WEBER VS. HOLLEY

holleys are hard to tune, webers are easier.....why not go for an edelbrock on a new manifold?

Later,
MeatLoaf

/wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif http://www.geocities.com/Baja/Desert/8071/ /wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif

the Holley is the simplest, easiest to tune or to get parts for thing on earth...

Ive got Holleys, and Webers...both are good carbs ( the weber is on a little green british car)

Ive heard bad things about Webers off road ( off camber stubling)

I run a Holley 2bbl on a AMC 360, its great good power, my ass slides from teh seat before it ever has off camber carb problems...




OzarkJeep
NW Arkansas

I've never had the holley, but I do have the weber 32/36, and have been very happy with it. It is a progressive 2-barrel, so it runs like a 1 barrel until you open up the throttle - thus there is only 1 mixture screw to tune idle, not 2 that you have to balance as on a normal 2 barrel. It's pretty easy to tune. I've had mine for almost 3 years now and I've been very happy with it. Put it on once and never played much with it. The only time it has ever stumbled off-road on me was when I was pointing almost straight up climbing out of a washout, and if it had kept running I probably would have rolled over backwards. Off-camber it's always been fine to me, and I've rested it on it's side once or twice - not all the way over, but into the side of a washout..

Good luck
Pete

88YJ,4"susp,33"BFGMT,9kwinch,homemade swingout,258,999,4.10,weber32/36,GMHEI,one moonguy/wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif

Re: Edlebrock or Weber is the way to go....

*Stan Marsh wrote*
*I've had my share of Holley's and hey have problems.*

TeamRush Retorts;
The only problem Holley has is people that don't have a clue how to tune them talking out of their butts. It's too bad that anyone that couldn't muster up the know how to tune one is allowed to degrade them in public...
I have set up hundreds of Holleys and once we are done there is never a complaint.
Off road driving is the hardest thing to set a Holley up for, and it's only four adjustments.
It's my experience that it's ALWAYS the owner that is the problem when a 'Junk F**king Holley' rolls in the door...
If Holley carbs had problems, they wouldn't dominate EVERY type of car racing.
Don't malign a product you can't work on or duplicate.
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*Power Vavle blow up on whims*

I think you were trying to say that the, "power valve blows up on a whim".
Wrong again Betty Lou!
The power valve normally only goes when the carb backfires really hard through the intake manifold.
That backfire is usually caused by some dink with a screw driver getting the mix way too lean or too rich, or the nit-wit screws up the ignition (like putting the distributor in 180 degrees out), or cranks the rockers down so far it holds the intake valves open, or the simpleton gets the cam timing off a bunch, or....Ect, Ect. Ect...
None of which is the carb's fault.
All Holley carbs have been equipped with a check valve to stop the power valve problem for the last ten years or more, so that says you haven't owned one for more than ten years, or you bought a really old one to begin with... (which tells us something else about you...)
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*and after you rebuild it twice, throw it in the trash. The bottom of the carb warps VERY easily on them.*

Base plates, or throttle bodies, don't warp on Holley carbs unless some nose miner cranks the bolts down way too much (ever hear of a torque wrench?), or stacks up gaskets for what ever reason, or uses some sort of silly adaptor....
I have Holley carbs here in the shop that are from the early 60's, and there is nothing wrong with them a Holley ReNew kit or Trick kit wouldn't cure...
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*Now, I have never owned a Weber*

Never owned one, never worked on one, never rebuilt one, probably never seen one up close, but going to give an opinion on one anyway....
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*but have not heard anything bad about them (short of cost).*

I don't have to be a mind reader. (It would be a short read here....)
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*(unless it was on my 151 and didn't know it. Swapped out to a 229 too quickly to care what it was.),*

Another armchair engineer wanting to change everything before he knows what it's supposed to do, and how it's supposed to do it... Ect...
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*Edlebrock, now there is a SWEET carb. Carter design, Weber parts and way too easy to adjust.*

