I have an 83 Dodge D150 and I have an Aussiespeed long runner intake manifold coming in soon along with Dutra duals and I’ve been looking really hard at the two carbs listed above to bolt to it. It hasn’t had any internal motor work done, but It would be on my list of things to do down the road (shave the head down, raise the compression, cam, etc) but right now it’s stock internally. Now, with those two options in mind, I’m pretty carb illiterate, so plug and go would be the best option, but I need to learn how to tune these things at some point. I also am going to order a wideband a/f ratio gauge and have them weld in a bung in the collector for the sensor to hopefully help with tuning the carb.

The wide band O2 gauge will be your friend tuning whatever carb you go with. Before I changed any parts, I'd make sure everything else is in good shape- ignition, timing chain, and compression. Otherwise you'll be chasing your tail trying to tune the carb.

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If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

I did the swap to HEI just recently and got it started and the motor ran and sounded great but the old Carter BBD carb on there was seeping and needing replaced/rebuilt. Also, the manifold/exhaust gasket was shot and was leaking horribly so I figured yesterday that I would go ahead and pull the old carb and intake/exhaust manifold sand replace the gasket and change my starter to a smaller one while I was at all in preparation for the new parts to come in. Well, the manifold removal was a pain in the ass because even after spraying many times with PB blaster over the last couple of days, two of the manifold bolts came out of the head wit the nut leaking coolant everywhere so I had to quickly remove it and then put the bolts back in. Then, the bolts holding the exhaust manifold to the exhaust are completely rusted on and won’t come off and the bolts holding the two manifolds together completely sheared off. Soooooo my initial plan to just swap the gaskets and get everything cleaned up turned into me cutting the exhaust (that will get replaced too) with a sawzall. Also, the vacuum T that screws into the aluminum manifold for the brake booster broke off too and I can’t get the screw out of that either. So it looks like I’ll be waiting for the replacement manifold before doing anything else. The one question I had is: can I do a compression test with no manifolds hooked up? I should have done this before but I got overzealous and impatient. I’m thinking that since the motor is basically stripped down at this point, it’d be a good time to pull it if it needs a rebuild for the sake of a few more bolts.

I can't see why not, the only down side is that you will have a cold engine.
Rings tend to seal better when warm.
I always remove all the sparkplugs so there is less drag on the starter.

Keep in mind that to get the Dutra's to seal against the exhaust face you will
probably need to grind down the transfer lugs on the side of the block, at least I
had to on my '83 D150. I also had to grind a bit of socket clearance into the
Durta's to be able to get access to the manifold nuts, that was with a thin wall 1/8 drive
socket.

And those pot metal vacuum trees are really fragile, visit your local hardware store and build your own
vacuum connection.

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Doo Ron Ron and the Duke of Earl are friends of mine.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX8Nj8ABEI8

The compression test works just as well without manifolds, but like DadTruck says the rings will be cold. I had to grind the transfer lug off on my Dutras but everything else fit perfectly. Your mileage may vary. I made my vacuum tee out of brass parts from the hardware store and used anti-sieze. No issues since.

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If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

I really like the look of that QF 450 carb, although I have not tried it. I think it would work very well on a stock Slant, or something up to about 250 HP. I had better luck with the Edel AFB 500 (performer) rather than the AVS 500, but others like the AVS too. If that QF 450 were available last time I bought a carb, I probably would have tried it.

DEFINITELY get the WBO2 gauge. I really like the AEM units ($180-200) and they have given me zero trouble (4 gauges over 10 yrs, racing, street driving...). Innovate gauges and other brands seem to let people down occasionally.

Happy building,

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

That’s the one I was leaning towards in the black diamond series. Thing looks awesome! Anything else I should order with it? Accelerator pump cams, jet kit, air bleed kits? I can’t say I’ve ever tuned a carb before, but I’m going to read up and figure this out, but I figured I’d be prepared.