Any guidance of choosing a carb for my 79 Ford 4X4 with a mild built-up <a href="http://www.motorhaven.com/">460 </a>big block. Trying to decide between Edelbrock performer, Holly avenger, or even the new Road Demon. Thanks,Steve

 

Hi,

Do you do alot of hill climbing or off camber 4-wheeling? If so I would consider the new <a href="http://www.motorhaven.com/">Holley</a> Truck Avenger. It is designed for 4x4's. I have heard good things about this carb.

Hope this helps,

 

Edelbrock. Tune it and it stays there.

 

Edelbrock!

 

As with all things, it depends on you and your usuage:

Edelbrock: Best if you don't know anything about carbs

Demon: Best if you want max horsepower

Truck Avenger: Best if you do allot of 4x4ing.

I have run all of these carbs, and currently have the truck avenger on my Hiboy. If I stayed on the street I would use a demon. I wouldn't bother on an ebok again, but most folks are happy with them.

 

proeliator,

"Edelbrock: Best if you don't know anything about carbs"

Edelbrocks do require tuning also. Do you actually think everybody who runs one of these does not know how to tune a carburetor?

Lets see, there is metering rods, primary and secondary jets, step up springs, accelerator pump.

An "off road" spring loaded needle valve and seat set will let the Edelbrock operate fine in rough driving situations.

 

Dave.........any bonehead can "tune" an ebok. They are much easier to opimize than a Holley. Holleys yield more power but more skill and know how are needed to fine tune them. These are accepted facts. And while both Holley and ebok have available "off-road needles and seats" they do not address off-camber situations, the reason most folks stall off road. In other words, they are worthless combared to a q-jet or truck avenger. Any other questions?

 

Whats with the attitude? Its only a carburetor. But since you appear to enjoy putting others down only because of their likes and calling people names you don't even know. Its quite obvious you would only have a wise remark for any other question or comment, one would make, especially if it did not match your view.

So, no, there are no further questions.

Last I knew, this site was about Ford Truck enthusiasts sharing information, and helping one another. Its not about sharp remarks.

BTW, I do have a "tuned" 4160 also. And yes, they do require a little more effort. But it was not significantly harder to tune than an Edelbrock. Just took patience.

 

ProEliator Seth,
I just bought a Truck Avenger (670) for my Hi-Boy with warmed-up 410, so hoping you might share any experience you had with tuning yours? I'm going to use an Adjust-A-Jet on the primaries, so can handle the jetting on that side, but #89's in the secondaries has me a little concerned, and the #25 Power Valve seems "way out" based on past experiences. Anything you have found out that you care to relate? I'd like to do as much as possible at the bench before actually installing it so I don't have to spend any more time than necessary leaning over a hot radiator spilling gas all over!
I am replacing an Edelbrock 1405 with the TA, mainly because I found that I was constantly having to tweak it on a recent trip that took me from "mile hi" to sea-level, but think it also a little marginal sized for my 410. I had never had to tinker much with my old Holley 1850, so hoping that maybe the TA will help that. If not, then I will have even easier adjustability with the Adjust-A-Jet than the Edel!! However, be warned that if you use the Adjust-A-Jet on the TA, you will have to improvise a fuel bowl crossover tube, because of the side-hung bowls. I'm using a crossover tube for a spread-bore and trimming it to length to make it work.
Thanks for any help you can give! Steve

 

Dave, you need to mellow. All I was saying was that eboks were supereasy to work on and even a chimp, bonehead, or one of jerrys kids had the capability to make one work on their rig. I was not calling you or anyone else a bonehead. Little touchy? ANYWAYS, just wanted to clarify (again) that my POINT is that eboks are very simply to adjust and if you are not comfortable working/adjusting carbs than an ebok is for you. Stephen, I'm more than happy to help but will just pm you.

