Hello folks,
Following advice from this forum and from much other reading, I started my /6 225 rebuild about 2 weeks ago and am closing in on nearly done. I am installing it to my '64 d100 pickup with standard 3 speed and whatever rear end it had. I bought it new and wore it out. So I collected parts for about 10 years and advice from this site motivated me to mildly pep it up, with a modest cam, porting, shaving, stainless oversize valves, solid lifters and on and on. I got a 76 block with forged crank and 71 head cause I needed those adjustable rockers. Truck is till to be a daily driver. Went so smooth I am still surprised. I should'a got into this 25 years ago! BUT, I have accumulated many possible configurations of manifold and carbs over a long period of time. I am thinking to use the offenhauser 4 barrel intake and install a Holley 4360 (9694) economaster 450 cfm carb. Anyone see any peril here? I have found out that most folks haven't heard of this unit outside of CA, and none of them have heard of it on trucks. I could go with the offenhauser 2 barrel, for instance.
Thanks
Dennis
rock

...save yourself a bunch of headaches and install either a Carter BBD or an AFB (or Edelbrock, same difference). Leave the holley junk for the shivvy 350 crowd.

D/W

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If it ain't broke, fix it!

This time a I concur with Dennis, the 4360 is expensive to rebuild and some parts are $$$ to 'tune' that carb up...it was meant as a replacement for the Rochester on Shibby 'smog' vehicles....

Try to stick to the 'known' carbs:
Holley 4150/60 #8007 390 cfm
Carter AFB
Edelbrock

...agreed, except I suggest that you avoid all holley "carburetors" like the plague!

D/W

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If it ain't broke, fix it!

I don't really understand the anti-Holley bias that seems prevalent on this board. I know everyone says they are hard to tune, but to me, it seems like there is much more information out there about them, compared to other designs. Also, I've noticed that parts for Holley's are much easier and cheaper to find. Could someone explain their reasoning as to why they are inferior, please?

There's a lot more information and a greater variety of cheaper parts out there for the Chevrolet 350 engine than for any Mopar, too. That doesn't change the fact that the Mopar engine (any Mopar engine) is vastly superior from an engineering, materials and original-build standpoint than the 350 Chevy.

McDonalds sells more greaseburgers in one day at one location than all the steakhouses within 100 miles of it sell prime steaks.

Look how many Tauruses Ford sold. Garbage, bumper to bumper.

Look how much Chinese trash Wal-Mart sells, in every product category.

Cheap, nasty and crappy sells more than expensive-and-good, even though buying the cheaper item often means spending more money and wasting more time and effort in the long run.

There are design and engineering stupidities in many Holley carburetors. Sure, there are aftermarket fixes for many of them, but a lot of people get tired of having to rework dumb engineering just to get to a starting point of having a reliable, working carburetor (and that's before tuning it and dialling it in to work well on whatever specific application).

So...there's the explanation!

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Wow, now I don't have to say anything except "seconded"!

D/W

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If it ain't broke, fix it!

....

How about a Quadrajet? I've only heard of one person slapping one on a slant.

Just curious, what is it that makes the 305 and 350 inferrior to MOpar engines?

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82 D150-225/727
02 Dakota-3.9/5 speed
87 GMC C7000-8.2 Detroit Diesel/5+2

They're OK carbs, not spectacular.
Oh, name it! Block material (harder, higher-Nickel iron in the Mopars), bearing sizes (larger in the Mopars), rod ratio (VERY bad in the 350, only "fairly shìtty" in other small-block Chevy sizes), oil pump design, valvetrain geometry, strength and oiling...I could go on, but I'm hoping Magnum_440 will chime in, 'cause he can go into greater detail.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

