacture a Qjet, but only two companies made new Qjets back in the day: Rochester and Carter.

The "official" story is that Rochester couldn't keep up with the demand, so they contracted out to Carter, who built many Qjets using the same stamping and tooling as Rochester. The big differences are in the carb # (Carter carb #'s don't seem to tell you anything useful) and the stamping on the side (Carter or Rochester).

 

there was a demand problem with rochester, carter was hired ot help produce them from time to time, ive seen basically same number of carters as ive seen rochesters, and have several of both laying around or on vehicles, no 60's ones, just late 70;s ones when some vehicle models were having peak production outputs like caprices and trucks, etc

good luck