I have an 86 SC, V8, LG4, with Quadrajet carb. The carb is leaking gas down into the engine, so it reeks of gas.

I need to get this fixed this week.

I was hoping to buy an Edelbrock carb to replace it, but my garage said that they would have to get rid of some of the emissions to do that, and it's not legal for them to do it. (They'd also have to disable the "Check engine light" and all that.)

I checked the Edelbrock catalog and they don't have any legal replacements for this application.

The legal alternative seems to be to rebuild the existing Q-jet, which would cost about $400.

So my question is, what is the best thing to do? Is a rebuilt Q-jet decent enough? Would an aftermarket carb be great enough to deal with the hassle of finding a place that would get rid of the emissions stuff?

If I'm getting the carb rebuilt, would it be worth buying an Edelbrock intake manifold at the same time? Or is that just a waste of money.

Thanks in advance!!
John

Anyone charging 400 dollars to rebuild your Q jet is screwing you, hardcore. You can get a rebuild kit for less than 40 dollars and do it yourself. There are plenty of websites with how to on doing it, and even some books that sell for less than 20 dollars on how to do it. The books come with pictures and pretty well make it fool proof. If you decide that isnt the route for you, for 400 dollars you can get yourself a new CC Qjet. Call a parts store like autozone or pep boys, and ask for a price.

You definately dont want to get rid of it for any other brand carb, you will not see any performance increase at all. The only increase you would see to a different kind of carb is the increase in your fuel bill.

Ok, thanks...

I don't do mechanical work, so I wouldn't do it myself. I'll shop around for either a new QJet, or someone who can rebuild it cheaply.

Any websites that have OEM replacements? I have the original part #s.

How about adding the Edelbrock intake manifold? Since the carb will be removed, I figure it would easy enough for that to be added at the same time. Or would that be a waste of money?

John

You won't really net any power gains from the intake. If you have yet to do the complete exhaust, begin with that. Headers, cat converter, and the rest of it. There are a few compaines that make 50-state legal exhaust components, if that is what you need.

I've got the exact same set up except mine is a Z28.
I replaced the Manifold with a performer and put on a rebuilt CCCarb from Autozone...$349.00 and $10.00 core charge.
Lots of people can rebuild thos ecarbs if you can be without it for a couple weeks.
You probably have a CC Carb and you cannot just switch to non CC (ie Edelbrock). This would necessitate Torque converter lock up. Ignition changes. Distributor changes. Way too much work.

The manifold upgrade is nice but not completely necessary. It would not hurt, and is fairly inexpensive.

You will get better bang for the $ after the carb is taken care of to open up the exhaust. Stekman is right. I did the Hooker 2055 headers and 3inch exhaust all the way thru the Flowmaster mufflers. Easy enough to do bigger HP and torque gains and you sound mean to boot.

switching a cc carb to a non cc carb requires hardly any work at all, you remove the old carb, mount the new carb (if you replace it with a non cc qjet everything bolts immediatley up) and replace the distrib with a vacuum style. 3 wires in total and 1 vacuum line.

So if I understand correctly, I could either:

1) get an Edelbrock non-cc carb, which would require a different distributor.

2) have my Qjet rebuilt, or buy a rebuilt one.

The problem with (1) is the garage I use for everything won't do it because they'd have to disable the computer emissions stuff. And I'd worry that I'd not be able to pass emissions after that change. And I'm not sure I'd get any better performance than if I just get a rebuilt cc Qjet.

So I guess I'm leaning toward keeping the stock cc Qjet, unless someone has a compelling reason not to.

This site sells rebuilt stock Qjets for about $280...Anyone have any comments on them? I'm looking to make this as easy as possible.
http://www.quadrajetcarbs.com/

My Qjet part is 17086004.

John

Sticking with the stock QJet is a good choice.
Now you just need to decide how many Ben Franklins you want to part with.

Its not a lot of work to switch to a non CC setup, it just doesnt make any sense. YOU WILL NOT MAKE ANY MORE POWER without the computer setup. You will do best to replace the carb with the same style of carb. Then work your way to the other things holding you back. Exhaust is number 1. Then you can look at cam/heads. The intake is really one of the last things. The stock intake will take you a long way, really.

As far as the carb, just make sure it is a CCQjet, and not a non-cc.

doesn't Massachusetts have emissions testing? If so, you'll have some problems if you go non-cc