I have a mild 350 and have been having alot of problems with my Holley 600. Ive heard about the ease in tuning Carter Carbs. Does any one have any experience with these. The carb I am looking at is a Carter AFB 650

What kinds of problems are you having with your Holley? If you think that tuning a Carter is easier, or less expensive, you are way off base. The modular design of the Holley is much more tuner friendly than the Carters. Post and tell us what your carb is doing, or not doing and I will gladly give you my two cents on how to fix it..

just my $.02. My experience has been that a carb like the Edelbrock has been less "finicky" and more "cooperative" in moister/colder weather than a holley. The engine fired up easier and would run "colder" also. However, the power/acceleration difference between an 800 cfm holley and the 750 Edelbrock was very significant. My advice would be if the car is a daily driver/commuter run the Edelbrock. Good Luck!

Pink i would totally disagree with you i had a carter AFB comp and i tried tuning it myself didn't work then i gave it to a guy of mine and that thing ran great couldn't believe it then we found a hole i had rubbed in the casing and found a 750 cfm holley cheap and WOW i could not believe how much easier it was to tune and how great it started in the morning compared i just heard that a carbed engine took awhile to get going in the morning. With the carter i had to use the choke and with the holley a friend of mine told me to just take it off (mechancal) starts right up int he morning with just a little tap of the gas and a turn of the key. I would recommend a holley but im a holley guy and always will after my experience.

i guess i'm up to $.04 now! In all fairness, I never did (or intended) to "tune" the Edelbrock. I wanted a carb to run that didnt need any adjustment and so didnt even order the metering rods. It did burn cleanly (MSD ignition) and completely and ran great from a low 30 degrees to over 80 with no adjustments. As of tomorrow it goes onto a bone stock 69 that is intended as a daily driver. I should say that I use BG prepped Holleys on the 68 and would agree that this setup is "simple" to tune... But, at least in my mind the Edelbrock is a very nice carb that works with no fuss. My experience with Holleys has been that they work best in WOT position as they were engineered to do. In the interest of not making anyone mad, I do have both and do run both. (blown motor and NOS motor and stock motor versions)

I've had Carters, Edelebrocks and Holleys. The AFB style ones have always been easier to tune for daily driving. My Holley ran good at WOT but thats about it. If I parked it for more than a week all the gaskets would rot out and it would leak everywhere. But then friends of mine have used Holleys with no problems at all. I guess some people are just luckier than others. But on the good side Edelbrock now makes an 800cfm carb. Not sure when it's gonna' be out but I saw it at SEMA along with all the new air gap manifolds.

I have ran afb's and i dont like them, if WOT is what your after go with the Holly, thats what has worked best for me as far as thats concerned. Other than WOT, I have been using quadratoilet's. I like the small primaries for putting around, then have the big seconds for power. But its probably opinion, but in my experience they dont work for me.

Thanks for the input My holley was dumping fuel in the secondaries so I changed out the needle and seat which corrected that problem, but now it will not idle correctly and blows alot of white smoke out the tail pipes. The carb is making a loud suction noise from what sounds to be inside the secondaries. All the external vacuum lines are plugged. The car will be a daily driver.I came across a deal on the Carter (which I have not bought yet), but know less about them than holleys which isn't didley. By the way what is WOT?

[This message has been edited by CamFrk68 (edited 01-17-2000).]

cAMFRK68,
WOT simply means wide-open-throttle. White smoke is generally not a sign of a carburetor problem. If it is really white you probably have a blown head gasket which could be adding to your idling problem. If it is blue white you could be burning oil (bad/broken rings or valve guides/seals). Either way, the problem does not lie in the carburetor. Have you checked or replaced the power valves in your Holley? One backfire through the carb can blow these and cause poor idle quality or stumbling at low RPM because of an over-rich condition, but this would show as black smoke, not white. Contrary to what has been said above you can make a Holley perform very well at low RPM's with excellent low speed response and maintain the high RPM capabilities. It just takes a little tinkering. E mail me and I will scan an article to you that will greatly improve your off idle and idle characteristics. Your problem at this point in time (white smoke) does not sound like it is your carb.. Let us know how you are progressing..

Go69
White smoke can be carb related. After replacing my Q-jet I failed to tighten the bolts tight enough and they worked themselves loose. Needless to say the car ran bad and tons of white smoke came from the exhaust. After tightening the bolts the car ran fine and no smoke.

I'm going to agree with CORNHOLIO, for a daily driver your better off with a properly tuned quadrajet. The small primaries are great for gas mileage.

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67 RS/SS 350 700R4
69 SS clone unfinished
72 454 Weekend Racer

Poston Enterprises carries kits for 1000 cfm thermoquad upgrade. They also have BLACK Carter carbs.

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68 RS, Ash Gold,pwr windows,Hounds tooth

I like Edlbrock carbs, I have used a few of them over the past few years and they always worked great for me right out of the box. I have had good luck with Hollys also, but have had to tune them.

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