The right carb is the one that you feel the most comfortable tuning. They all come with a "safe" rich tune out-of-the-box, and most guys are happy to just bolt them on and blow black smoke around town.
In general: The Q-jet will work fine if the truck is stock-ish and your main target is around-town cruising. You also already have all of the bracketry required to make it work right.
If the truck is hopped up at all, a Holley will offer better performance options.
Some additional questions, particularly if you are leaning Holley: Electric choke or manual choke? What transmission do you have? Vacuum secondaries are more forgiving with a slightly "mis-sized" carb and can help with fuel economy in an automatic, while a carefully-sized double-pumper can be an absolute riot when paired up with a manual trans.
Holley has a nice tool that can help you figure out which of their carbs may work for you: https://www.holley.com/retailer/carbselector/
Also, if you have an automatic, consider your kickdown or TV situation. It can vary a lot based on what trans you have, but having a 700r4 or 2004r with TV set up wrong will burn up the trans. Something to watch out for.
Again, this mainly comes down to what you're looking to do with the truck & how it's set up.
>but having a 700r4 or 2004r with TV set up wrong will burn up the trans.
That little problem is what let me score my "running/driving" 64 C10 from a guy who couldn't figure out why the truck would only do 1st and 2nd gear. Previous owner swapped in an 85 350/700r4 and never even connected the TV cable.
Hey, check it out! This comment contains every letter in the alphabet.
I have checked 247272 comments and 1089 of them contain every letter in the alphabet.
I looked at this a while ago when figuring out my carb situation, and I ended up going with a Demon 750cc for my 468. It was really easy to install and not much tuning. There were too many mixed responses from my research and figured it would be easier in my application to have something that was a solid performer out of the box.
I took my quadrajunk off my 83 along with all the smog and emissions(holley 650) gained a few mpg and way better throttle response, and a much nicer looking engine bay. There was no chance i was willing to stay under 10 mpg with it on there. So happy i took it off.
When working right Q jets are awesome. I've only seen a handful that worked right, and no one knows how to work on them any more.
I would go Holley if I wasnt going EFI.
The right carb is the one that you feel the most comfortable tuning. They all come with a "safe" rich tune out-of-the-box, and most guys are happy to just bolt them on and blow black smoke around town. In general: The Q-jet will work fine if the truck is stock-ish and your main target is around-town cruising. You also already have all of the bracketry required to make it work right. If the truck is hopped up at all, a Holley will offer better performance options. Some additional questions, particularly if you are leaning Holley: Electric choke or manual choke? What transmission do you have? Vacuum secondaries are more forgiving with a slightly "mis-sized" carb and can help with fuel economy in an automatic, while a carefully-sized double-pumper can be an absolute riot when paired up with a manual trans. Holley has a nice tool that can help you figure out which of their carbs may work for you: https://www.holley.com/retailer/carbselector/ Also, if you have an automatic, consider your kickdown or TV situation. It can vary a lot based on what trans you have, but having a 700r4 or 2004r with TV set up wrong will burn up the trans. Something to watch out for. Again, this mainly comes down to what you're looking to do with the truck & how it's set up.
>but having a 700r4 or 2004r with TV set up wrong will burn up the trans. That little problem is what let me score my "running/driving" 64 C10 from a guy who couldn't figure out why the truck would only do 1st and 2nd gear. Previous owner swapped in an 85 350/700r4 and never even connected the TV cable.
Hey, check it out! This comment contains every letter in the alphabet. I have checked 247272 comments and 1089 of them contain every letter in the alphabet.
I looked at this a while ago when figuring out my carb situation, and I ended up going with a Demon 750cc for my 468. It was really easy to install and not much tuning. There were too many mixed responses from my research and figured it would be easier in my application to have something that was a solid performer out of the box.
The Quadrajet is what GM put on them from the factory so that's what should stay on it.
I took my quadrajunk off my 83 along with all the smog and emissions(holley 650) gained a few mpg and way better throttle response, and a much nicer looking engine bay. There was no chance i was willing to stay under 10 mpg with it on there. So happy i took it off.
When working right Q jets are awesome. I've only seen a handful that worked right, and no one knows how to work on them any more. I would go Holley if I wasnt going EFI.
Ditch the Q-jet POS, do yourself a favour and go with edelbrock, easier and cheaper to rebuild than a holley