# Help



## Kevin Murphy (Sep 16, 2018)

I have a 66 goat with a 67 400 4-speed Muncie Rock Crusher not sure what's done to the motor I was told bored 30 over 10 10 crank 10 and 3/4 to 1 compression Ram Air cam number 16 heads had a Holley 600 vacuum secondaries on it then a friend lent me his 750 ProForm and the car came alive was wondering if I can go to an 850 my friend drag races and he told me the motor can handle and 850 after he drove it I could sure use some input and advice thanks


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## bigD (Jul 21, 2016)

A 750 is plenty big unless you are building an all out drag racer. 

Most '67-'74 400's, 428's, & 455's had 750cfm Q-jets & ran quite well. 

Don't know how much power you want. In 1974, my all original RA3 '69 GTO ran mid 13's. Still had the original 750 Q-jet, 744 cam, 3.90 gears, & close ratio 4-speed. 

Then I had the engine rebuilt, .030 over, a bigger cam, valve job, with the same 750 Q-jet & trans. Switched to 4.56 gears. It then ran high 12's. 

Some forum street guys don't wanna hear about drag cars. But, there are Pontiac Stocker & Super Stockers running 10's & 9's with 750 Q-jets. One light car has even dipped into the 8's. We're talkin 500hp + engines. So, what I'm saying is that 750 cfm is plenty for a 400 street Pontiac. 

No quarrel with any who have a different opinion.


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Well nuts - I wrote a "genius post" and then lost it because I cleared cookies in the middle of it and had to log back in. It was great, Pulitzer Prize worthy - trust me :grin2:

There's a guy, David Vizard, who's a real expert on the topics of tuning, air flow dynamics, carburetors and induction systems. He's written and published quite a few books on the topic including one specific to Holley that I recently have been reading to try to learn about them.

According to him, the way to estimate what size carb is needed is to use the formula: CFM = (Max RPM X Engine size X "correction factor") / 3456

You have to be honest and realistic about max rpm. Don't use 8000 rpm for a Pontiac street engine that in reality is never likely to spin past 5500. Just like it's possible for a carb to be too small and 'starve' the engine, it's possible for one to be too big. Carbs depend on a certain minimum air flow velocity to work right, and if one is "too big" for the engine then air flow velocity through it won't be high enough to make it work correctly.

That "correction factor" is the hardest to pick because it depends on the details of the engine - cam duration, head flow, manifold type, etc. all things that effect volumetric efficiency at various rpm. The factor ranges from 1 on a 'theoretically perfect' engine up to 1.11 on one with a really long duration race only cam and other similar mods, at least that's what's in the chart in his book I'm reading.

Let's take your +0.030 400 (works out to be close to 406 inches) and see what comes out of the formula.
At 5500 rpm with no correction factor (1) it works out to 646 cfm needed
At 6000 rpm, 704 cfm
At 6000 rpm, correction factor of 1.01: 712 cfm - 1.02: 719 cfm - 1.03: 726 cfm ----etc

Also keep in mind that Holley 750 isn't going to be passing an actual 750 cfm on a running engine. Carb manufacturers give cfm ratings that are frequently dry flow (air only) numbers instead of wet flow (with fuel) numbers which will always be lower than dry flow numbers, and also with a vacuum "pull" on the carb that's different than what an engine generates. Recall at WOT manifold vacuum is very very low (not zero because there has to be some vacuum present to make it work). However, if a carb vendor happens to measure CFM on their products by 'sucking on them' with 10 inches of mercury vacuum pull, then technically they're telling the truth, but your engine will never see those numbers because at WOT it's only making 1 inch of mercury vacuum - or less. 

Based on the above and your "seat of the pants" experience I'd bet that your engine will be very happy with a "750". Also food for thought: Every Rochester QJet can flow 750 CFM. Some, like the 455 SD version and a few others, can flow 800---- just sayin' 

Bear


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## bigD (Jul 21, 2016)

Here's some 400 carb info, from a thread here.

https://www.gtoforum.com/f178/opinion-carberater-400-motor-86857/index2.html#post624025

https://www.gtoforum.com/f178/opinion-carberater-400-motor-86857/index3.html#post624121


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