I have a few projects I'm working on now, so this is a question for the near future. I have a 74 LeSabre with a 455 Stage 1 (which is think is still stock but I can't say for sure). The carb on it now is a replacement that was 'remanufactured' in 2001. I bought Cliff's book and from that I know that remanufactured carbs work, but are unlikely likely to be dialed in to my specific car. Not to mention they probably have done stuff to it which makes their life easier, but makes it much harder to put it back to stock or modify. Would it be worth to try to work with the one I have or should I go looking for a core to rebuild? BTW the carb I have is 7043240. (I think the original was supposed to be 7044540).
I will never tell anyone how to spend their money. But, I can make a recommendation. Ken at Everyday Performance. http://www.everyday-performance.com/quadrajet_carburetors.htm Dozens of others on this board will agree with me. He is not the only game in town, but the one that I have dealt with and I can tell you after putting his quadrajet on my car the throttle response was like that squirrel on Over the Hedge after drinking 5-Hour Energy.
Luxus, you are correct, you don't want to buy a big store reman quadrajet, no matter what the number is on them. The quadrajet you have is an 800 cfm Buick 455 Quadrajet, for the 73 model year. That is an excellent carb choice for your 455. It will be very close to what you need as long as it is in the original, or close set up and hasn't been changed up by one of the big shops. You have the book, and it is a good one, so you have to decide if you want to just put a basic kit in, or do a correct and complete rebuild. By complete, I mean replacing all the 40+ year old items not in a store kit such as primary shaft bushings, air valve cam and tension spring, power piston spring, jets, primary rods, etc. The basic kit is pretty easy to do, the complete build requires some special tools and a grinder for all of the staked screws to remove. If you decide to do it yourself, get your parts from Cliff at www.cliffshighperformance.com He will help you determine the correct parts you need. If you decide to have somebody build it, please consider my services at www.quadrajetpower.com Ken at Everyday also does a great job
The problem with re-manufactured carburetors is they may be built with parts not original to the carburetor. From what I understand, such carburetors are disassembled and the parts put in piles. Then the carburetors are assembled from the parts and given a very generic tune and who knows what else is done. I know Cliff R is adamant about not wanting to touch one of them because they sometimes require more work than it is worth, and may not be fixable at all. He says you are better off with a grungy bone yard find.
There is a long list of reasons to avoid anything commercially "remanufactured". As a general rule they are "butchered" beyond belief and have a generic calibration. Even worse than the miss-matching of parts mentioned, most get an acid bath and tumbled to remove all the finish, leaving them "soft" and no zinc left to ward of rust and oxidation. It is true I avoid them here, and when I do get involved with them, 99 times out of 100 they are nothing but a PITA to get completely/correctly rebuilt and back in service functioning like they are supposed to. I am not saying with enough labor they can't be made to work, one is just a lot better off finding a "virgin" core instead. They will require less time, less guesswork on setting them up, and much better end result....FWIW....Cliff
I have a '75 800 cfm Qjet off my Electra, rebuilt to performance specs by Jim W. when we did the Stage 1 rebuild of the engine; used very little before decided to go with EZ EFI. sbrmd@aol.com -Steve in Mpls.
I can confirm the sketchyness of quadrajets found out in the wild. One night after a few too many beers I accidently clicked the "buy it now" button on a carb I was looking at on ebay. 90 bucks later I was stuck with some sort of weird Frankenstein carb with totally incorrect rods and jets. It had a funky shaped float, weird flat shaped needle and seat n some type of black finish hastily sprayed from the top down through the airhorn all despite have the correct carb number.