...And just how long have you been designing carbs to know it's a, 'sweet design'?
It's a cross between a Carter AFB and Carter Black Hawk (both had lots of problems), with a little Holley thrown in for good measure.
Of course they have Weber parts, they are made by Weber for Edelbrock. DUH!
(Nothing gets past you!...)
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*I had one on a Stang I owned. LOVED it and plan to put it and the Edlebrock intake on a T-Bird the next time I drive home...*

What did you take off of the 'Stang' when you installed the Edelbrock carb? I can't imagine any Edelbrock carb out performing the factory fuel injection systems...
BTW, What is a 'Stang'?
I own a couple of Mustangs, is it anything like them?
(I'm sure Vic Edelbrock will sleep well tonight knowing he can count on your continued support.)
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Most off road Holley carburetors need to have a few things done to them, especially if you intend to do a lot of off camber driving.
One is the off road needle and seat, Holley P/N 6-513.
Two is adjusting the power valve to 2-1/2 to 5 in.Hg lower than their normal driving vacuum low.
Three, setting the float level to 1/16" lower than the sight plug hole.
Four, Setting the idle mixture correctly.
Five, Using the correct size and kind of air cleaner.

Holley Torque Specs Included, See Attachment Link On Message Header...

If a tree falls in the forrest, and there is no woman around to hear it, is the man still wrong?

Re: Edlebrock or Weber is the way to go....

I put a 38deg Weber on my 258. It was about $400 and a very complete kit. I can't see changing the intake manifold to run a 350 Holley when I kept my original manifold and ran a 400 Weber. Tuning it wasn't very hard, but you do have to balance the two mixture screws, which just takes time and patients. I never noticed a problem with it on off-camber situations or inclines, but I do live in Florida, where I must go to construction sites to find a real hill-climb challenge. I have noticed problems starting it on an incline though. The customer service was quick and helpful. Before I had installed this, and was running a Carter BBD, I out-climbed a HUGE CJ-7 that had a 350 with a Holley 4-barrell. The carb wouldn't take the incline. I'm sure that if I see this monster Jeep again he will have re-tuned it by now and air-down those 40" Swampers and walk right up that hill without a care. I'm getting an adapter made to mate my snorkel up to the Weber now, so we'll see how much better it runs breathing through a 2.5" snorkel with a K&N on top that has a built-in "velocity stack" (whatever that is)

Re: Edlebrock or Weber is the way to go....

*Groundhog wrote*
*T/R....have you had any experience with the Moroso "Fuel Level Control Kit" on a Holley ? It's the kit that has an aluminum spacer that fits between the float bowl and the metering block that increases the bowl volume about 40% and also has pieces of fuel cell foam that acts as a baffle and supposedly keeps the sloshing down. Seems like a good idea to me, but....*

I've seen that kit, and kits like them for years. Holley has a factory kit that increases the float bowl volume by 100%. It's for the guys running alcohol. It takes twice as much alcohol to do the same job as gas.

The problem isn't too small of a float bowl off roading, it's too big of a float bowl.
The float bowl on a stock automobile normally runs straight and level, and doesn't need a ton of volume.
A performance car float bowl needs lots of volume because a large high speed engine demands fuel much faster.
Holley has design the float bowls to be a compromise between those two primary applications.
All applications demand positive needle & seat control, so they use a huge float to give the necessary leverage for fuel control.

Most off road jeepers are going slow, very low RPM's, often off camber (pitch, roll or both) and using relatively small engines.
Take a large float bowl with a long float, and tilt it sideways.... What happens?
Increase the float bowl size, and what happens?

When you tilt the jeep, the float does one of two things, depending on the float you have.
With the fuel pressure up around 6 to 7 pounds, when the fuel moves away from one side of the float, you loose 50% of your lift, and the needle & seat are blown open by the fuel pressure, and the vehicle floods out when it needs power the most... to get out of the wash out or what ever.
The stall out drops manifold vacuum, and the power valve opens, and dumps 30 to 40% more fuel in the mix....... It's really getting ugly....

If you increase the fuel volume in the bowl, then you have enough to start running raw fuel into the carb via the float bowl vent when it gets into a good tilt, plus the flooding from the needle and seat..... Now it's really REALLY ugly...

