I have an edelbrock 4bbl carburetor on a skylark that i bought and was told that it needs adjusting. I cannot see the rpms from inside the car and Cant go out and buy tach meter. Can i tune te carburetor myself or should i save up and have someone do it? If so, how can i do it? Thank yOu
easiest way I have learned through all these carbs I have recently tried is just get the car running and get it hot. Go and buy a vacuum/fuel pressure gauge. I bought mine for I think 7 bucks at princess auto in Canada. Try adjusting the idle mixture screws which I beleive in the eddys theres 1 on all four corners. keep slowly adjusting them until you pull the highest possible vacuum. Hope this helps. Maybe somebody that knows more than me can chime to with maybe an easier way.
I have a Rochester Qjet, but this may be universal enough for you I have to do it without a tach as well, and I was taught the process this way: (make sure you know where your idle and air/fuel adjusters are) 1. Get the engine up to operating temp by letting it idle for a couple/few minutes 2. give the throttle a kick to make sure it's not still on the fast-idle cam 3. adjust idle to drop revs until it runs rough, and twist it back in a half turn 4. pull the air metering screws out, a quarter-turn or half-turn at a time, until it bogs down 5. push the same screws back in until, again, it ceases to run smoothly 6. find a halfway spot between these two points 7. if you want, go ahead and drop the idle speed again and repeat with the air adjusters beyond this much, I don't know a lot about carburetors, so hopefully somebody will correct me where needed
I have been building and tuning Buick 350 engines for the past 12 years so here is some info for you: 1. The Edelbrock carb on your car will require internal modifications to run correctly on your car 2. It will take a lot of trial and error to make that Edelbrock car work well on your car 3. That Edelbrock carb will never get as good of fuel mileage compared to a stock Q jet carb 4. That Edelbrock carb will not give the same full throttle power as the stock Q jet would. So having said that, your best bet is to save up and buy a nicely rebuilt Q jet from Everyday Performance or another Buick carb specialist. http://www.everyday-performance.com/quadrajet_carburetors.htm GM spent a lot of time and money to caliblrate each Q jet carb for the application. A Buick 350 will only run right with the correct Buick 350 carb. Some people swap a Olds carb onto a Buick 350 without re-calibrating the carb and it never runs right. It is not worth the hassle converting a carb to work well with your engine when your engine is stock. Some people are real pros with the Q jets and they can make any Q jet work with any engine however it takes time, money, and more time to do this.... So please do yourself a favor and buy a correct Q jet for your car and you will be VERY happy you did! Also avoid the remanufactured carbs, they usually just toss in whatever parts they have and even if the numbers on the carb say that it is a Buick 350 carb it is usually a terrible quality hack job. There are certain "fixes" that only the pros like Cliff Ruggles and other know so trust the pros to build you a carb.
