Brucer said:
i guess i dont know what the hell i'm talking about.guess i cant tune an engine or carb to save my ass... sorry to the OP
No need to cop an attitude, OK?
You are of the opinion you can successfully set up a carb without a power valve. Good on you and the 20 years you've been doing it.
In the 35+ years I've been racing and building race motors, I've consistently found positive results on the race track and on the dyno by using all the systems Holley built into their carburetors - the idle system, the main jet system, the accelerator pump system and the power valve system. As well as the choke system on the street-driven applications.
...and if you cant make 400+hp at the crank out of a naturally aspirated 355 ci small block maybe you need to try something different. Automotive Performance and Machine might get you on the right combo
400 HP out of a 355 is a piece of cake. With an out-of-the-box cylinder head, scant compression and a wee camshaft profile, it isn't going to happen. Sorry if that causes you a problem, but I make a living doing this stuff and I've got a pretty good idea of what it takes to make 400 HP out of a small-bore motor. But you must be right, all the track championships our motors have won are just figments of my imagination. None of those countless NHRA and IHRA national records that hang on the walls of the hallway outside the office are real. Those engine builder of the year plaques we've been presented by two sanctioning bodies are complete fakes. So yes, please, get me contact information on this shop you mentioned, so I can get on the right track as quickly as possible.
...the book will help you understand the break down of the different circuits in the carburetor, give you the run down on pump cams and accelerator pumps, air transfer slots,power valves,jets,metering blocks,discharge nozzles, vacuum secondary springs and just about anything else you'll need to know about a holley carb.
Ooops, you forgot to mention that he should rip the pages about the power valve circuit out of the book. Heaven forbid he should read any of that 'disinformation', right? (I'll not bother mentioning how much carb technology has advanced in the two decades since that book was published.)
I know some of the fellows at Bowling Green, maybe I should put you into contact with them and you can explain to them how ignorant they are for having put power valves in all the carbs they've built. And look at the silly gooses - they not only sell standard flow power valves, but they also sell high flow valves. Or maybe I can put you in contact with any number of aftermarket carburetor shops that offer power valve boost referencing for blower carb applications. What in the world are these people thinking? Just take the power valve out and throw it away, right?
I recently had a limited series 390 Holley apart for a customer. This particular carb had come from what I consider to be one of the premiere shops in the country and carries a breathtaking price tag. When I put it back together, I replaced the 4.5 inch power valves that the shop had used with fresh ones. Go figure, those idiots using power valves, eh?
Now you can swell up all you like, but I'm going to stand by what I said before. If a fellow can adjust valves correctly, adjust timing correctly and prevent vacuum leaks in the intake tract, the power valve is a very efficient means with which to tune. If that same fellow can't get all those things right, then he's going to have a motor that is likely to be sneezing through the carb and putting the power valve at risk. I'll leave you to sort where you fit into that scenario.