Avoid this Edelbrock Carburetor Tuning Mistake !!!! 

Working on carbs...is becoming a lost art. To some of us, hes stating the obvious. To others, its really news. Keep up the vids, love the channel.

I have been building carburetors for 40 years.. That was excellent explanation but there's a lot more behind getting your fuel pressure and float set... Metering rods, emulsion tubes, vacuum circuits power valves, Jets, ECT ECT... All of these have to be taken into consideration.. when setting up a carburetor..... Keep up the good work I enjoy listening to your videos.

I wish I'd heard this 5 years ago, it would have saved me a lot of trouble. I'll take the trade off of poor float adjustment on Edelbrocks, in exchange for no power valves, all sealing surfaces above fuel height, and on the fly adjustments for secondary metering.

I am digging your channel, sir. I am not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination, I’m an IT guy, but I own and maintain a 74 Challenger and I’ve always wanted to know more about the workings of the fuel/carburetor and timing, which I am finding here and nicely explained to boot. Keep up the good work, sir.

I always love the tech tips you provide. Thanks and keep up the great job!

Watch [insert corporate show here] for years; Learn more from Luke and Kevin in 20 minutes. 👍🏼

Man I swear you done blew my mind. Still learning as I go but you connected a few dots for me and I greatly appreciate that. Kinda makes me wanna drill a hole in my carburetor add some glass seal it up lol. But the drill bit trick worked well for me resetting my floats. Thanks man.

I just run a Jeep fuel filter with a return line back to the tank, seems to keep the pressure where it needs to be, and they’re cheap! Great video!!

Just wanted to say thanks for the inspiration to start filming my work restoring my 1973 Mach 1! It's been a lot of fun so far filming the process.

Chunking that carb was awesome, man I laughed. Thanks!

Thanks you for your great advice. I just put a new Edelbrock carb on my 85 GMC pickup with a stock mechanical pump, and its running rich. so definitely will be starting with a fuel regulator and float height check first.

Heck I learned something!

Bro, now everything makes total sense. Thank you for this video! 👍

Hey man, love your videos. FYI in case I missed it in the video you can actually run an edelbrock with the top plate off the carb. You can also change metering rods with it running as well.

Thanks for all the great info you guys keep coming up with the best info for us carburetor and points guy's! Thanks so much you Rock!

Real good video guys. I love the violence in the beginning! Good touch. But real good info as well. I work with engines alot as my hobby & I'm learning my way around fine tuning carbs. I hadn't thought of some of this stuff. Thanks

Thanks man, appreciate the video. I just picked up and old truck that’s running rich AF with a Carter AFB. Going to go pick up a regulator in the morning.

Don’t be confused by the carb toss that I don’t like Edelbrocks. Great units 👍 Adjust edelbrock float height - vintage TH289 video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_tUw... simple fuel pressure regulator: amzn.to/3asELjx

My truck came with a basically new Edelbrock 1406 when I bought it. Thing gave me all kinds of fits. After tons of fiddling I got it running really good except that left turn stumble was a deal breaker. That's when I bought the summit carb. Now I run a 450 cfm 4548 Holley 4160 I converted to 4150. That thing runs even better than the summit carb did for my application. I've had a bad taste in my mouth for the Edelbrock performer carbs ever since. I've rebuilt a couple of genuine Carter AFB's for people and those ran great though.

I personally love edelbrocks. Great for daily drivers.

Knock on wood. Have a edelbrock on both my 83 and 84 grand prix's and haven't had any issue's out of either one of them.

Very helpful! I did not know that! 5- 5 1/2 lbs of inlet fuel pressure on an edelbrock carb! Got it!

Replaced the 2150 2bbl on my LTD with a Edelbrock. THIS is an absolute must on mechanical pumps. Also on mechanical, it's good to have a vapor separator fuel filter with return line; as well as insulating carb spacer. This way you get the most consistent fuel flow without problems in fuel percolation.

AMEN! Not just for the Edelbrock. All carburetors, imho, should start with proper fuel pressure.

