Hey guys- first off I should say this is my first post on thirdgen.org. Anyway, Ive got an 86 Camaro. Its the 305 4bbl stock motor. The factory rochester needs replacing. Ive got an Edelbrock lined up, but how hard is it to replace? This is my first carbeurated car, so this is new to me. Feedback would be great. Thanks

 

would need to change distributor, wire up something to take care of your TCC, change manifold, fuel lines, blah blah blah. tack on another 600 dollars.

edelbrock carbs are complete junk. go to autozone and buy a reman E4ME. direct bolt on. adjust the idle screw and you're back in business.

exact same thing my buddy did, good thing i was able to talk him out of getting rid of the thing. trust me its not worth it. i've ****ed with edelbrocks long enough.

a properly running cc-qjet is not your problem. spend that saved money on headers/ cat-back and enjoy 30RWHP. or go ahead and stab the edeljunk and pull out your hair.

please don't take this as me giving you an ultimatum. its your car. i know of a few dozen people on these boards that will back my advice.

welcome aboard! good luck.

 

Explain that.

A properly running factory q-jet is highly superior to that Edelbrock. To say nothing about the Edelbrock not bolting to a stock intake manifold - need to replace that manifold, or use a space-wasting adapter.

Most people blame their carb for problems being caused by something else. You need to know exactly what's wrong before you start spending money to fix or improve it. I can't imagine a situation where an Edelbrock carb would be the right course of action.

 

I sure can.



...fishing out on an open lake and your anchor falls overboard.

Perfect situation.

 

get a holley. or better yet go efi

 

My first recommendation would be to get the factory CC q-jet operating correctly - if that's the "problem" that you're trying to fix.

 

Well I had the car professionally inspected before purchase. They(and the owner of the car) told me the carb has a flat spot under heavy load. That the carb needed to be rebuilt. Instead of dealing with the rotton-chester, Ive got a family member whos been rebuilding cars as a muchanic for 40 years, rebuilding cars from the ground up. He rides all chevys and uses edelbrocks each time. They run great and smash on the track. I don't know what everyone has against edelbrocks, everyone I know who has one loves it.
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I had an 89 RS fuel injected camaro. Dealing with fuel injuectors is a pain, and its already carbbed, so Im staying with it. Its just not woth the conversion to me.

 

The Edelbrock Performer design is based off of the Carter AFB, which pre-dates the q-jet. While age alone is not a better/worse discriminator, the Performer is not significantly different from the AFB, while the CC q-jet is significantly different from the 1966 q-jet.

Pejoratives abound for the quadrajet - "quadrajunk", "quadrabog", "rotton-chester", to name a few. While all stereotypes have some basis in fact, they also typically denigrate and devalue. Flat spot under heavy load? Sounds like a simple adjustment or tuning situation. A rebuild probable wouldn't change that, unless the adjustments or possibly defective component replacement was included and took care of it. Most probably candidates that come to mind with the sparse information provided would be ignition timing too far retarded, the choke pull-off diaphragm could be leaking, the AV tension mis-adjusted, or the secondary rods and/or hanger need to be changed to tune the secondary mixture ratio.

 

Ive heard my 86 305 4bbl has a computer controlled carb. My buddy was asking about a 1406 edelbrock carb, he works at baxters, and can get me one for a bit over $250. Since edelbrocks don't work on computer controlled engines, does that mean it won't be compatable?

 

It would mean the computer would be disabled. It takes information from the carb, specifically the throttle position sensor, and uses it to make decisions about mixture ratio and ignition timing. You can rig up an external TPS, the computer needs a load on the mixture control solenoid circuit to stay happy, but with that you can run a non-computer carb in the computer-controlled system. I did it with a Holley 6210 spread bore non-computer carb, I've got the computer carb back on now and I'm not looking back.

If you don't do the external TPS, you need to do what was stated in Post #2 of this thread - replace the distributor. If you don't replace the intake manifold from stock, you will need a spreadbore-to-squarebore adapter. The automatic transmission torque converter lock-up function will no longer work with the disabled computer, so you would have to provide means of doing that as well.

You can be sure that the Edelbrock Performer will not out-perform a properly functioning stock carb. The cost of getting the q-jet performing properly is sure to be less than putting the Edelbrock carb on - certainly a lot less hassle.

 

Yeah I guess so huh? Im not going to say that a rochester is better than an edelbrock, but its what Im gonna have to use in this situation. Does anyone know where I can get a good replacement carb for the stock rochester, even another rebuilt one would be fine. The cheapest Im finding is about $400. Something tells me I can do better than that. But where?

 

eBay. Craigslist.