Why the Edelbrock 1406 isn't a Performance Carburetor 

I have been running a 1406 on a torker manifold on an AMC 360 for over 20 years, never had an issue, runs great and has no issues with acceleration or torque. I also run a 1406 on a 352 FE Ford motor. Also run one on a 302 small block Ford. And another one on a 360 Mopar. All applications have worked well for me. Never an issue with any of them.

Excellent information! Awesome channel for all things edelbrock carb related.

That's some great info I didn't know the boosters made that much difference, gotta love Edelbrock carbs dependable,, good guys car show in Puyallup was awesome yesterday keep the videos coming

Are your videos have been awesome. Very helpful. Thanks 1 million

I have a 1406on a 2701 and I want to add a heatblocking spacer. Which material blocks heat best. Which thickness { .5 - 2in.} should I use and should I use a four hole or the single large hole?

I always heard that the electric choke edelbrocks were calibrated for economy and that the manual choke ones were calibrated for performance, had no idea the boosters were different too! Very interesting, are the 500's like that with the boosters as well? (The 1403 vs. 1404) I used to have a 1405 that I put electric choke on, worked very well, I sold it, should have kept it.

I have an old 1406 from a camaro i bought 20 years ago and it's sat on a shelf in the garage ever since, I bought a different intake and a 750 holley

Nicely done. Can't agree more about buying a AVS2 over a 1406 or even the 1405.

I bought my 86 C10 with the performer rpm intake and the 1406 carburetor, running 305 high compression heads and it runs good and beefy

Just installed one of these on a stock 86 f150 with a factory 4bbl 351w. Fuel regulated at 5.5 psi, new distributor, timing set with light, idle mixture screws set with vac gauge. Cranks good, idles good, runs down the road good. Great acceleration. The problem I’m having and cannot figure out is after cruising down the road once the engine is good and hot, let off the the gas to turn or come to a stop and the engine will die. Put it to the floor and it cranks back up. I’ve learned so much from your videos, thank you. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you again.

I have a 77 vette with a decently built sbc in it, I dont know the details on the cam profile but its running a lopey cam, aluminum high flow heads, long tubes headrs, preformance intake manifold MSD ignition system. But whoever built the car and motor has an edelbrock 1406 on top, I'm younger and dont know much about the old school tuning ways but trying to learn as its my first older carbureted car. Ive been reading a bunch and it seems like a battle on carbs and cfm , some say use the calculators out there others are saying the 1406 which is 600cfm is way too small for whats done to the engine. I am kind of lost atm. I was looking at maybe going with an Edelbrock 1411. Anyone have input on the matter? Much appreciated thank you!

Thanks for that info. You kept mentioning using the 1405\1406 on those specific intakes. Why those in particular? I'm now thinking of swapping my 1406 to an AVS or 1405 on my stock 1972 Buick 350, but it's adapted to the original spread bore (Qjet) intake. A new aluminum dual-plane square bore intake for the Buick 350 is $500!! I don't care about fuel economy. Is it worth my while to swap to the 1405\AVS, or should I sell my first born for that $500 aluminum dual-plane intake first? Or move up to a 650cfm carb instead?

New to American trucks. Recently got a friend's '77 Chevy Big10 with both a stock 350 and a TH350. The 350 came with an Edelbrock 1405 (date: 2583) and Performer intake. The intake has "Performer" stamped on the back and Edelbrock stamped on the front. Don't know which Performer model I have. There is a 3/8" rubber spacer between the carb and intake. Have you posted a video-tutorial on how to optimize the 1405 for fuel economy? Could you suggest a better spacer than the rubber one I have? Thank you so much for all the videos and time you've spent sharing your knowledge with all of us who appreciate your efforts to keep the signal alive. Cheers

Which carb is better for my stock 79 L-82 Corvette 1403 or 1406? I want better fuel economy than with my stock Quadro jet... If you recommend a different make and model, I am open! Thank you

What intake manifold would you recommend for the 1406 installed on sbc 350?

