I am looking for a recommendation for a new carburetor.
1970 Oldsmobile cutlass supreme
350 engine with an edelbrock intake and 4 barrel carburetor
doesn’t have to be Edelbrock. Not looking for anything crazy. Just a basic carburetor. There are so many out there. Don’t know which way to go

 

Stick with the Q-Jet. Have yours professionally rebuilt. You will love it

 

Any carb will run ok. It takes a Q-Jet to be GREAT! 😁

 

Have an Edelbrock 1406 ( 305 engine ) on my truck , works just great

 

Rebuild a Q jet. I use an Eddlebrock and it works great but the Eddle carb and manifold was the quickest and easiest way for me to go from a two to four barrels.

 

Can echo the recommend the qjet. Great carburetors when properly tuned. More complex than holley’s though, which makes them less popular.

I get mine from SMI (Sean Murphy Induction) in LA area. He does quality rebuilds of both 750 CFM and 800 CFM units. He can rebuild yours or sell you a rebuilt unit, as you like. He can also build stock units, or he has various “Stages” to make improvements over stock which probably don’t pass emissions, especially here in CA.

I hear Sparky Kalkoff in the Midwest is good too if you’re aiming at a really nice show car kind of piece. Cliff Ruggles is long in the qjet business, but i believe he’s getting out of rebuilding and getting into parts.

Whether you go early 70 series or the later 170 series, I recommend a center inlet carb over the side inlet. The side inlet carbs have a freeze plug at the 90 degree turn for the fuel to enter the needle and seat assembly and those freeze plugs on rebuilt units can leak.

 

I hate to show my lack of knowledge but i have wondered about Q Jet carbs for a while. Are they a brand specific, like Rochester? Or is it a type of carb made by a lot of companies?

 

They are specific to Rochester, which was a division of GM.

 

QuadraJet is a Rochester Products design and vast majority were made by RP. Carter CarBuretor made them also under license; seen many of those as original equipment on Pontiacs and Buicks (who both used CFBs and AFBs as original equipment for years before QuadraJet debuted in 1966).

Holley makes a spreadbore carb for GM (read Chevy, they're side inlet) applications. Tunability of a Holley and efficiency of a spreadbore.

 

Is your edelbrock intake a spreadbore or straight bore design? If its a straight bore use the edelbrock carb, they work great..I had a 600 edelbrock on my 66 442, even with a spreadbore adaptor plTe it ran very smooth, easystart up etc..I went to tricarb set up.Only reason I changed it, if you want to try it I can sellit to you cheap just because I am not goong to use it.

 

If your manifold is square bore, I can recommend the Holley Street Avenger. Got great results with one some years back on my '68 Camaro SS which had an L-79 327/350. I used a 670 cfm, which is probably about right for you too. Very tuneable, although mine ran nicely out of the box. Crisp and linear response.

 

Rochester was the go to subdivision for GM for decades. They made a bunch of “jet” carbs over the years — the Monojet, Dualjet, Varajet, and most famous of all the Quadrajet. GM also used a few other brands notably Holley’s in some of their Chevy products, but generally if it’s a 1966 to 1980 or so, it came with a Rochester of some kind.

Eventually all these designs fall out of patent or somebody gets a license to use the design which is where the Demon Holley-style squarebore carbs from. Equally the Edelbrocks are essentially reproduction quadrajets.