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street demon carb install/review

11K views 13 replies 8 participants last post by  bowtie0069 
#1 ·
qjets, holleys, eddies... i've had them all on different model chevys. always a 350 though... some old and tired, some vortecs... etc etc.

this install was the fastest in that it required no tuning(outside of me setting for highest vacuum).

it pulls hard and shifts smoother than the edelbrock that i took off. i'm sure that when i take time to tune it a bit more that it'll continue to blow me away.

this carb completely did away with my hard starts or long cranking, and the heat soak issue i had with the edelbrock is completely gone. i just got back from an hour long ride on the highway, pulled into the driveway... waited five minutes and cranked it over. fired right up. we'll see how it does tomorrow morning at 6am when its in the 30's here.

highly recommended, especially if you can find one on ebay for less than MSRP like i did (325$ shipped).
 
#3 ·
Cool man, that's great, sounds like a nice carb! I've only run Holleys and Edelbrocks, never tried the Demons before.

I hear about people having hard starting/heatsoak issues with Edelbrocks but I've never had an issue after using one of those heat insulator base gaskets.

What size/model is it?
 
#4 ·
I'm also curious on the size/model of carb, and also the general specs of the engine you put it on.

I've been pretty happy with the Holley I currently have, but have considered potentially trying something else to see if any further improvements could be found. I've had an Edelbrock before, and it was OK but I prefer the Holley. I've also had Q-jets but never a Demon.

Only starting issue I've ever had with the Holley relating to heat soak is the fuel in the accelerator pump boiling away after a shutdown on a really hot day. This has only happened a handful of times in the many years that I've had this carb though. I think they make a gasket that shields the acc. pump specifically for this purpose.
 
#6 ·
Also just to be clear,

My qjets I could rebuild blindfolded, they are what they are...

My Holley (truck avenger, on a k5 blazer) was fine... No improvement over the qjet I pulled off for some reason...

My edelbrocks a have always been crappy. I've had two...a craigslist find and one off jegs. For the money, id rather have a Holley... Or now a Demon
 
#10 ·
I think Quickfuel carbs are supposed to be pretty good too.

Does your Demon have an electric choke? I got the electric choke on my Eddy 800 and it starts up really easy on cold or warm days.

I had a manual choke on my old Holley and it worked alright as well, just had to make sure you didn't cheap out on the choke cable. The cheapies would bind up. The good ones would operate smoothly for years. I prefer electric chokes now though.
 
#11 ·
Glad yours worked for you. I bought one to replace my Quadrabog, but gave up on it and took it off. It ran well and was very responsive, but hurt fuel economy to the tune of 15%+. I bought the $50 tuning kit and calibrated it with a wideband O2 meter. No matter how I leaned it out, I just couldn't get the highway mileage out of it and that was a deal breaker for my 250 mile/week driver. Anyhow, I spent some time with the Q-jet and got pretty happy with it.

I have a phenolic-body Street Demon w/tuning kit for sale if anyone is interested. Like brand new.
 
#14 ·
Been running a Race Demon RS since 99. I usually tell people to expect a 20 H.P. or more loss right out of the box compared to a similar sized Holley, but some say they have had great luck with them as-is. It took me a lot of jetting and air bleed changes to get back to where I was with an 850 Holley. I rarely touch it except to squirt a little cleaner over the air bleeds because I don't run an air cleaner most of the time.
 
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