i been tossing the idea around to switching to a carb on my 88 formula, my tpi has been hell to deal for months now. i am looking for cheap and easy power. this car will also be my daily driver. i put about 10 miles on it a day. here is what i am thinking...i have a 22K mile L98 backed by a T-5. if i put pro-topline vortec style heads with a comp 274 xe cam, what carb should i use? how much is the vortec style intake gonna run me? i am going to use the mallory 3 port reg and a summit hei distributor. while i am at it i am going to throw on my headers that have been sitting for months due to my tpi saga. what kinda power do you think can be made with this combo and what kinda times? is drivability going to be a prob with that cam? it is a daily driver. i am not really concerned about gas mileage, i am looking for a setup that can be worked on and cheap and easy to maintain. how much is a complete tpi setup worth? thanks in advance guys and all opinions are welcome.

 

750 Holley or Demon DP.
About $175 is what I've seen.
Too many variables to give real numbers. But, properly tuned, it should drive okay.
Seen them anywhere from a couple hundred to $600. Since you aren't including the pump, perhaps slightly less than full price.
You're welcome. You get what you pay for. Opinions are like something else everyone has.

 

thanks man!!!

 

Mmmmm 750 Speed Demon Just picked this one up today from a friend... New in the box with the Barry Grant dual feed fuel line kit for 350 bucks Going on my new engine whenever that gets done.

 

nice

 

i'm going the other way, i'm sick of carbs, too much work

 

carbs are easier to work with to me, TPI has been a complete nightmare

 

You're in Illinois so you can't be too far away from STL.
What kind of carb were you running? And what kind of problems have you had?

 

i'm right between champaign and kankakee

i had/have a 650 edelbrock, factory reman, electric choke is a joke, didn't work when i got it, out of warranty before i realized it. No one around here works with edelbrock carbs, i had a guy with a spitzer rail tell me he couldn't help me out tuning the carb because it wasn't a holley...my gas mileage blew, i was getting 4-6mpg on a really good day. It ran either really rich or really lean, no matter what metering rods or jets i used. there was horrible throttle response. because of the electric choke not working, and my lack of knowledge about the secondary choke lockout, my carb was running with only the primaries (not bitchin, i still ran 14.6 with a slipping trans). When i finally got the secondaries to open the car ran REALLY lean, all the time. Then the trans let go all together and i hauled it home, put it in the garage, swapped the trans and bought tpi stuff for an lt1 manifold conversion and i'm waiting for it to get warm enough to put it on...

i doubt i will ever go back to carb. I'm not saying some of my problems weren't my own fault, i'm just saying that for me, carbs are way too unprecise, it always seemed like anything the car did, there could be ten things in the carb that could have caused it. FI, i hope, will take some of the trial and error out of tuning it.