I'm in the market for a new carb and am looking for some advice. I've been looking at Holley 4160, 4150 street avenger, and off road truck avenger models and can't decide which one would be right for me.

My truck is a 85 f250 5.8 with Edelbrock timing set and Edelbrock performer intake everything else is stock.

Has anyone had experience with any of these?

 

4160 is a bare bones universal type carb. It's what I usually use, and is the cheaper version.

4150 is overkill for the stock street engine in a truck. It's a more competition type carb.

Street Avenger is like the 4160 but it has more features like electric chokes, more ports for emissions hook-ups, etc.

Truck avenger is like the street avenger with more features and some extra features to help control the fuel in rough off-road conditions.

I usually buy the bare bones 4160, but I am cheap.

 

The 4160 600 cfm has single inlet fuel bowls vs. the street avenger 570 cfm that has dual fuel inlet bowls. Do you know what that means exactly? Does this mean more fuel, and does that make more horsepower or more fuel wasted, at least in my application?

I'm not going to be doing a lot of off roading with this truck, but I will be doing some. Will the 4160 and the street avenger stand up against the truck avenger on steep inclines?

 

I have a 600CFM 4160 and like it fine, I was getting 14mpg out of a stock 400 till I changed cams. If you want good fuel mileage it's the way to go. the others are more for performance applications. 4150s are fun to drive but they suck to tune and you get MAYBE 80% the gas mileage of a 4160. I have no experience with the street or truck avenger but I think the street avenger is sort of in between the 4160 and 4150 performance-wise. And I think I heard somewhere that the truck avenger is just a street avenger that is designed to work at extreme angles but don't quote me on that. I've done plenty of off-roading with my truck and never had a problem with the 4160. Also, you don't need dual fuel inlets for a stock motor, that's only when you start getting into high-performance stuff. For your application you would probably want to plug one side on a dual or it would be a pain to hook up.

 

Why limit it to Holley? IMHO you can get better mileage and part-throttle performance out of an Edelbrock 1406. That carb won't give quite the same WOT performance as a 4160 Holley, although the Eddy 1405 might as it is more of a performance carb.

I know I'm in the minority, but I like carbs that don't have gaskets or diaphragms, like a power valve or accelerator pump, that are holding gasoline in. In my experience gaskets and diaphragms leak much more frequently than a metal casting will.

 

True, but from what I've seen of my friends trucks with Eddys they are hard to get tuned right. One of my friends has an one he rebuilt twice and has messed with for 6 months and it still stumbles. I'm not going to try and say he is the best mechanic but Holleys just seem easier IMHO. But I've never owned an Eddy so I don't know for sure. I didn't have to do much of anything to my Holley, just changed the jets to figure out what was the best mileage/performance balance and adjust the idle mix screws and that's about it.

 

It seems like Holley has always had a great reputation and From what I've seen lately with my buddy's truck I wanted to stay away from Edelbrock carbs. I'm not saying that Edelbrock carbs are bad because I really don't know but, he's had a skilled mechanic working on it for months and it never did run right. He ended up getting a Quick Fuel and says it's running great. .

 

I grew up with Rochesters & Carters, which are quite similar, and learned to tune them if needed, which was rare. I even ran a Q-Jet on a 390 and significantly improved the performance awa the MPG. But my first Holley, on my new '69 Bee, left a bad taste in my mouth as it frequently leaked and had poor mileage. But boy did it run at WOT!

Fast forward to recently and I got into trucks. I purchased Rusty with a box-stock 4160 sitting on an Eddy manifold above an M. Ran like a banshee but idled poorly and the off-idle and below 1500 RPM performance wasn't crisp. Further, the MPG was only 12, although I though that pretty good since Dad's truck w/an M and a 2bbl got 10.5. But I had an Eddy 1406 on the shelf so I swapped. The idle was much better, the off-idle and under 1500 was crisp, and the mileage went to 14. But the WOT wasn't quite as good, although I was happy to trade the once-a-year full throttle performance for 365 days a year of good idle, crisp part-throttle, and good MPG.

I'm confident I could tune the Holley to do better, but both carbs were box-stock and I didn't have to tune the Eddy. In fact, I did try to tune it using an air/fuel meter and came right back to the original jetting. So I don't see a reason to tune a Holley, especially when my limited experience with them has been poor, when an Eddy works great out of the box and is pretty much set-and-forget. But to each his/her own, different strokes, and YMMV.

 

And we are to trust the opinions of an old man in adult diapers?

 

I loled so hard at this ^

My Holley has some weird part-throttle fits where it knocks when accelerating from like 1700rpm but I think it's just my dizzy still having emissions curving. Idles good and the WOT is great haha, WOT is actually a little too great it happens more than it should.

 

It all Depends on your point of view and whom you believe. There's an even older (~12 months older) guy that ran a carb and ignition shop for decades and has forgotten more than I'll ever know about carbs. (But, at his age is he forgetting everything?) And he likes Holleys.

 

You have got to love a Moderator who used to sport a bra!

 

Good point. I feel better now.

 

The Edelbrock is a good design and actually has better part throttle metering system than the Holley. The problem is, they came on the scene a little too late for me. They are really old Carter AFB designs, and Edelbrock bought the rights or something, and started making them for the aftermarket. But Holley has been around in the aftermarket since the beginning(we are talking at least the 50's, maybe earlier) and that's what was available when I started messing around with carbs and engines.

So by default I lean towards Holleys, since that's what I know. I have used several of the 600 cfm 1850-X carbs. Bolted them right on stock 302's and they run good, no re-jetting necessary. I like the externally adjustable floats. If you get a piece of dirt in one of the needles, you can just unscrew the whole assembly out, clean it, lube the o-rings, and put it back in without removing the carb.

I have messed with a couple of the double pumpers and other types also, but like someone else said, there is more tuning involved with those things. I just want something that starts right up, and drives stock, and goes pretty good when you stomp it, and bolts right on.

 

Understand the familiarity bit. I grew up with carbs on GM's and they were mostly Carters. So I'm familiar with them and even have a Q-Jet cut up 4 ways so I can see all the passages.

And I find the Carter style carb easier to work on as you just pull the top of the carb and there's no fuel spill onto the intake. So unless you have one that needs all the passages cleaned out you can fully kit it on the vehicle. The top has the float so you lay it on the bench to change needle and seat, adjust the float level, etc.