The SEMA Show is an event we look forward to every year. Last year was the first-ever virtual version, and it was a welcome distraction from all the craziness of 2020. Still, we were more than excited to make our way back to the Las Vegas Convention Center and return to our regularly scheduled programming – where the entirety of the automotive aftermarket convenes to showcase its wares and the world-class builds it produces alike.
This year, we caught up with a number of manufacturers, but one that really stood out to us was Edelbrock. As always, the brand’s booth did not disappoint. We caught up with Brent McCarthy, the company’s Line Manager/ R&D Manifold Specialist, and got the low-down on everything new from Edelbrock.
If you’ve been into the classic hot rodding hobby for a long time, chances are, you’ve owned or worked on an Edelbrock carburetor in some form or another. Well, if you thought those days were over because fuel injection has taken over in popularity, you’d be wrong. There’s still a strong demand for new and improved carburetors, and Edelbrock has answered that call yet again.
When we got Brent going on the new carbs, he had a lot to say! “We have 650, 750, 850, and 950 cfm models. One of the main features is that they are taller carburetors. They are actually a 1/2-inch taller than our standard carburetor, which gives the air more length and time to set up before it goes into the booster.” But the improvements didn’t stop there. Brent continued, “there’s a longer distance below the booster too, so there’s more mixing length.”
“The new carbs have four full fuel circuits and billet metering blocks. So, you get two bleed adjustments for the main circuit, and you get an adjustment for the intermediate circuit. Also, all the carburetors come with intermediate circuits, which is unusual. It’s also got a bleed for the idle circuit, and an extra adjustment on the side for idle/air too, and that’s so you can set your butterfly’s to the exact proper spot for the transition slot, eliminating the need to adjust idle speed with the screw that moves the throttle blades. All of that results in optimum tuning for take-off.”
“It’s also got a TPS sensor mount. It comes with a cover, but you can just pop it right off and mount a GM three-wire TPS sensor. So, if you’ve got an electronic transmission or you just want the data, it’s right there.”
As Brent continued, we asked, for the average person, how much tuning is needed for each circuit? “What’s nice about these is you can do tuning right on top with air bleeds right off the bat. The idea is though, with our calibrations, is that we’re going to set it up for the most general applications of each one so they’ll be ready to go right out of the box. We’ve actually transferred them from different motors – for example, we took it off of a kind of hot dyno motor that we were revving to eight-grand, and plopped it onto a street car that was making like 400 hp and it was fine.”
“A couple more features – it does have drain plugs for the bowls. There is sight glass on both sides, so it’s easy to adjust the float wherever you want it. The floats have also been notched for jet extenders, and we include jet extenders on the secondary side. It’s also got side cuts on the floats. So, let’s say we were taking a hard turn and all the fuel goes to one side, on a normal float, that would push the float up and shut off the fuel flow. But, since we added these side cuts that little notched part doesn’t allow the same thing to happen.”
“The bowls also have some baffling to avoid the slosh I mentioned. On the power valve, we added discharge jets, so you can control the amount of fuel that’s leaving the power valve. We have power valves in the primaries and the secondaries as well. So, you end up with square jetting, which is really nice for tuning.”
The coatings are also all-new. Edelbrock offers the new carbs in Chrome Plasma, Black Plasma, and Smokey.
So, if you’re not yet ready to let go of your beloved carburetor, but you want to run an electronically controlled transmission, or you simply want the added performance benefits listed above, check out Edelbrock.com.