Love your channel mate. I’m running the eddy 500 manual choke on my mild 318. It’s been tuned and I think it runs great. Goes well. I can’t help but wonder though if the eddy 500 electric choke is the same as you described in this video? Hmmmm

Awesome info !!

Just double checking, great video btw! An AVS2 1906 will be better bang for the buck in regards to performance over a 1406/1405?

Awesome info thank you great to know

Any idea how to avoid kind of heat soak? When the engine is still hot after parking it seems the carb cannot be feeded with the right amount of air or the air is still to hot and the mixture is too fat I guess. The engine runs than very weak and even rough. Maybe it is vapor lock? I will install a rturn line and so on and cross the fingers.

There is alot more tuning in the booster then what you are looking at. I have an advanced tuning book for those cars but i dont know how to send it to you. I would love to share but dont know how. It has lots of useful information.

I had a 750cfm Edelbrock carb on a 350 Chev. Cam, headers, and a small B&M roots blower. It ran great!! Set the idle mixture with a vacuum gauge, and let it rip. That was 25yrs ago. I do not remember the specific model.

I have an 1406 and decided to learn more about the internals of carbeureter from your channel and others. The car runs fantastic since I curved my mopar distributor and limited it. It's a 383 mopar with unknown internals. It has the stock intake and magnum exhaust manifolds. I'm assuming it's pretty stock. Its an Electronic ignition. Do you think I would benefit greatly if I went to another, preferably Edlbrock carb ?? 323 , peg leg rear , automatic 727 trans. Timing in the distributor is 14 degrees. timing is all in around 1800 - 2000 rmp. Initial 20 degrees before tdc, for a total timing of 34 degree. About a 4k pound car. Thanks

You have a ton of information on performance, but what about towing? I have a 1406 on the 350 in my one-ton, is this a good fit or should I look elsewhere?

Really light touch and a Dremel could probably help those booster alot, remove the casting lines, make it more aerodynamic. Narrow the supply tube slightly, improve the airflow entry into the venturi of the booster! I have polished tve throat and boosters of a holley before, and ran a Edelbrock like this before, thats as far as it went, i didn't touch it, i was looking for a holley to replace it!

Is this also true with the AVS2 series?

Do you think that might be the cause of some of my problems? I am using a 1406 on a performer intake? You saying that the 1406 is more for economical and more lean situations makes so much sense why my engine had spark knock before increasing my primary jets.

I had a 1406 and 1411 around and I have an RPM airgap on my 360. I had a 1” open spacer on it and they ran okay but had a bog when he hit wide open hard. Pulled the spacer out and it ran terrible. Surged super bad and just was not happy. Then I found on edelbrock’s website you can’t run them on an rpm manifold. I tried an AVS 2 and could never get the bog out of it either so I wound up running a 650 brawler double pumper and it’s been great.

I have a 289 sbf bored 30 over with the performer and 1406. First thank you for the information and second I could use some advise. I will be installing a Paxton supercharger and ask if you could recommend a carb.

Great video bud

I wonder what horsepower difference there would be between a 1405 and 1406 if the jets and metering rods were the same. Would you be able to feel difference between the boosters sizes?

wow never knew the boosters were different. pretty crazy cuz im sure i have put boosters in carburetors that they werent meant for lol

How about the 1407 1073 on a 71 c10 350 kinda stumbles from idle under load troubleshooting and thinking I got no secondary’s working

I have 3 edelbrock carbs now. I have the 1407 & the 1411 & i thought the same thing. They were the same? I learned they are not & i bought a calibration kit for the 1411. When i ran the 1407 it was always very rich. I switched to the 1411 & expected it to be rich so i immediately leaned it out & found it to be very lean. So i richened it back up & found it almost went back to stock. My engine liked it with the stock sized jets but with a slight rod change. But i have it on a ford 390 in a pickup & the 1411 works very well on it. I recently got a 1405 but it seemed like it didnt want to idle nomatter what i did so im guna put a rebuild kit in the 1405 & buy a calibration kit for it & try it again. I know my 390 likes the 1411 but alot of people say thats to big. Idk? It sure runs good with it! But ill try the 1405 & see? Maybey it will like the 600 better? Id bet my 390 is about 350hp engine if i had to guess. So a 600cfm carb should be able to support that fine? But time will tell? I know the 1407 was very rich! 1411 was good.