I gotta say it thats the best sharpie cardboard blueprint I've ever seen love the carb parts pop ups lol people would but that diagram lol

Thank you for this video, seems like this is probably the problem with mine

Great video, hopefully this will get me one step closer to getting the Ford 302 in my 51 Ford F1 running like it could/should.

Who all remember when Carter's and eldelbrocks were good on daily drivers and Holley was always blowing power valves. Heard Holley fixed that issue.

Aha, excellent explanation! So the higher the fuel pressure, the lower the float needs to sit in the fuel (at needle closed position) to maintain the same fuel level in the bowl. Thinking of the fuel pressure on the needle trying to push the float down, more fuel pressure makes the float resist the buoyant force - sort of like adding weight to a boat making it sit lower in the water. In that analogy, the people are fuel pressure and the float is the boat.

Thanks so much for the reply Luke! So I have a sbc 350 with an edelbrock 1406. I’m getting horrendous gas mileage and the engine seemed to knock or tap either when under moderate load like a hill or

Well nice information. I have a new edel and it has way out specs other float. I kind off thought fuel pressure but ok now we know it matters . My carb overflow when standing hot. And was a way lean for mild 350 in stock, 600 cfm.

Thanks Luke for the video. What carb do you recommend? I have a stock 85 Trans Am, don't hate on me, lol. I like Fords too, in fact would love to get into a 78 Bronco... anyway... the TA has the stock qjet 4bbl, its a LG4 305 motor, just for wife and I to drive on occasion, runs fine to me, but if I ever replace it what carb would you recommend? Thanks.

will the drawing be for sale in the gift shop? great video btw

I have never liked Edelbrock Performer carbs. I have two of them that have been sitting on my shelf in my garage for over 20 years that I tried running on the engine in my 70 Monte Carlo back in the day. I bought both of them brand new. They both had an off idle bog that I could never get rid of no matter what I did. Even with being on the phone with their tech support. It was probably related to what you have been talking about with fuel pressure. I was running a mechanical pump with no pressure regulator. I ended up buying a new Edelbrock Quadrajet carb back when they still made them and put that on the car and it worked perfectly and is still on the car to this day.

Edelbrock will always just be a Carter AVS to me. Albeit polished and logoed. The Carter carburetor lives on in the day of fuel injection. Meanwhile, good video.

Damn it! You just helped me with the Proform 650DP on the last video, and now "screwalled" me on my twin Eldelbrocks for my BB 496! Regulator coming. I got 3 birds the hand! How cool is that?!

I love Edelbrock carbs! Years ago, I threw all my Holley carbs and parts on the swap table and never looked back. They went for cheep too! Like your show, by the way...

These are good carbs, easy to adjust out of the box. If you read the paperwork (which mine says no more than 6.5 psi fuel pressure) they also break down how to check floats and change jets/rods. Just pop the top off, the hardest part about it is not losing the linkage clips. This style of carb came on some serious muscle back in the day.

Great video, guys! I've never ran one of these carburetors, I've always been a Holley guy. You learn something new every day, right? LOL!

Before you start worrying about fuel pressure, best set the floats to spec. Never seen any Edel, even right out of the box that the floats were right!

Yup, even a mechanical pump is fine but only so long as it's a low pressure 5-6 psi pump. Great video luke.

Great information! Thanks! I subscribed

Thanks for the infotainment 👍👍👍👍

Thank you for your videos!

Good advice, and something i had not known before.

Fuel pressure regulator recommended by edelbrock in set up instructions. Also most important thing with edelbrock is matching set up springs to engine vacuum or they won't work proper.

best fix for eldebrock carb, they work good everywhere ,EXCEPT for the off idle accelerator pump stumble on cam engines.

Would you ever do motorcraft carb videos? Ive pretty much mastered mine but it would be awesome learning some more stuff I probably dont know. Mainly on the choking setting up stuff. Ive got mine set right but at the same time. It would also be awesome if you did a video on how power valves work, how to pick the right one based on your idle intake vacuum.

