I've been battling my Q-jet for a month now after an almost perfect season of no repairs. It got to point where it idled fabulous until you touched the pedal and......stall. I spent a day cleaning everything out and rebuilding it again within a year. This time it proceeded to backfire violently and shut car down. Upon starting, it ran great and stalling issue was gone........until.......FIRE!!!! So, after two boxes of baking soda and a bottle of beer, the fire is out and the car was "smoked". Gas was coming out out every orifice of the carb..from base gasket, accel pump, vacuum fittings, air horn...even out of the secondary linkage. What a mess. My q-jet has been relieved of command and a replacement has been sworn in. After a day or so of fine tuning, the result is smooth, strong, and without incident. I chose the cheap route and decided on Summit 750CFM 4BBL new carburetor. Once tuned, I have been having a hard time gauging the pedal response...probably because I enjoy the sound of burning rubber and second gear chirps. I haven't seen anyone else choose this carburetor. I'm here to tell you so far so good. We got another month or so of "decent" weather before 10 below and 100 inches of snow falls again. I got a lot of driving to do before then, I'll report back in a month. BTW...yes, that is burnt paint on top of the manifold. I was lazy and decided not to tear off the manifold. Fire only lasted about 10 seconds and only scorched a few ignition wires and the stepper motor lead for AC control which I'm not using anyway. The powertrain will come out next spring for paint and new tranny install.
