[77 TRASHCAN]

I've paid folks to screw up my stuff so very many times, I just refuse to do it any more.
I can screw it up a lot cheaper....but never have had a problem.

[fiedlerh]

Had a 75 GMC one ton Vandura with a 350 4 bbl. Very tuneable Q-Jet. Could set it up to smoke the tire, swap jets and metering rods and get 17 mpg highway with 3.73 gears. In any state of tune, it would start fast as you could flick the key. When I sold it, I left the carb in performance tune. The contractor who bought it loved it.

One summer I finally got around to bolting the engine cover down to keep hot air out of the passenger compartment. That cut down the air flow around the HEI and revealed the module was bad. It would backfire so loud your ears would ring. Unbolted the engine cover until I could replace the module. Fun times!

[goatwgn]

Originally Posted by steve25

Incredible!
He is lucky his new rings are not washed out!
Yeah , those Q-jets man ! Garbage, that must be why GM used millions of them and even Ford used them because they wanted buyers to come back day and night for warranty work!

I have even seen the quadrajet on some 1980s era Chrysler LA small block applications.

[goatwgn]

I love the Q jet. Flawless operation with just a few rebuild/ gasket replacements and clean ups on my 500000 mile Oldsmobile 350 engine in my Cutlass over the years, and excellent reliability, power and mileage in my 455 powered 1966 Tempest Custom wagon. (high 12 second street car, that you can run the AC all day in).

[goatwgn]

Maybe Holley carbs are getting progressively worse so they can tell people they need to purchase their "fuel injection" systems LOL?

[pastry_chef]

Originally Posted by goatwgn

Maybe Holley carbs are getting progressively worse so they can tell people they need to purchase their "fuel injection" systems LOL?

Why buy a shelf Holley?

Lots of great builders.
AEDPerformance, Chuck Nuytten, Lance Patton, Mark Whitener, others.

[goa484]

Local shop that put in my scattershield took my car for a test drive, they were honestly surprised that it had a carb. "Wow, this is smooth!" Thank you qjet!

[torqhead]

Originally Posted by Greg Reid

Reminds me of an experience from a few months ago. My wife had a slow leak from one of her tires. I told her to take by our local tire shop (usually a very good, old school shop) and have them fix it.
I come home that evening and she said they didn't fix it. 'Why not?', asks I..
She says, 'The guy looked at it and said he didn't see a nail'.
'Huh?' I said, 'He's not supposed to be looking for a nail. He's supposed to be looking for a leak!'...
I went out and found it in less than a minute with the old soapy water trick. I put a big piece of masking tape on the wheel with a big arrow pointing to the spot and wrote 'NAIL' there...lol
I noticed that guy didn't last long at the shop. I think he may have been someone's relative.

Hilarious Greg, laughed my ass off on this one!

[Cliff R]

It would have been even funnier if he would have looked the tire over and told here that "I can't find a nail in it, and what's the problem anyhow, it's only flat on one side"!!........Cliff

[torqhead]

Originally Posted by Cliff R

It would have been even funnier if he would have looked the tire over and told here that "I can't find a nail in it, and what's the problem anyhow, it's only flat on one side"!!........Cliff

Foshore!

[pfilean]