Good information thanks for your Expertise

Youre correct, float bowl level is critical when tuning a carb. It should be the first thing that is completed. Especially critical on carbs without externally adjustable floats. Since there is little air velocity at low engine speed the carb idle circuit works mostly on the pressure differential between atmosphere and and manifold vacuum. Vacuum is created by the engine and atmospheric pressure pushes fuel out of the carb through the idle (low speed jets). When fuel level is high the carb requires less delta between atmosphere and intake pressure to deliver fuel. So high float level results in more fuel delivery and an idle mixture that is rich. Emulsification works a little differently in an edelbrock but im sure the effect is similar to a holley. High float level in a holley also results in more fuel getting pushed into the idle circuit but the higer fuel level also covers more of the emuslification tubes. More of the tube that is covered results in less emuslified fuel leaving the carb through the idle ports. With poor emuslification of fuel, the air speed through the intake is critical to atomization and vaporization of the fuel. Fuel must phase change into a vapor in order to burn in the combustion chamber. Fuel that does not emusilfy will not atomize, fuel that dont atomize wont vaporize. At idle we have low air speed so the Fuel that dont change phase and vaporize wont burn and we get a fat AFR at idle. So what do we do? close off the idle mix screws to compensate. The idle circuit also feeds the transfer slots. Both the idle circuit and transfer slots deliver fuel during off idle events. Since we closed off the idle mix screws a little to compensate for that fat idle there is less fuel available during transition and fuel delivered through the transfer slots is insufficient and we get an off idle stumble. . So what do we do now? Add another band-aid and adjust the accelerator pump to get more fuel during transition. Thats better. But wait, now we are into the high speed circuit. You also need to remember, the idle and transfer slots still deliver fuel even when on the high speed circuit. (More about how the idle circuit comes into play in a minute.) Now with the higher air speeds, the bernoulli effect comes into play. The high speed air flowing through the boosters creates a lower pressure system and fuel is pulled through the main jets and sprays out of the boosters. . The higher fuel bow level results in more fuel getting pulled through the boosters before air speed is fast enough to atomize and vaporize it and we get a bog. Remember the idle circuit is still delivering fuel but since we pinched off the mix screws its not a factor yet and the accelerator pump adjustment we made shot its load already. What do we do now...? Oh i know, change the rods to lean it out. Oh crap, now im lean at higher RPM...🤔. Shit, remember we pinched off the idle mix screws so there another reason why its lean. Im gonna mess with enrichment circuit now.....see where im going with this. As Luke said, float adjustment will bite you in the ass if you dont get it right in the beginning.

Another problem I’ve had with edelbrock is boiling fuel. Edelbrock makes a wooden spacer and it works great to insulate. With 5.5 psi and spacer no more hard starts.

diggin that 'thunderhead 289' and holley... would look great on a shirt. so would a photo of your cool dog. thanks for the education!

How did it take me a year to find this video. LoL. We use a lot of Eddies on our stuff, and people at shows & cruises always ask why they run like they do without making your eyes water. "They all have pressure regulator's & gauges on them". Even if they are mechanical. Makes it Super Easy to see if you have pump/filter problems when you look at the gauge, & it looks cool as well. Before you even leave the store, you buy a Regulator & Pressure Gauge with it. IMO the guys at Edelbrock should just add the cost into the Carbs, and toss them into the box so you get it right, right out of the box. Would improve their PR even more than what it is now. Damn Good Video man. Damn, damn good one.

Never thought about the relationship. Thanks for the light bulbs moment.

Hey great video, i just figured this out the hard way! My carb was so flooded that the entire underneath was soaked with gas 2 days after my last start! My idle mixture screws and idle screw did nothing at all to adjust the idle which was running at 1500! I am dealing with this and learning how to check my timing - those clips about timing are great as well! How can i send you questions?

I do not like the double bowl holley carbs BUT i recently bought the new Holley DEMON and put it on a project car, so far its great! Do you know anything about them? I havent really gotten into adjustments yet but it worked right out of the box to start the car, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

That's what I think of Edelbrock carbs too, only I miss the garage door and get the box

Great informative video bro

Not gonna lie, I'm a dumbass when it comes to carbs. Your videos have been incredibly helpful in helping me sort out some long term run issues that I've been having on a couple of my engines.