(We used to get the Nitrofil floats and cut the ends off and use epoxy to seal them. We also used to epoxy in the end of the float bowls we weren't using to DECREASE the volume)
Lower the fuel pressure to around 4 psi. and the float should regain control of the needle and seat.
The 'Off Road', spring loaded needle and seat, Holley P/N 6-513, should help also.

(Mud bog guys are running mostly flat and level, and at high RPM, so they won't see these problems show up.)

I also like to lower the fuel volume by lowering the float level. Just get the usual seep out the threads of the float bowl sight plug, then back the adjustment nut back two flats.
(About 1/32" fuel level adjustment per flat, for a grand total of 1/16")

Lowering the opening point of the power valve will help off road folks. When the jeep is in a bind at real low RPM, the vacuum drops some, and if you have the power valve set up like most street rodders do, then it opens while the engine is in distress and floods the vehicle.
Setting your power valve 2-1/2 to 5 in.Hg. below the normal operating low vacuum reading will help stop this problem.

Also, making sure you have an air cleaner that is big enough is essential to keeping a decent tune on a Holley. Small, or restrictive air cleaners can cause an undesirable low pressure cell at the throat of the carb, and that will affect everything from float level to the mixtures via the air bleeds.
And for some reason off road guys have always been fond of those little bitty air cleaners..

Air Cleaner
Fuel level
Fuel pressure
Needle & Seat
Power valve

Just thinking out loud.... Aaron.

If a tree falls in the forrest, and there is no woman around to hear it, is the man still wrong?

I guess I pissed off a loyal Holley person...

which doesn't bother me at all. Some people swear by Holley's, other's just swear at them. I tend to swear at them. The worst problems I had was a 650 Holley on a 84 302 Mustang GT motor that replaced a 3.8 V6 in a 86 Mustang LX hatchback.

Now then, let me answer some of your responses. I never mentioned anything about not knowing how or think they are hard to tune them. I do and have and have plans on doing another one anytime soon. I agree they aren't very hard to tune.

Now as for the Power Valves, sorry I still feel they blow on whims. Yes, the motor does have to backfire, but not as hard as your trying to get everyone to believe.

Their base plates do warp. I've had four out of six Holley's base plates warp on me. Not too good of odds (yes, I did use a torque wrench set to the proper setting...DUH!!). Now, to be fair, the two carbs I had the most problems with were used and then rebuilt. They could've put them on with a 32' cheater bar a 1" hardware for all I know.

As for the Weber carb, I've built a couple and have seen a few rebuilt (buddy of mine was working a carb shop) in the past. Anyway, that aside, I was simply passing along info I have heard/read/know. However, I have never had one on a vehicle. I know that they are pricey and sometimes a PIA to get to tune (read multiple carb setups).

Armchair engineer?? Pardon me while I laugh at this!! Man, that makes as much sense as saying what all the Greenies are saying is exactly right! I've built one too many vehicles to be included in that. Now, shadetree, I fit the bill there. In short, before you jump to conclusions, know the source. Here is reason I ditched the 151 4 banger. If was about to die and had no power (rods knocking, leaking and burning oil, oil in the antifreeze and vice versa) and the V6 was free (mind you I still need to get an oil pan and adjust a rocker arm to make it right. Just too cold right now to do it). Pretty simple swap...even for some of the people who do not work on cars for a living. Which I don't.

I really like the Edlebrock carb and can understand why you don't being a Holley man and all. When my LAST Holley went south (dumping fuel like crazy and needed to be rebuilt for the fourth time), I quickly replaced it with the Edlebrock. I has this carb on the Stang for longer than I did my LAST Holley and drove it alot harder without one HINT of a problem. Yes, I knew this carb was based on the Carter design (which ones eluded me, thanks for the info) and that they had problems.

As for the rest of the info regaurding the Holley carb parts, I know the Holley people appreciate it. Heck, even I do. That way if a friend of mine is having problems with their Holley's, I can pass your info to them.

Oh yeah, nice try to get a rise outta me. But, other people have tried far harder than you have and failed. Look forward to reading more of your informative posts.....

Also, Stang is short for Mustang just as BII is for Bronco II. Sorry if I confused you.....