I know this thread was basically about carb complaints but it has gone a little far afield on other problems. What are quality parts and such. But here s my story.
I keep a 2008 Sable for my wife to drive. She likes and of course has a pet name for it. One day I notice a oil puddle on the garage floor by the RF wheel. Check it out and a strut has leaked, Well 110,000 miles I suppose its time but I don't really feel like fighting that job myself anymore and I don't have the proper spring compressor. Monroe doesn't list a uni-strut for it so off to my local F-M-L dealer. Should get the right parts from them. Get a call that says some other part is usually replaces when struts are changed and should they do that also. Don't remember the part name but basically a thrust bearing/retainer at the end of the spring which they don't have in stock but can get overnighted. Sure - I say - go ahead. Next day done and the car is back. But about 2000 miles later it grinds like hell when you turn. Back to the dealer and they replaced it under parts warranty and don't charge me labor. Really nice. Another couple of thousand miles and it does it again. Back to the dealer for another replacement. Still no labor charge. Great people. I forget how many times I took it back but eventually I demand to see the service manager. Now I get a story that they have been putting on NAPA (sorry NAPA - I think that is right) brand for that part. So I say get me the Ford brand parts. Takes a couple of days to get a part from Ford but they get put on and still no labor charge. I can't believe it. And after another maybe 15000 miles the Ford part still works. Car drive right and no grinding when you turn. And I used to think NAPA had good stuff. But maybe that all speaks Chinese now. The dealer sure didn't make any profit on that job using the after market parts. But they were great people. If this happens again I think I'll trade cars so my wife can think up another pet name.

[Greg Reid]

Originally Posted by pfilean

And I used to think NAPA had good stuff. .

They DID...emphasis on the past tense. I've been telling people for years that that they are pretty much the same as the others now- Ok, but no longer exceptional.

[george kujanski]

Since the title of this thread is "What are they selling us these days?", Here's my story:

My wife's car is a '98 Eldorado, transverse mounted Northstar. The original Alternator died around 120K miles. It's mounted low on the left side (front) of the engine, between the radiator and block.

I go to NAPA and get their rebuilt alt. It takes me an evening to remove and another evening to replace the darn thing, not rushing the job. The alt lasts about 8 months.

Go back to NAPA, pay the premium for a "new" one..don't know who the mfgr is, but looks like a Delco in any case. Do the R&R again, lasts about 8 months.

I know the counter people at NAPA having gone there for many years, they give me my money back. I order a new Delco from RockAuto. I open the box and there is an impression of the pulley on the inside of the box. The fan is now rubbing on the front housing; someone obviously dropped the alt on the pulley, damaging the alt..

Call rock Auto, send it back. new one arrives, shipping box is pristine. I open that box, inside is an original Delco box that looks like it was run over by an 18 wheeler, wrapped in packing tape. The box is actually round, not rectangular. I take it to a friend of mine who was a mechanical engineer back in my days at Motorola Charging Systems Group to check out. He examined it and said there was no mechanical problem. Who the hell wraps up a new item in a beat-up box?????????

Anyway I do the R&R again, it's been longer than 8 months, but now when it gets hot, the voltage goes barely above 12.8. Since alts take in cooling air from the rear housing. The location of the alt has it sucking in air from the downstream side of the radiator and around the left exhaust manifold. I suspect the regulator gets funny at high temps.

The original one lasted a long time but these replacements suck. I'll try a replacement reg IF I ever take the damn thing out again. I had the same style alt on my old '93 Eldo, It's mounted on top center, away from heat sources. It failed at about 150K miles. Took it apart, one of the rotor wires broke away from the slip ring. Resoldered it and was back in business, it still was working when I sold the car at 250K miles.

George
'

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by george kujanski

Since the title of this thread is "What are they selling us these days?", Here's my story:

My wife's car is a '98 Eldorado, transverse mounted Northstar. The original Alternator died around 120K miles. It's mounted low on the left side (front) of the engine, between the radiator and block.

I go to NAPA and get their rebuilt alt. It takes me an evening to remove and another evening to replace the darn thing, not rushing the job. The alt lasts about 8 months.

Go back to NAPA, pay the premium for a "new" one..don't know who the mfgr is, but looks like a Delco in any case. Do the R&R again, lasts about 8 months.

I know the counter people at NAPA having gone there for many years, they give me my money back. I order a new Delco from RockAuto. I open the box and there is an impression of the pulley on the inside of the box. The fan is now rubbing on the front housing; someone obviously dropped the alt on the pulley, damaging the alt..