I could have used this info a couple years ago when I was trying to make the 1406 work on my old K10. At least I wasn’t out to lunch when I installed a regulator.

I'm in Alexandria Minnesota hope to see you sometime come visit after this virus thing is under control

Running 4 psi on my Mopar with edelbrock runs great

The Edelbrock will boil fuel also with this new gas. I dont like them very well but have one on my daughters k10. Air gap intake, heat shield on the fuel line, 1 inch phenolic spacer, runs great! I do think the summit motocraft carbs are better though

I got a 1405 edelbrock car & edelbrock mechanical fuel pump. Do i meed a regulator. Edelbrock claims 6psi on pump out the box. ? No regulator required. Awesome video.

Meanwhile I just ordered a regulator. 🍿

My F100 with a 390 had an Edelbrock 600 on it when I got it. Going WOT at 3000RPM pumped out black smoke like a diesel... lol 4MPG cruising. I didn't even bother with trying to tune it, buddy had a Holley 600 he hated so I traded with him. Ran fine on his, the Holley runs fine on mine. One time peak of 12.5MPG, average with 50/50 city/highway was 11.6.

Heck I learned something too!!👍😎

$30 regulator. All fixed.. Love it!! What's with the Hula girl in the background? I like it!! Good info though. Thank you! Stay safe out there guys! and gals!!

Edelbrock carb can stay on the car and still change jets and what not. I have never had a problem with edelbrock but holly always gives me issues always

Good to know! Why isn't this a problem on Holleys? Because you can adjust the float height to compensate?

Used to be a big fan of holleys in the 90's. Easy to dial in but had to keep tightening the primary bowl occasionally until finally broke a screw. Bought carb new. Went with Carter AVS and Edelbrock ever since. Must have been a warped body.

Great tip! What regulator would you suggest,

Edelbrock make a great carb I have been running one on my daily now for 4 years with no issues. Before that I had a bad experience with 2 brand new Holley 4160 an boy were they dogs. Build quality was that poor I could wiggle the kneedle an seat side to side with my finger. On the box it had "assembled in the USA" so only one could guess where their parts were made for that particular model anyway. I ended up getting my money back from the Holley performance shop I purchased from as they couldn't get neither running right. I'm not biased on this topic ither as I also run a Holley 2bbl and another 750dp on club cars I own and run very well but they were old rebuilt carbs years ago when quality parts existed.

Thats what my builder thought of Edelbrock...lol...which is why I went Holley …:-) Love the toss

I do the same thing with Edelbrock and Rochester carbs... But I chuck them in the scrap metal dumpster :) I only drive Fords so I'm a Autolite, Motorcraft. and Holley kind of guy! That Summit carb you run is pretty cool!

Hi ThunderHead, thanks so much for your effort to teach us. I know this video has been a long time but could you help me with my question? I have a Mustang with v8 302, Edelbrock carb 4 barrel and mechanical pump. You in my position will install a fuel pressure regulator and gauge anyway?

Hey! I got one on my galaxie and she runs nice. No junk Holly's for me! Been told Holly is so finicky and hard to tune, but the Carter is sweet. Also the Quadra junk is good too.

Hello I have a question if you have the right jets in the perfect world primary and secondary should be the same jet size or not? 4.3 vortec marine 1409 carb Primary .095 secondary .0 92 do you think that sound right to you my secondary when he’s open it look like it’s missing fuel!! I disconnect the secondary and Run fine clean I connect the secondary in the engine almost stopped full throttle Regulator 5.5 psi Any help thanks

Great info, but exactly what problems will this cause? I have a horrible hesitation, and snapping and popping once it accelerates.

Hello Thunderhead, Which carburetor should I go with for a 347 stroker engine with AFR 185cc renegade head?

So i have 2 holleys and 1 edelbrock. Which one would you rebuild and use on a 400 dodge. Or neither?

Bad place to ask but what was that old intro song you had some years back with the higher pitched faster pace guitar at the beginning guitar.

