Defending reman carbs?

[slicer87]

 This is something I ran into on a Chevy forum. There is this one member who is defending reman Qjets, that the engine can't tell the difference if the airhorn, base plate, or main body match up. How can anyone defend these ruined carbs? Besides trying to convince people that it is okay to waste their money on reman Qjets that will never work right? It is just mind boggling  .

[omaha]

I know, its a crap shoot. Who knows what is in them. at least if you do the rebuild youself, you know what youve got. You are better off. Plus, you get the experience of learning how its done and how it works. Just bolting one on is like a shot in the dark! and you dont learn anything. Some just like bolting something on without learning anything. to those I say, whatever floats your boat! I can fix it when it screws up. BTW, I'll be charging by the hour. Now how much did you pay for it?? LOL  EVen just bolting on a new Holley does not mean it is right for what youve got. I just did a Qjet for a kid who bought a holley for a bone stock 350 chevy. After the 3 foot fireball burt the under side of his hood, he came over to my buds shop and was asking for advice. My bud told him to come see me. I ended up jus building him a qjet that I paid 15 bucks for with a basic kit from cliff. (it was a 77 olds carb so I new it would be just about right). It was. He gave me the holley as a payment and a couple of qjet cores to boot but his truck ran just perfect. Of course I had to tune it in and redo the firing order and adjust the valves.
Anybody wanna buy a 650 holley vac secindary with bright finish! it pretty! (lol, lol). Oh well, I tried to teach the kid something by makin him watch and help and told him what was what and why. Maybe some of it sank in.

[Cliff Ruggles]

It's no "crap shoot" these days buying commercially "remanufactured" carbs.  They are pure JUNK!  I don't even want one sent here to be worked on.  They are so labor intensive, I'd rather start with a worn slam out core that's been sitting on a shelf someplace for 30 years!  Gonna be a much better end result with 1/3rd the labor time put into it.

It would take many pages to go into great detail on all the problems we find with them, so I'll be brief and hit the high points.

The castings are acid dipped and "softened" up.  About half the time the threads are GONE for the fuel inlet seat, and some POS deal with 2 "O" rings pressed in there instead.

Lead plugs driven into the idle bypass air holes.

EXTREMELY rich idle calibrations, and main fuel as well.  This is done to minimize customer complaints, and less come-backs.  If it's lean, it's certainly going to get returned.  Super rich, just uses a lot of gas and washes down the customers engine!......Cliff

[slicer87]

It's no "crap shoot" these days buying commercially "remanufactured" carbs.  They are pure JUNK!  I don't even want one sent here to be worked on.  They are so labor intensive, I'd rather start with a worn slam out core that's been sitting on a shelf someplace for 30 years!  Gonna be a much better end result with 1/3rd the labor time put into it.

It would take many pages to go into great detail on all the problems we find with them, so I'll be brief and hit the high points.

The castings are acid dipped and "softened" up.  About half the time the threads are GONE for the fuel inlet seat, and some POS deal with 2 "O" rings pressed in there instead.

Lead plugs driven into the idle bypass air holes.

EXTREMELY rich idle calibrations, and main fuel as well.  This is done to minimize customer complaints, and less come-backs.  If it's lean, it's certainly going to get returned.  Super rich, just uses a lot of gas and washes down the customers engine!......Cliff

I know reman Qjets are junk and to stay far away from them. But it seems there are some people out on the net who don't want to believe how messed up the reman Qjets are now.  Not only that but they try to get other people to waste their money on reman carbs too. I guess they don't want to accept the truth about how awlful reman carbs are. 

[davis95]

I'm not a fan of remans either. The last one I had looked like a combo plate at a mexican restaurant. The rods and jets didn't have any markings and the base plate looked like it came from another carb. I did a stock rebuild on it and it ran pretty good when I was finished, but It would have taken some time if I were to build it for a performance engine.

[slicer87]

 I know alot of reman guys say they use Flow Bench Testing. I figure it is some kind of scam but I wonder how it works? I know test engines are complete bull since the test mule's specs probably won't match your motor's specs.

[Cliff Ruggles]

The companies that build them bought some junk-ars expensive equipment to "flow" test them decades ago to apease the EPA. 

They probably set up one carb with small airbleeds and one jet/rod combination, pissed with it till it passed testing, or passed the EPA rep a few bucks to look the other way, then started mass production.

They continue to the is day to use very small airbleeds, and extremely rich calibrations, the same set-up for just about every casting. 

Problem is, they also smash the secondary fuel nozzles nearly shut, float levels all over the place, huge idle tubes, leaking bottom plugs, and about 2 dozen other problems I'm not even going into.

It is a winning lottery ticket to come up with one that works FLAWLESSLY in all areas.  Most don't work well at all, some just OK, but not a single one is calibrated exactly for your application, or build by someone who knows what they are doing.....Cliff

[slicer87]

 Thanks for explaining how they use that flow test gimmick Cliff. I figured they used such equipment to just set the same generic calibrations on everything.

[Cliff Ruggles]

It just makes sense from a mass production standpoint.  Just stock the same parts and install them into every casting, who's gonna know? 

The worst news is that countless folks turned in their original cores when they bought their POS reman's.  Now they are in BIG trouble.  Good, original, unmolested cores are getting harder and harder to find, and if it's a rare part number, big bucks when you do find it.......Cliff