A friend of mine bought a Jeep CJ5 with a 383 and a healthy cam. Since he bought it he changed the carb from a holly (size ??) to a polished edelbrock carb (size??) He's losing alot of power around turns and if he tries to make a u-turn it almost stalls out. I'm thinking that the only thing a polished Edelbrock carb is good for is sittin on the shelf. I can't imagine that it could be big enough for the cam hes running. Could his turning problem and lack of (Ummpff) be caused by the pretty carb? The cam is pretty serious. the owner of the jeep dosen't know much about the engine. I think he shoud go with somthing like a DEMON carb so it's easy to tune. Being that it is a stroker motor I'm not really sure if and how much extra fuel would be required for the best perfomance of this motor. I'm kinda stuck on this one, so I'm going to the experts!!! Thanks Ya'll

 

It might not be that the edelbrock is a bad carb.....but it seems he's running it "out of the box" which will hardly work for a given combination.

In my very limited experience w/ carbs, a Holley or even Demon is very easy to tune. However an Edelbrock may require a partial disassembly in order to calibrate, making it a kinda PITA.

Just my 2 cents....although may be worth much less than that.


Get a carb on there that you can work with!!

 

That edelbrock, which is actually a carter afb, is actually a better choice for a 4x4 than a holley, because the way the bowls are designed, the edelbrock will never uncover it's jets unless you're upside down.

Sounds like his cam is totally inappropriate.

You don't want a rumpity cam in a 4x4, you want something as smooth as glass that will idle at 500rpm and makes peak power at about 3000 or so.

Remember, spinning your tires is the fastest way to get stuck, not to mention break parts.

Have him pull out that cam and stick in something like a comp cams 260H and he'll be WAY better off.

 

The U-Turn problem sounds like a float level issue, I tune cars on a dyno, and yeah edelbrocks make less power, but I feel they are better for 4wd, they have a offroad kit for them too that can help out. Check out the metering rod spring, that big cam may not create enough vacuum to hold it down, and the motor is flooding.

 

I'll make a very unscientific observation here. One that no amout of personal expereince and logic has been able to disprove to me in 20 years of turning wrenches. Pretty parts don't work as well as ugly ones. Sorry, but it's true more often than it's not. I'm such a heretic.

Putting that aside, a carb is just a device to mix the right amount of fuel with the incoming air. ANY of the basic, commonly available 4bbl carb designs will do the job if tuned correctly. Holley, Edelbrock/Carter, Qjet.

The main things to compare are airflow capability (CFM) and if it's a vacuum secondary desgn or a double pumper. After that it's down to the peculiarities of each carb's design that determine what has to be tweaked/tuned for best performance from it.

Dont miss the simple stuff!!! Is the throttle getting fully open? Throttle arm designs on the different carbs vary. Are all the vaccum lines hooked up correctly? Having the distributor vacuum advance line hooked up to the wrong port can make the part throttle performance feel kinda "sluggish." Are there any vacuum leaks? They can tank the idle and make drivability pretty miserable, although they don't affect WOT performance much.

 

I have a 383 LT-4 with HOT cam in my CJ-5. My engine will run on its side - I know I tested it with several layovers.

I think its the carb. The Edelbrock carbs are pretty good for off roading. I ran one on my 304 in the CJ-5. Just buy an Edelbrock Strip Pac and tune it and it should work just fine.