So Much For My Expensive Custom Carburetor :(

[jberenyi]

Well I got my expensive custom Q-jet carburetor from Clifford.  Timed the newly rebuilt distributor he did and bolted the carb on my 350 stock Corvette.  I can not get her to idle lower that 1000 RPM and I can't time her properly without the engine dying.  The only way she'll run is at 1600+ RPM.  I have triple checked my distributor placement, looked for vacuum leaks, etc.  I've done plenty engines in the past so I'm not new to the task at hand.  I think this carb is defective and really question if this carb actually ran on a car before it was shipped.  Or the UPS gorillas had their way with it...it did arrive like something smashed the box or it got hit.  The carb was package with a lot of bubble wrap though.  There's nothing like spending $850 for items that don't work at all.   I have two weeks till my Car Show and the car is broke dick.  Couldn't reach Cliff today either so my weekend is shot for outside help.

[jberenyi]

I have spent more hours on this dang carb than I choose to imagine.  Clifford...I want my money back please.  I will call you on Monday to discuss a refund.

[77cruiser]

Did it run before? Most carb issues are timing issues. Has your balancer TDC been verified?

[jberenyi]

Well we pulled the carb off the intake manifold and there was an ocean of gas inside the intake!  This carburetor is all messed up somehow.  I really question if this carb was tested and run for a half hour before shipping to me.  There's no way.  And yes we did check the timing at TDC.  All the basics were covered.  This carb is just messed up and severely flooding.  I've never been this upset for a long time.  And to think how much I paid for this!

[77cruiser]

Inlet needle & seat likely has some dirt or something in it. Empty it out & blow it out with air.

[Frank400]

Or the fuel pressure is sky high from an autoparts store fuel pump (thanks to the Chinese quality control)  I've seen this quite a few times, especially in the last 5 years or so.  Makes a perfect carb flood badly.

[jberenyi]

Fuel pressure is good.  I checked the needle and seat.  Put it back together.  Ran a while and starting flooding again . This carb is a piece of shi@.  Cliff better give me my money back on this.  I'm going Edelbrock.  Should have went this route in the beginning.  Four months and this is what I get.  You should have seen the surface rust inside and the air nozzle tubes were caked with residue plus one has damage on it.  Garbage in garbage out.

[77cruiser]

What is the fuel pressure?

[jberenyi]

5.5 psi.  Opened her up and noticed there is a slight nick on needle valve (aluminum part).  Also,  horse shoe clip that holds the float in place is much too high and is causing the airhorn to mash down on the clip and gasket really tight.  This is not good and there is no reason for this.  I'll fix these and see how it goes. 

[Cliff Ruggles]

The carb is not "defective", passed every test with flying colors before leaving here.

We have very, very few issues with work we do here because we test them on a real engine and make sure they work correctly in all areas.

In building many thousands of them we haven't got a hand full of them back, and usually we end up finding nothing wrong with the carb and narrow down the problems to something on the users end.

Could have been damaged in shipping, a really hard hit even though it doesn't put a hole in the box can bend the linkage parts on the choke side and cause issues.  There may also be other issues not related to the carburetor or distributor.

Sure sounds like there is a big vacuum leak someplace, or the choke isn't opening up and getting it off fast idle.......Cliff

[jberenyi]

Thanks for the reply Cliff.  Forgive my rant in the beginning.  It was a bad week at work and this issue just put me over the top.  Hope you understand.  Anyhow I opened up the carb and checked things out.  It looked like the needle was stuck from possibly bad handling with UPS.  I basically put it all back together with the proper torque sequence and its okay now.  I did have to change the ball stud position from upper to lower.  All the Corvettes used the lower hole.  This carb had the upper hole because the ID number on casting says it was for a truck application.  Not my first choice by any means.  Because you went with this carb I lost the fuel canister port and EGR port.  Not concerned about EGR but the fuel canister...yes.  Hose is just hanging now and not sure what to do with it.  Let me know your thoughts on placement. 

[Cliff Ruggles]

I usually don't get flamed too much in Open Forum, and for sure we do our very best to resolve an issues with any work that we have done.  Since I test everything before it leaves here, it's actualy quite rare to see any problems, so it's not something we have to deal with very often.  Anyhow, the goals here are to get a good end result, and we go to great lengths to make sure that happens.

For sure when we select a core we try to get as close as possible to the original application. 

The 1974 Corvette's must be different than all other models that year as every single 1974 Chevy carb we have in the inventory has the round ball in the upper hole, and cruise control fitting in the lower one.

None of my 1974 cores have the EGR port in the baseplate or the vacuum port for the vapor canister.  I would have thought by 1974 most if not all passenger car applications would have been using both, but none of my cores show either fitting in the baseplate.

They really aren't too difficult to add, but I would have to have the baseplate back here to do it......Cliff

[jberenyi]

I can put the fuel canister port hole and port tube in the baseplate here at work.  I just need to know if the carb needs to re-calibrated.  I don't think it should but thought I would ask.

[Cliff Ruggles]

No recalibration would be needed as those ports only provide a vacuum signal to the devices they are hooked up far as I know......Cliff