Made A Nice Score Today But Have Numbers Question

[davis95]

Today I traded one of my "custom built" (cliff's recipe) carbs for 3 cores and a set of tall Merlin aluminum big block Chevy valve covers. I wound up with a 17084230, a 17084226, and the one in question, a 89081903. The 89081903 also has the numbers 1786W below the the other numbers. I've never seen these numbers on a Q-jet. It is a later APT unit and looks identical to the other 2 I got today. Can you tell me what this came from? Thanks, Doug.

[Cliff Ruggles]

The 1903 sounds like an Edelbrock Q-jet, similiar to the 1910  "850" cfm unit that they advertised and sold for several years.....Cliff

[davis95]

This makes sense because it also has the chrome-plated air doors and secondary shaft. I've often wondered what kind of a deal Edelbrock made with GM to be allowed to take a quadrajet and remove all the factory markings, restamp it with their number, and sell it as an Edelbrock in an Edelbrock box. I also wonder what kind of quality control they had when they built these. Did they use the same three pieces that a carb came with  or were they done like a lot of the remanufacturing companies that had random bins full of airhorns, main bodys, and base plates? 

[Cliff Ruggles]

Edelbrock didn't make them, they contracted them out. 

The quality of the castings is excellent, quality control is "spotty".

For the 1910 carb alone, I've seen at least half a dozen different calibrations, so no consistancy there.

They also miss the target when drilling some passages, or don't drill them at all, or one side and not the other, etc.

Most often it's idle bypass air in the baseplate that is forgotten.

I've also seen several where the jets were at different depths in the castings, and we had to shim one side to get them even.

To this day I can't see where the 1910 would be "850" cfm, and is the exact same casting as any 1979 and later Chevy truck Q-jet.  They just put some "tabs" on the secondary airflaps, and increased the opening angle of them slightly.......Cliff

[Schurkey]

Edelbrock didn't make them, they contracted them out.

Made by Weber, same folks that built--and still build--the "Carter Clones" for Edelbrock.

First Guess:  Weber buys out the Carter tooling.  Carter made Q-Jets for GM, and therefore there's a bunch of Q-Jet tooling mixed in with the AFB and AVR tooling.  Weber builds AFB, AVS, and Q-Jet clone carbs for Edelbrock based on old Carter tooling and molds, drawings, specs, etc.  When the market falls out for Q-Jets, all the tooling is destroyed.  No more Edelbrock/Weber Q-Jets.  Some service parts are still available, though.

The licensing of the Q-Jet stuff is easily handled by lawyers and check-writers.