I have an edelbrock carb with no number on the mounting tab how can i find out what model it is?

So what you are saying is that the 1406 is perfect for a Slant Six? Very nice video explaining the difference. I had no idea that China was making a knock off of these carbs. Madness.

I ran a back to back test on my mild Chevy 350 with a 1405 and 1406. Both completely stock. Could not tell a difference with my butt dyno.

It looks like a person with motivation and patience, could carve a booster set from jewlers wax or polystyrine foam, and melt a couple old pistons, or chunks of a aluminum rim, melt it down, dip the foam or way booster in plaster, dry them, and set it up in sand, and cast a new set, maybe modify the design, maybe design a annular booster for it.

Not knowing any different, I just thought the 1406 was an electric choke version of the 1405 with slightly different primary jets and metering rods. I have had both and could not feel any performance difference by my butt dyno.

I would bet the idle feed tube and economizer and idle air bleed main air bleed would also be calibrated richer on the 1405 as well .

I prefer holley style carburators myself, i started rebuilding them , tinkering with Holley carbs when i was a kid, about 11-12 years old,

I run a 1405 and I noticed the subtle metering changes in the documentation between the 1405 & 1406 but I didn't realize the boosters were any different, that's interesting. It looked to me like they had a different "philosophy" in mind between the two and your investigation kinda backs that up. As far as the Chinese version goes, you could probably order a pallet of them and all the boosters would measure differently from one another, with no consistency at all. I didn't even know there was a Chinese knock-off but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I know they make copies of motorcycle carbs and even Weber DCOEs... In fact I just saw a Facebook post about a guy trying to get his car idling on "brand new" DCOEs and he's having trouble. Then he says they are Chinese. What kind of quality control do you expect to get with a Chinese copy of a Weber DCOE or an AFB clone? The answer is 'a lot less QC than is required'.

Worked very well on my mild 350 with a melling 22203 cam and ported chevy 441 heads .

So should we just aim for an avs2 for a cammed daily driver 325ci or just go for a 1405

I’m running more like attempting to run a 1406 lol on my 1969 351w. My carb seems to clog up some how and blocks off any fuel, as a result the car dies. I’m only saying this, bc I’ve replaced (fuel pumps mechanical.. and switched to electrical, checked uplifter sock in the tank, all lines have been cleaned out.) I threw on a pressure gauge and a pressure regulator. To remedy the situation, I would disconnect the fuel line from the carb, let out all the fuel, run the electrical pump and have it spill out i to a bottle, then reconnect the fuel line to the carb, and it runs again until it doesn’t. I’ve noticed this happens after ten minutes of running the engine. This never happened with the two barrel I had on it before the 1406. Hopefully someone will bring insight to this problem, I don’t want to go back to the two barrel lol Edit: Fuel pressure at start up was 8psi with mechanical and 6 with electrical pump. After 5 min of running it dips down to 4 psi then 3 psi. Then eventually the car will bog out or it will shut off with 0psi.

I'm surprised they don't have aftermarket boosters.

Imagine trying the annular boosters on those carbs? Carter Brock won't sell them.

If it has an electric choke, it's for economy. If it's manual choke, it's for those of us who know what we are doing and want performance!

That's where it gets"complicated" 😂 that's My story with any thing that has to do with a carburetor.

The Edelbrock is just a remake of the old carter carbs, now they started making a holley style carb,

If anyone wants a performance carburetor. Go to any race. Dirt, asphalt, drag, truck pulling, ect If it is running a carburetor it will be a holley type carb 99.9 % of the time. There is a reason for this.

well poopsticks.......I have a used 1406 I was going to put on my performance 350 build.

These carbs are great door stops. Its kinda like a generic tune. Yep. It will run. Burn your eyes out with gas smell. Chevy dudes love these things. They suck. Even eddlebrock going to 4150 lol