80smetalfan

OK, first off I need to announce that I have zero experience with Holley carburetors. I know a little about carburetors in general, but generally only enough to get me in trouble.

I'm considering getting either a Summit Street and Strip 750 Mech secondaries ( http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-M08750MS/ ), or a Holley 4150 of some sort.

The vehicle in question is going to be set up with 3.73s out back, a late 60s Olds 455 and a 700-R4. It has some similarities to a thirdgen. Roughly 3300 lbs.

My hangup here is the following: I want something dead on reliable, simple and easy to get acclimated to for the Holley tuning/repair novice, which attracts me to the Summit unit. It's also inexpensive. I've spent a couple days reading up on it and it has generally great reviews. From what I understand, the unit I'm looking at is a revised Holley 4011 design that will accept several common 4150 parts.

However, I also plan on running E85 in this vehicle. I've converted a few other of my cars to E85 so I understand the general implications of getting that working, but I was attracted to the 4150 after seeing fivesevenkid mention how beneficial the Quick Fuel E85 metering block was on his unit, and the idea of having a purpose-built component makes a lot of sense. Getting a car to run acceptably on E85 isn't terribly difficult, but getting it to run really well is another matter. Since the Summit unit is a one-piece design, I'm assuming you can't change out the metering block on it.

So....with budget in mind, I'm kind of stuck. I've read a bit about the tuning involved with E85 on Holleys and I'm just curious if the Summit 4011 is going to be substantially inferior to the Holley 4150 as it specifically pertains to tuning for E85.

I'm sure the 4150/Quick Fuel set up would run better to at least some extent, I just don't want to spend the extra $250 for that setup if I can avoid it.

Sorry, weird question. Any advice would be great.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Buy the Quick Fuel E85 carb up front and you won't be re-buying anything.

80smetalfan

Ah. So you're saying spend more so I don't want to trade up later?

The QF 4150 E85 carb is almost $750.

80smetalfan

Ooookay. Well, I don't want to be spending $750 on the QF carb so I guess I'll plan on checking on an E85 forum about the suitability of the 4011. Thanks.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Up to you, but having gone the piecemeal route and having been disappointed after spending just as much, the $750 sounds like a good deal to me.

The 4011 is made for gasoline, and converting it to E85 will not be straight-forward. To start with the 4011 would be, as they used to say, "penny-wise and pound-foolish".

80smetalfan

Ah. Well, that makes more sense. I'm kinda dense sometimes and I didn't really understand what you meant by the first post.

I may end up going with the QuickFuel then. Now that I think about it, I'd probably make up the cost difference in savings compared to high octane gas (my 455 is 10.5-1 comp) in fairly short order.

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

10.5:1 should only require 91-93 octane. The 105-ish octane and heat absorbing properties of E85 makes it like a little more compression.