75 el camino project.

Pretty sure there is no vacuum leaks. Basically vacuum tested all parts. Distributor is new because the advance on the original was bad so I bought a brand new one. Msd brand I believe. Also sprayed all around the engine with carb clean and no raise in idle. Vacuum at idle was around 14, as low as 12 in gear when I had it running better at 600 rpm. Thinking timing is my issue still. After 2500 the timing light pulses slower and can't see the timing mark so maybe it's too advanced. I might have been going the wrong way. Gonna try tomorrow some more. And in relation to timing would headers have much affect over stock manifolds, like more or less needed.

The vacuum reading seems pretty low. Are you running a performance cam? I've got an Edelbrock performer cam in my 87 El Camino and it runs at 17 inches of vacuum. A bone stock cam should be at least 18 inches of vacuum. So it sounds like the timing is off or your valves are adjusted too tight.

g3chevy / Mr Pontiac wrote:My first suspect would be the reman carb. Most are not rebuilt correctly and have excessive play in the throttle shafts which causes a vacuum leak. Also to much torque on the carb mounting bolts will warp the carb creating issues as well.

So true. I've rebuilt several Q-j's for my two cars myself. The first one (back in the early 1980's) turned out a bit crappy. After learning from my mistakes, I got better and the last few were flawless. In agreement with g3chevy / Mr Pontiac, warped QJs can be problematic. Lots of places address that by machining the respective surfaces flat. Sounds good on paper but that process removes the gasket sealing ridge. There is a better way to address that. Years ago, Dennis Baker developed a "un-warping" tool which he used to sell. I got one and it works great. As for the play in the throttle shafts, any shop worth their weight in salt will machine out the throttle body shaft guide holes and install bronze bushings as well as straighten the throttle shafts.

Last year, I was rather preoccupied getting my new engine built and the car ready to receive it so, against my better judgment (as you'll see), I opted to have a "professional" shop based in Boerne, TX, that specializes in Quadrajet carbs custom build and tune a carburetor for my engine.

From the get go, I could not get it to idle correctly. After accumulating about 12-hours of engine running time, I readjusted the rocker arms. I hooked up a remote starter switch in order to turn the engine (without starting it) as part of the rocker adjustment process. I began on the driver's side. Three rockers into this process, I smelled gasoline. Considering I am working inside my garage with the air cleaner removed from the carburetor, I didn't think much of it until I witnessed a drop of liquid fall from the outside of the carb onto the intake manifold. It was gasoline seeping out between the air horn and main body, the part of that gasket which is exposed outside the carb was completely soaked with fuel.

Seeing how there's fuel leaking from between the carb body and air horn even though the carb was not touched and the stock style mechanical fuel pump was operating only at cranking speed, I could only conclude that the carburetor was flooding due to a bad needle/seat, mis-adjusted float, or bad float. I had been banging my head against the wall for weeks trying to figure out why my engine was manifesting flooding symptoms, never taking into account the possibility of a professionally built custom carburetor being defective. I immediately swapped it out for a QJ I built.

Considering what I paid for this carburetor, to say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. I expect shoddy work from today's repair shops where they hire inept air-heads who can't wipe off poop after using a toilet unless they're plugged into a computer that told them where to find their own butt.

I was so utterly disillusioned by that whole experience that I would have preferred to simply return this carb for a full refund and be done. However, being that I am a realist, I was aware that "All sales are final. No refunds for carburetor purchase...". Furthermore, despite its being in operation for only two-months (September to mid-November 2020), unfortunately, I did not discover this issue until seven-months after receiving the carb which put it just over one month outside the time frame for return for service: "Contact QP within 6 months of original purchase if your QP built carburetor has issues that cannot be tuned out with enclosed tuning guide". This is the area where the builder would have earned one star. They offered to examine/inspect/repair the carb, catch is I had to pay for shipping the defective carb back to the shop. They never told me what was causing the problem, only that: "It was disassembled. Changed the needle/seat. Set float changed the air horn gasket and assembled. Tested and needle/seat holds pressure. Also changed the fuel filter."

I got the carb back on 12/10/2020. Since I was running a QJ I built, I had no occasion to open the package and inspect it until 01/30/2021. Upon simple checking of operation (throttle valves and choke valve open/close) the choke valve was jammed. In, what I can only surmise as a bonehead rookie mistake, one of the linkage rods was not installed correctly (see before photo) which caused the choke mechanism to bind.



Albeit was a three-minute fix (see after photo), it should not have been necessary to fix the fixed carb in the first place.