Grrrreat video buddy 👍

I have a carter carb on my 352 ford. It looks almost new . I see Edelbrock bought the rights to this design . Is there any way to tell how old this Carter carb is ? The 352 runs great with it but will change over to a Holley at some point . Thanks .

Awesome info

I know this is an old video but could you please tell me what this would actually look like? Say you have too much fuel pressure, is it going to cause a rich condition? Would it only be on idle or would it be with off-idle as well?

Just listen to your video on Edelbrock carburetors. My nephew has a 68 mustang with a 302 and a Edelbrock four barrel carburetor on it. He’s having nothing but difficulty with it running rough after it warms up at idle circuit and quitting or dying off I think he has too much fuel pressure, when he puts his Excelerator into it when he’s driving, it will backfire sometimes. Thanks for your info I will pass it along to my nephew.

I put the indicated regulator in and it worked ok for a while then the pressure went to 2-3 lbs. So I was on the road and just bypassed it leaving the pressure gauge in which showed 8-10 lbs. It got me home but I have other problems with roughly idle, stalling the braking, and won't idle for long after accelerator let off. I did pull off all my smog stuff (1984 GMC K20 p/u with a 350 cid). The ego is still in with a vacuum nipple on it. Bit I was told you have to put a cut off plate since the EGR may have stuck when I d/cd the smog junk. So anyways....I will block off the EGR hole, put new fuel filter (40 micron), not sure what else to do?? Any advice? thanks

Can an improper float setting cause a backfire upon load. I've tried everything and still get a backfire on hard acceleration. I can ride for hours under normal acceleration but stepping on it I will get a backfire. My setup is 65 Galaxie 500 with 352. Edelbrock performer intake and a 1806 carb. One thing I don't have is a regulator.

How to adjust choke fast idle. Edelbrock 600 cc on sbc 350

you said on one of your other videos that you weren't able to keep good pressure with a mechanical fuel pump that also had a regulator, so when you add a regulator do you always swap to an electric fuel pump? or is that only on vehicles where you have fuel return that you have to have an electric fuel pump to keep enough pressure on the system that has return? seems like it shouldnt matter if there is return or not, if there's a regulator then either kind of pump should work. what am i misunderstanding here?

Good stuff! Edelbrock carbs aren’t terrible but characteristics in performance remind me of a Qjet …..they run good but just don’t seem to have the performance output of a Holley!

Ok you the guy who all us old timers need, so I Have a Demon 625 CFM part number 1902, it's been Nothing but trouble Sir.....

I just took the 2 barrel carb of and switch it to a 4 barrel intake and edelbrock card had it running but having some timing problems each is we are off a tooth or two on time but its had starting so it makes sense with the regular I will have to get one and by the way it's a 1980 Thunderbird with a 302 trying to make it to power tourer but its up in the air with the hole virus thing so not sure I can make it like to here you thoughts on what I have done so far

Set the float level and float drop and adj the fuel pressure with a reg. You finally got around it.

I love my Edelbrock carbs I think they're the most fine tunable for something that you drive everyday once you get it how you want it forget it as soon as you understand how vacuum makes the metering rod rise and fall I love mine can't say nothing bad about it at Cruise it's perfect you just give it a tiny bit more throttle as the vacuum Falls I can actually feel the metering rods raise and the power come in I always run 2 mr. Gasket cheap fuel pumps one near the tank one on the fender and a return line that is just a 70 thousandths orifice I set it up at sea level down in Florida and take it to North Carolina for the snow and never touch it I've never loved a carburetor more⚙🔩🔧⛽🇺🇸

Yeets carb carelessly to the garage door ....." No carbs were harmed in the making of this video" lol nice

where do you install the regulator? close to the carb just like a filter?

Okay that was an awesome video. I have an Edelbrock 1408 / Carter afb. I don't know exactly what it is. I had a vacuum leak going to the vacuum advance. I plugged that off from the carburetor. It runs awesome with no vacuum going to the distributor. Is this going to mess things up in the long run?

I got the Demon Street Demon 750 . What are your thoughts ?