Call rock Auto, send it back. new one arrives, shipping box is pristine. I open that box, inside is an original Delco box that looks like it was run over by an 18 wheeler, wrapped in packing tape. The box is actually round, not rectangular. I take it to a friend of mine who was a mechanical engineer back in my days at Motorola Charging Systems Group to check out. He examined it and said there was no mechanical problem. Who the hell wraps up a new item in a beat-up box?????????

Anyway I do the R&R again, it's been longer than 8 months, but now when it gets hot, the voltage goes barely above 12.8. Since alts take in cooling air from the rear housing. The location of the alt has it sucking in air from the downstream side of the radiator and around the left exhaust manifold. I suspect the regulator gets funny at high temps.

The original one lasted a long time but these replacements suck. I'll try a replacement reg IF I ever take the damn thing out again. I had the same style alt on my old '93 Eldo, It's mounted on top center, away from heat sources. It failed at about 150K miles. Took it apart, one of the rotor wires broke away from the slip ring. Resoldered it and was back in business, it still was working when I sold the car at 250K miles.

George
'

I feel your pain and deal with this crap every day. I am extremely fortunate that I have a high quality rebuilder in my town if the customer is willing to wait a few days while they rebuild the original unit. I use NAPA for rebuilds because my local store ALWAYS takes care of me no questions asked, no matter when the part fails. But that still leaves multiple R+R's and a Northstar is no fun to service. Especially when they begin leaking every fluid like the Exxon Valdez after 8-10 years.

[68 Firebird]

Repop=one size fits none.

[4dblnkldude]

Reviving this old thread. In the last few weeks a friend and I have been chasing some issues with his lemans. We finally got the carb right after a few different times of tuning. A week later he wants to install a full MSD set up. We put everything on then the carb acted up again, and was out of tune with the MSD. The pertronix caused literally all the issues, the timing bounced around, incomplete burns, crappy looking plugs, poor idle quality, really wouldn't idle below 1000. Mind you I know the history of the car and when my other buddy had it ran perfect on the dyno with a 69 points dizzy (I lent him) with 20 year old points. It laid out 517 hp. So the other buddy put this pertronix dizzy in and I ran a 12v wire for it to help. He stashed the car away with the pertronix in there running like **** and never touched it. Thats when the other friend bought it. But it got me thinking... I bought the same dizzy within 6 months and had a 77 q jet rebuilt locally, installed it, and stabbed in the dizzy. Ever since then it runs but has the same symptoms with a qjet. Also had a bad experience with the pertronix conversion 15 years ago. Sorry for the rant but I'm done with junk. Could the gear not be cut right??

[FrankieT/A]

Ok I'm gonna bring this thread back to QJets for a minute...

Back in the 90's when I owned an auto repair shop this customer brings in a Dodge bucket truck, you know basically a one ton dually pick up. He tells me it runs like crap and nobody can figure it out. If memory serves me right I think it had a 360 in it. As I'm listening to this thing and looking at I know it has a carb problem. It has the infamous Thermoquad on it. I'm thinking I've got the quick easy fix for this thing. Being that the Thermoquad is spreadbore, I go into my stock pile of QJets and pick my least favorite one for this conversion, put a Jiffy kit in it bolted it on that Mopar and the thing ran perfect. The customer was happy as happy could be. Then he asked me what I did. I told him, "Magic".

[70GS455]

Thermoquads are not all bad, especially if you send it to the right person. Here is an 850 Tquad, vs a Holley 950 and Qjet. The Tquad made within 5 hp of the much larger Holley

Sent from my SM-T817V using Tapatalk

[Bruce Meyer]

If that Holley is a HP950 they don't flow 950 cfm. Closer to 750.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by george kujanski

Since the title of this thread is "What are they selling us these days?", Here's my story:'

K1 Technologies 4.25 stroke crankshaft for a BB Chevy.

Made almost 300 passes before it broke the nose off.

It ran like that, too - for a little while.

K