Howdy guys, I'm new to this site, and to buicks. I recently picked up a 72 skylark, and have started to restore it. The guy that sold me the car also rebuilt the 455 (1972) into a race engine, so i picked it up for a smokin good deal. Apparently its a copy of an engine that his buddy put together, and it ran about 490 hp. Here's a list of some of the things that have been done: Bored out to 462 Rebuilt, ported 430 (1969) heads, all new dual springs, adjustable rods, hydraulic lifters, rockers, stainless steel exhaust valves Block faces were machined, with all the oil modifications completed Poston 'window rattler' cam forged pistons flywheel, fan, and crank all balanced edelbrock b4b aluminum intake manifold rebuilt timing cover b&m 3000 stall converter all new oil pump gearing, pickup etc there's lots more, but i dont have my list infront of me. I have the th350 with the car (just serviced), i believe it was sold as a 6 cylinder originally. It'll be a street car mostly, but once i get all the goodies together i want to take it to the strip. Ive been trying to do some carb research, but cant make a decision. thinking a Holley 4150 950 CFM carb part #0-82951. any suggestions? Todd
Re: carburator decision! If it is a street car, use a 70- 74 Q jet for all around performance and economy.
Re: carburator decision! Welcome Todd. We run a 950 on one of ours, making closer to 600hp. I run a Quadrajet that I built on my 462 in the convertible, with close to 500hp. Built correctly, the Quadrajet has much better street manners, and fuel economy. Just my opinion and experience. If you still chose the Holley, the 950 should be good for you.
Re: carburator decision! It'll be a street car only for show and what not, rippin around in the summe. i am not looking for economy at all, just performance and the right fit ---------- Post added at 10:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:01 PM ---------- What do you guys thunk of the Holley Street Avenger carbs?
Re: carburator decision! I had the window rattler from KB in my 72 NHRA record holder I bought from Pop Kennedy. I drove it every day to work and then to the 75 Winter Nationals and easily won class over the competition. It had the Q jet by requirement. My son has a 455 In an Apollo GSX with a 1050 QFX That is the Full race Dominator series carb, and by a tech carb builder said it puts out 30 more HP on the dyno then their 1050 street carb. It was hard to believe until I hit the gas on the street. I can only say it was a good thing we left the power steering on and the front tires had some contact with the street. Of course it had a set of mildly ported S2 TE heads with one of his healthy hyd cams. I had a low 12 sec, a low 11 sec and now a low 10 sec Buick street car. I never cared about fuel economy in any of those cars. Well you know my recommendation. Some may think that is over carburation but that is what they said about my 1000 cfm 11 sec Buick and the KB 231 V6 with a 625 that all the V8 chevy guys ran at the time. They just kept going faster and faster. I guess the engineers were wrong. PS. I also own the low 9 sec GSX and soon to be 5 sec blown fuel Buick dragster ( i am going to just skip the 7 and 6 sec bracket ). Who you going to listen too????? PS. I almost forgot, trade in you iron heads for S2 TE heads intake and headers and enjoy life, It's too short and you can't go back!
Re: carburator decision! Well put Ken. Im at 1050 right now but want to try an 1150 and then a 1250. Just like you everytime I put a bigger carb on it it goes faster. Hell Im still at stock compression for 70 pistons. Love Buick power!:beer
".......Case in point. A few years ago we took 8 carburetors to a private track rental, and ran them all day long on two different vehicles. One 12.20 car, and my mid 11 second car. We had 5 q-jets, a Holley 4781-2 850 DP, custom Holley HP950 style carb, and an out of the box Edelbrock "Thunder Series" 800 AVS. For most runs on either vehicle, the spread in ET and MPH was only a few hundreths between any of the carbs tested, except for the AVS. Since it was "out of the box" and we carried no tuning parts for it, it was the slowest of the bunch. Still not much less than a tenth and 2mph off the others, but still slower on both vehicles. All of the other carbs, from the big 850DP down to the 5 q-jets, which were all custom tuned, there was very, very little difference in ET or MPH on either car with any of them......Cliff [Ruggles] http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?246392-900-CFM-Q-jets&highlight=Larry+carburetor+holley If you will take a look at Cliff Ruggle's threads you will see that the 800 Q jet tested head to head yields more performance than the 850 Holley. It will also have better street manners and yield better gas mileage: "About 8 or 9 years ago we obtained two Edelbrock 750 cfm AFB clones for testing. We had plans to do an upcoming magazine article for HPP and the Popular Hot Rodding Engine Masters edition. I spent countless hours messing with the Edelbrock units and never could get the "stumble" out of them. They pulled really good after the engine recovered from "puking all over itself", but the stumble was not to be tuned out with any part from their kit or setting of the carburetor that I could come up with. We went on with the carb testing, and to my surprise the 1977 Pontiac q-jet outran the custom tuned Holley 4781-2 850 DP carb it was tested against, dyno and at the dragstrip. That same carb has outran every other Holley or Holley "clone" we've had on all three of the engines used to power my car since, dyno and at the track."
Re: carburator decision! With that cam get a Holley, QuickFuel, or AED. The throttle response is just to much fun to pass up. On NA motors the 950's work great. You will want the billet metering blocks. Read Mark's directions on how to tune with an AFR gauge. http://www.burtonmachine.com/documentationtechnical/ Get the AFR gauge and follow the instructions. My cruise ratios now are 14.7 and I could never get that with a qjet (not to say it cannot be done.)
It goes directly to a fitting on the intake manifold, in the back towards the passenger side. Have a look at these manifold instruction from TA Performance. Pictured are the 350 Stage1 intake, and the SP1. Your B4B is the same when it comes to Transmission modulator and Power Brake connections. http://www.taperformance.com/PDF/Intake_Instructions.pdf
