Time for a new Carb
My .02 is a little different so here goes...
I have a 1969 Dart GT with a 340 and leaky Holley 3310-2 on an old Torker 340 manifold with a '68 4 speed cam and Rhodes lifters and a 727 automatic and 3:23 gears. The Holley is fairly worn out, the throttle shafts have lots of play and a corner of base plate has been repaired with epoxy 30 some years ago. Somehow the secondary fuel bowl drains into into the intake manifold after a week or so. Not good.. Although it runs well, I think this carb is a bit big for this engine and it is tired.
So this is what I am considering for options:
Rhoads lifters on a a factory cam? Only thing I can think of as a reason for this would be an attempt to offset the Torker's weakness on the street.
Old Torker never had a good rep. for what your doing. Torker II is supposed to be better but...
Even though its not what you asked about, I'm going to suggest a used Holley Street Dominator (also sold as Street Contender). Staying with a single plane will make the swap simpler. With the SD, experiment with 1/2" and maybe 1" phenolic spacers if you want.
1: Rebuild the Holley AGAIN and see if i can get the leaking to stop. May have to repair corrosion on the gasket faces?? not sure where the leak is.
Take this a step further. That's my suggestion. With epoxy repair on the base and concerns about shaft play, replace it. By new, or used in good condition.
Before doing that. Take it apart and look everything over. Corrossion and pitting on the faces where the channels are is not worth fixing.
Leaking from the secondary bowl
into the intake is pretty difficult unless the secondary power valve signal passage is open. On at least one 3310-2 I've had, this passage wasn't even drilled. But who knows what you'll find on your current one.
The intended use of our Dart is cruising and trouble free reliability. I have a couple of teen age boys who like to drive it occasionally and it needs to be turn key and go. I'd like to spend less than $500.00.
Well my first suggestion was stick with what you got and replace the damaged and worn parts. If you're doing vacuum secondary the Holley 3310 is as good as any - especially the older ones.
If you want to try something new, for what you want to do, the new Street Demons with phenolic fuel bowl mentioned by Jpar is what I would try.
Like any non-factory carb, some tuning will be required. Unlike factroy tuning, this means repeated trials, making one change at a time until you are satisfied.
What are everyone's thoughts? Any other suggestions are welcome. I'v done a ton of reading and from what I can gather it's Holley for flexibility and Edelbrock for set it and forget it reliability. or am I wrong on that one?
That's what the magazine writers always say Blah blah blah.
Holley's probably became popular in hot rodding because of image (marketing) and ease of changing jets quickly at the track.
Whether one brand's carb is going to be closer tuned to your engine out of the box is a crap shoot (dice game). Johnny and Will have run enough Carterbrock's I'd give their opinion on them some wieght.
Either way, if you're buying new I'd look at the smaller venturi carbs which you already seem to be doing.
The advantages of less restrictive carbs come at wide open throttle, particularly above 3500 rpm.
The advantage of a slightly smaller carb should be onto the primary main circuits at lower rpm and potentially better fuel distribution.