How many inspections/hands did this carb pass through before sending it back to the customer? None of them noticed the choke valve was jammed? Where's the pride in workmanship? What's their standard for quality control? I now wonder what else is wrong with this professionally built and repaired carb? Just for giggles, I installed and ran it. It runs nicely at wide-open-throttle. The idle, however, is erratic no matter how much I adjust it. I rebuilt the carb I had on the engine before the engine rebuild; shockingly, it worked perfectly. Swapped it for one of the other carbs I built; runs smooth. Tried yet another carb I built, runs smooth. I suspect there must be something wrong with the idle circuit in the "professional" custom built carb. Im now stuck with a $500.00 paperweight. At some point, I'll tear into it and fix it correctly.

I posted a detailed review about this on both the builder's own website and their Facebook page; both were deleted. That explains why they only have glowing reviews, they delete the ones they disagree with.

As I looked more into this company, I found two complaints filed against them with the Better Business Bureau in the last three-years (https://www.bbb.org/us/tx/boerne/pro...825-1000146148), by the way, theyre not BBB accredited. I wish I would have learned about this sooner.

I am beyond disillusioned, disappointed, and dissatisfied, I am downright disgusted. The money I spent represents an immediate pain in the wallet, but the time I wasted because of this is time Ill never get back; time I could have spent with my family was, instead, spent in the garage.

My experience of being sent a defective "professionally built" carburetor twice may be an isolated anomaly but its a cautionary tale nevertheless.

The message being communicated is don't discount the possibility that your rebuilt carb is defective.

Great info, thanks for sharing!

Thanks for that. I'll keep that as a possibility.. I have been assuming that it was good. Being a did run better than my other one. My original carb was always flooding it out. And I found out that it would not hold the gas in the bowl it was leaking out somewhere, but the new carb seem to run a lot better so I did not question it. But I have been wondering what the float level was. Seems like it floods really easily. Also, I totally forgot that there is a vacuum line to trans. Although I did have it rebuilt I have just been assuming that one was good so I'm going to check that for vacuum leak. So thank you all for the avenues to check.

I had a q-jet rebuilt by Cliff Ruggles of Cliff's High Performance - zero complaints, worked like it is supposed to. I sent that carb because it needed some machining I was not able to do. Otherwise, I purchase my rebuild kits from Cliff's High Performance as everything they sell is compatible with alcohol in the fuel, you can even jet a q-jet for e-85 using Cliff's kits. 91 Octane "Rec Fuel" is $4.50 a gallon while 87 Octane with 10% alcohol is $3.00 a gallon - my 7.3:1 454 Camper Special drinks a lot of fuel, 87 Octane is much easier on the wallet on 91 is not necessary and I do like to run my q-jets!

Iggy thank you for sharing where to get those types of kits. In this day and age, we have to except the fact that our gar is going to have some alcohol in it. My stock 75 8-8.5-1 350 will damn near run on water. lol I'll have to check out the website. I love my q-jets too.

ok got some updates. first, I got a new fuel pump, a carter, and now it runs at an idle about 3 or so psi, 6 psi when its on the high idle. runs alot better, last pump was a carquest one and at low idle was at about 9 psi. pegged at 10 with only a blip of the throttle.
Second, been working on turning down the  apt screw, its getting flooded in about 15 min just cruising, now its about 2 turns out, and im sure it was about 3.5 out originally. luckily i bought the apt kit from that qjet power place on line, has a tap and threaded plug with the adjustment tool so you dont have to take the air horn off every time.
third I got the bed lined by linex and im really happy with the results


unfortunatly today i was messing around with it a little more to get it dialed in better because I am taking it to get aligned tomorrow, the starter fried. not sure if its a bad part, its getting too much heat soak from the header even though I do have the starter heat blanket on it.
it was doing great, spun great all the times I was trying to tune it and plenty of starts when it was hot. last couple of times the starter would crank really slow when hot when filling up gas, almost like it wasnt going to start, then after it started it sounded like it was staying engaged while the car was running. sounded like an electric fan. then the last one was the final straw. waited till it cooled and still nothing at all. checked the wiring and all still good. pulled the starter and jumped it with cables and nothing happened. going to get a replacement one tomorrow morning and see how that goes. still want to get it cooler near the starter and open to ideas that has worked for people. i was thinking header wrap, ceramic coating, internal ceramic coating from eastwood, all three together? then I was messing with the laser thermometer it was reading about 450 to 500 on the ones near the starter. starter blanket was about 160-215 when I was checking. couldnt hit the starter its self

Glad to here you are getting an alignment, must mean that you are close to being on the road. Bed looks great, good luck on the starter problems.

