Are these modern carburetors a big improvement?

Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

TotalyHucked

Full Access Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2020
Posts
6,946
Reaction score
25,628
Location
Auburn, Georgia
First Name
Zach
Truck Year
1985
Truck Model
Sierra 1500
Engine Size
5.3
There's a great reman/rebuilder in Florida that specializes in Qjets. A buddy had bought one for his truck, then upgraded to a 383 and went with a Holley, so I bought the reman Qjet off him since mine needed throttle shaft bushings. My dad helped me de-smog the truck, tinkered with the Qjet and the timing for about 20min and she ran great. Well, as great as a 305 with 2 dead holes can lol
 

Casca2525

Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2025
Posts
34
Reaction score
14
Location
Chesley
First Name
Mike
Truck Year
1980
Truck Model
C30
Engine Size
454
Also, just my opinion, I wouldn't trust AI for giving advice on really anything, or at least, to blindly trust it.
multiple AI assured me (google, bing and a knock off) that a 670 cfm carb was huge and would over fuel a 440 or 454, best small carb for a bbc or bbm "700 to 750 cfm holly dp" or, also suggest was 1000cfm
 

Ricko1966

Full Access Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2017
Posts
9,940
Reaction score
19,066
Location
kansas
First Name
Rick
Truck Year
1975
Truck Model
c20
Engine Size
350
There are several great builders of Qjets,national carbureator comes to mind,so does mountain man carbureators,there's others that aren't coming to mind. At the end of the day,I've run Qjets,Edelbrocks,Holleys,properly set up,there isn't 10 cents worth of difference your average person would notice. The trick is, PROPERLY SETUP. Another thing,,there is not set,or perfect size for a given engines displacement. It depends on compression,camshaft profile,heads,and maximum rpm. Go to big and you lose low end go to small you lose top end. There are calculators out there to figure it out. If you question your decision,run it with a vacuum gauge attatched,if you are pulling much over 0 vacuum at WOT your Carbureator is too small,or your air filter is restrictive.
 

JBswth

Full Access Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2022
Posts
331
Reaction score
262
Location
Vallejo, California
First Name
James
Truck Year
1973
Truck Model
C25
Engine Size
292 cubic inches
It sounds as though the carb is fundamentally pretty darn limited and fuel injection should be used for greater accuracy and elimination of all those problems.

But what about that old mechanical fuel injection? Can't remember, but I think even back in the 50's there were some vehicles that used that system. They even had 1 injector per cylinder. I guess nobody makes that and you're not going to find it anywhere for sale.

"The oldest known vehicle to use port injection with one injector per cylinder was the brief production run of the Bendix Electrojector system, offered by Chrysler for the 1958 model year. This system featured fuel injectors mounted just above each intake valve and delivered timed pulses of fuel to each cylinder, meeting the definition of true multi-point or port injection."
One guy got a super-rare 58 DeSoto FI Adventurer. He reverse-engineered that FI and realized that the transisters, etc. just couldn't take the heat, and, also were not shielded against electro-magnetic interference, so he replaced all the electronic parts with modern equivalents, and the system worked fine.

J. B.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
48,401
Posts
1,066,547
Members
42,778
Latest member
Skippy
Top