They're like Thermoquads in that they're a BIG spread-bore carb that just happens to be very tunable over a wide range of engine sizes because of the way the secondary air-door works. That doesn't mean that they're particularly efficient when used at low flow levels, though! They're pretty much wasted on anything under 300 cubic inches unless its very aggressively cammed and high-revving. I've never run one on a Mopar, but I actually think they're a pretty good big 4-barrel. Chrysler even used them on 85-up Cop Car 318s because Carter quit building the Thermoquad and the Quadrajet is so similar. That application was pretty marginal IMO. I've got a Thermoquad on a 318, and the 318 can NEVER get the secondary air door all the way open. Just not enough air flow required.
You nailed most of it. I'd throw in a crappy ball-stud valvetrain design that needs something scraping the sides of the pushrods to hold everything in alignment and STILL suffers harmonic vibrations and studs poppiing out of the head casting. And don't forget the small-diameter lifters that don't allow fast-lifting cam profiles without roller lifters. People rave about how "great" the oiling system is- and if you turn a blind eye to the top-end oiling, the bottom end oiling is pretty good- especially compared to the splash-oiled inline 6 that it replaced. But its not good compared to a small-block Mopar, even though the SBM has a few oiling gotchas of its own. The small-block Shivvy is an outstandingly adequate engine, but its not outstanding in any way except production volume. There's a big difference!

I think most of the problems with the Chevy came from two design constraints. First, it had to be narrow because it was going in places where the old splash-oiled stovebolt six had gone (why didn't Chevrolet go to full pressure oiling until 1955 when Chrysler had it since 1929?????). The second was that it had to be CHEAP to build. The size limited things like the bore spacing, deck height, and bearing size, and cheapness dictated a softish block alloy and the cruddy ball-stud valvetrain. None of that was a horrible problem when it displaced 265 and 283 cubic inches. Not even really so much when it displaced 302 and 327 cubic inches, but by the time you get to 350, the rod ratio really started to suffer and the small bearings were over-worked as the power went up. When it hit 400, the rod ratio was pure crap, the bores were siamesed, and life expectancy was WELL below 100k miles if you worked it hard at all (it loved to blow head gaskets between cylinders, and the bad rod ratio combined with the soft block material meant that the cylinders wore egg-shaped in a hurry).

Really, the SBC is pretty much the bottom of the heap when you compare the actual engineering features of similar-sized v8s from Chrysler, Ford, Olds, and Buick. Even the corporate siblings Olds and Buick got shaft-mounted rockers, taller deck heights, better rod ratios (except the big Olds engines) and harder block alloys.It also strikes me as odd how much GM invested in band-aiding the SBC over the decades, when they had several chances to either abandon it or apply REAL fixes- which they finally did with the Gen III smallblock.

And don't even get me started on the big-block Chevy. Its got all the SBC problems and THEN some!

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Tell me more. Does the 305 have a better life expectancy than the 350?

I've always heard that the "rat" motors were some of the best ever built.

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82 D150-225/727
02 Dakota-3.9/5 speed
87 GMC C7000-8.2 Detroit Diesel/5+2

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If it ain't broke, fix it!

About the same.
er...no. There is no objective, real criterion by which that is a true statement. Some people say it when they really mean "The Chevs are the only engines I've ever messed with, and so I know them really well".

There's a fair amount of denial involved in believing that Chev V8s are particularly good. You can hear it if you listen for it. "Oh yeah? Well I built a 350 so powerful I've been through five crankshafts, four complete valvetrains and two blocks!".

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Wow guys! I sure have NOOO problem switching in mid stream to an AFB or Edelbrock, EXCEPT for one thing...ignorance. I selected the 4360 because it's 450 cfm was as close in operating character to the 390 cfm 8007 as I could get readily and that seemed likely to run my slightly built 225. After y'alls advice, I spent the afternoon today looking at AFB and Edlebrocks and see only 600, 800, 1000 cfm. I can't beleive these are being suggested so wonder what model number of AFB and/or Edelbrock you are suggesting? (For a 225 slightly improved for daily use by being enabled to breathe better in a '64 d100 half ton shortbed.) (Shaved, ported, milled, solid lifters, electric ign, mild cam, big valves, 4 bbl offy, etc,).

Thanks for the great advice to date! I oughta post a pic, this truck makes grown men weak.
Dennis
rock