Sounds like you've made some great progress. And it appears you got your fuel pressure issues resolved. Lots of poor quality parts out there now that are no where near in spec. Also if you're running headers high torque starters are a must. Put one on my Laguna almost 10 years ago and never looked back. And they are very affordable. Below is a link to one on Ebay. Let us know how it drives when you get it back from the alignment shop.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/282536477391?hash=item41c87c82cf:g:AikAAOSwZ8ZW6kNj

riddick75 wrote:…the starter fried.
…open to ideas that has worked for people.

I dare say we can all agree that reducing a starter's external heat is beneficial. In my observations, many folks seem to disregard the effect of internal heat, i.e., heat generated when the starter is not only energized but also working to crank the engine.

According to Ohm's law, voltage equals current times resistance, or V=IR. Resistance is falsely assumed to be constant when it's actually not. It changes depending on temperature. The higher the temperature, the higher the resistance. Current flowing through a circuit generates heat because of resistance. The greater the resistance, the more heat generated. The calculations for current demand, load, etc., done by engineers are "adjusted" by executives to result in "good enough to work for a few years" and reduce costs so as to increase profits. As a fun exercise, think about how many feet of wire are used in one car. Next, imagine if by going just one size (gauge) smaller, you could save (for the sake of argument) one-cent per foot. Now imagine that savings over your entire production run. All circuits are just barely on this side of the edge of working satisfactorily to meet safety standards, not all foreseeable real world conditions.

As this applies to starters and other electrical systems throughout an automobile, in my observations, the wires installed by the builder to deliver current to (and from, like for point ignitions) starters are simply not thick enough. Increasing the size of the wire reduces resistance thus reduces heat generated in the circuit. On most circuits in my cars, I've gone one size larger when replacing wires. I go two sizes larger with battery cables. This, of course, assumes I haven't installed accessories that draw lots of current. Anyway, in the years before I upgraded my wires, I was going through starter solenoids every couple of years, so much so that I kept a spare solenoid in my car for when it would happen again. After I upgraded the battery cables and other wires, AND made sure I had redundant grounding (never ASSume the ground is good), I haven't had a starter or solenoid failure resulting from heat.

To summarize, what worked for me was upgrading to heavy gauge battery cables, a heavy gauge solenoid wire, and redundant grounding. Your mileage may vary.

Got it back from the alignment way later than I would have expected. And a lot more cost than I expected. Might just have been the place I took it but I'll never do that place again. Anyway. Drives straight has a little less lean to the passenger side. I was running no camber shims and now they have shims on the passenger side. Guess it came up with 1 degree of positive camber. Wheel is straight now too. And that place was so busy there was no parking so mine was double parked and had to be moved twice. Nothing like really putting the brand new starter through it's paces right out of the gate. At least it worked all times.

[Mr Pontiac] I'll look into that starter. Maybe keep it on hand just in case. Maybe it will at least be lighter than the stock of any. And I looks like the picture I won't have to modify the inspection cover. All the other mini starters looked like you would have to cut.

[zucchi] when I re did the engine bay I re did almost all the wires. Old ones were pretty toasted so I ran new 14 guage all back to the fuse block. Battery cables were also bumped a guage. Might be why the started worked as long as it did.

One thing I did notice since the alignment is that the passenger side seems more even with the driver side temp wise. So either with less lean if there is pooling of fuel in the intake it's not dumping all over there, or I am getting closer to getting the carb dialed in. Which on I have been dialing back as well.

Good alignment shops that know how to work with our era vehicles are getting very hard to find. I went to 3 different shops before I found one that would do my 87 El Camino. They kept it for a day and it cost over $200. Didn't drive $200 better either. So I bought my own alignment kit for around the same price and have done 3 alignments since then myself with much better results.

A new conventional starter will work fine. When you're running headers and the temp outside is in the triple digits like it is here today in Houston, that's when you'll notice a stock starter will struggle to start a hot car. Look forward to more updates.

After years of unsatisfactory results from so called professional alignment shops, I'd had enough. I figured I would try to do it myself; the worst that could happen is the car still wouldn't drive true.

I used jack stands, strings, straight edges, clamps, measuring tapes, a couple of traditional spirit levels and a bubble level/protractor app I downloaded onto my smartphone. One more thing; I used LOTS of patience. The job took almost all day. In the end, I finally got the results I wanted. No more "professional" shops for me.