 

I reconsidered.....it might be more helpfull to others if I just posted the info here rather than a pm so here goes:

Stephen, the TA is kind of a unique Holley but I'll share my experiences with you. First off, I'd recomend against tweaking the carb before you bolt it on, unless your 410 is really trick. The reason is that, like you, I used to do quite a bit of mods to the carb before it even went on the engine, knowing that I would have to play with it anyways. Then I would spend ten times the effort dialing it in than if I had started from baseline and changed one thing at a time. Nowadays I just bolt it on stock for a baseline reading, and then change one thing at a time untill its dialed in perfectly. Maybe I'm a perfectionist, but I hate trying to track down what I over/undercompensated for when I changed six things at once. All of that said, my TA worked fine on my 428...even with the small powervalve and secondaries. Since then I've bumped up my jets, valve, sec spring and converted it to manual choke, but I didn't NEED to. I also reduced my center squirter to a #25 and swapped out the cam for more volume which equalled more duration on shot to overcome my trucks weight. I just wanted it optimized for max power. In its stock form it does fine, even though it is a tad small for our engines. It really depends on what you want. I'm sure you will need to change out your jets and powervalve to fully match your 410, just make one change at a time, log it, and don't make huge jumps in sizes. I haven't used the adjust-a-jets so can't offer advice on them. It sounds like you know what you are doing so you'll be fine. Just go slow and log, log, log. Also, I had my clear sights on my TA rot out on me after three months so you might want to watch them.

 

Seth,
I'm curious where you finally wound up with your jetting sizes and power valve? I'm over on the east side of the OR Cascades, so have some elevation to contend with, assume you are in the Portland area? Anyway, if you wouldn't mind sharing, it would give me a lot more confidence that I'm not going the wrong direction with things that are so "obvious" to me? I was all ready to swap out the power valve to a 65 before I installed, but maybe I need to slow down a bit. I mainly use my HiBoy as a heavy hauler, slide-in camper and/or big boat, so figured I'd need to get into the "drip" a little quicker than the stock 25 would allow. I also found that I had to go with a 25 shooter on the old 1850 because of the weight of my load, so it's interesting that you needed that change on the TA too.
The TA sure is a nice looking piece with the turned venturis and all that, isn't it?
Once again, thanks for the helping hand!! Steve

 

Okay, I dragged out the old log book to jog my memory:

Prime jet: 72

Secondary: 95

Center squirter: 25

Power Valve: 75

Sec spring: Silver

This is what worked for my TA. They are a pretty sweet set up but I wish they made the vent tube removeable because I'm going to have to get creative to make my snubstack fit. I also have what was originally in my TA before I yanked the stuff and I had down a 6.5 powervalve.......you sure you really have a 25 in there? You are at a different elevation than me but that shouldn't hurt how you pick powervalves. Basicaly, you need to hook up a vacuum gauge and drive your truck around, noting your lowest steady vacuum reading it shows. Your powervalve selection should be 2 hg below that reading. For example, a #65 powervalve equals 6.5hg. Cam and elevation can really effect this, which its important to use a vacuum gauge. Also, when you are swapping jets take a plug and vacuum reading first. When you swap jets go up two sizes at once, drive it for a bit, then check plugs and vacuum. Too big of jets will dirty up the plugs and can drop your vacuum reading a little. You shouldn't have to go up more than ten jet sizes....if you do the TA is just to small for you or you have some sort of fuel inlet problem. Hope all this was more specific. Oh, and check your stock powervalve...I wasn't thinking to hard about it earlier but I doubt its a 25!

 

Thanks Seth!
Yep, it's a 2.5 power valve, honest! I thought it was pretty weird too, and I actually called Holley to confirm that it was supposed to be in there, in spite of the spec sheet saying it was a 6.5. The tech I talked to said that was a newly revised spec, and was what worked best. He was non-commital when I told him I was packing a lot more weight than the norm, and would only say, kind of like you, "Drive it first and see what it needs!" I think I will go ahead and start with the 6.5 anyway. I have a vacuum gage on the steering column next to the tach, so watch it a lot and have a pretty good idea of where it runs.
The other kind of funny thing was that they couldn't tell me how to make the Adjust-A-Jet work with the side-hung bowls, so my local hot-rod parts guru came up with the solution.
Anyway, it sounds like the stock settings are in the range with the changes you made, especially considering our altitude difference, and that's the kind of reinforcement I was looking for. Did you change the secondaries based on road testing, or maybe a dyno pull?
Thanks a bunch for the trouble of sharing! This is the kind of info exchange that makes these forums absolutely priceless! Steve

 

Glad to help Steve. I can't believe they put a puny 2.5hg powervalve in there!? Is that what they are putting in all the TAs now.....or have they always done that? I got one of their first released and would have sworn it was a 6.5...but I may have not looked at it too closely since I knew what it was supposed to be and I was going up anyways. Very interesting. Yup, I think your safe ripping that sucker out and starting with a 6.5. Unfortunatly, I don't have a dyno sitting in my garage so I just played around with it road testing as described above untill I had it right. Motor on and let us know how it works out for you