Which holley is best for 12A Streetport
 

Thinking of getting holley and two different sets of jets, one for daily driving and the other for track.

Would the psi difference from stock fuel pump be a big enough to change as well?




Also off topic, what tires do you suggest for track? I'm running 15x5 and 16x7 right now, but not sure if all four tires need to be same size for track.

Find a 450cfm holley. You will need jet sizes 60-65.
You will also have to modify the carb to make it run properly.
Custom pump cam
Air bleeds
Trans slot
Jet extensions
Floats.

Stock pump will work for getting around town but an old tired pump shouldn't be trusted on a powerful engine. Tuned properly expect hi 13s street ported.

I offer free help to anyone who wants it.

I know youre automatically not going to believe me because im going to tell you things you dont want to hear, but holley carbs on 12A's are not ideal. And even street ported they arent clicking off any kind of 13 second pass. :scratch:

I built a half bridge with a mild nitrous shot that could deliver low 13's consistently using a holley and it wouldnt have been anything youd like to drive on the street.

And 60-65 jets like above suggested is HUGE for a 12a, especially considering RB uses 49 on stock ports with hogged out air bleeds.

Also, the only "450" holley ever built was a 4160 designed for dual carb applications. It has all the same problems that an RB 465 has and more. Its mech secondary with no secondary pump squirter. Think sterling carb with no acc. pump mods flat spot.

Id recommend an hp390 if youre dead set on a holly, seeing as its ready for any kind of tune youd want with fully exchangeable bleeds EVERYWHERE as well as center hung fuel bowls and billet blocks. It also has the damn secondary pump squirter that you should have in a mech secondary carb.

And if youre worried the 390 will be too small, know this: The 390 cfm 4160 and the 450 cfm 4160 use the same mainbody and boosters. How does one flow 70 more cfm than the other?? It doesnt.

Normally i'd suggest avoiding all of that crap and just buy the RB, but the last 2 I bought from them were junk and ran very poorly in anything but perfect conditions. I wound up totally recurving one because they did a piss-poor job on the primary airbleeds, in addition to the PV circuit being totally unresponsive to tuning. The other had a "factory defect" in the mainbody; a crack in between the low and high speed air bleeds on one barrel, making it run bad all the time.

In my opinion those things never really run "right" because of the how poorly the float levels react in even normal driving. So you can tune it perfect to run on a dyno and make horsepower (like RB), and still have a car that spits and sputters and misses during daily driving. And dont forget the lean condition rotor 1 gets under accel. during drag racing with a holley style 4bbl.

TLDR: "None"

Does anyone here use a 12a Holley from RB without any issues? My kit from RB arrives tomorrow and I was hoping for a reliable daily driver with that carb.

I did 20 years ago. Bought it used, rebuilt it, never had any issues. Seems like a long time ago now. I'll still take my modded Nikki, however.

^ I had an older one way back when I was in high school that besides stripped fuel bowl bolt was pretty good. I never had the problems with that dirty old used one that I had with their new product.

What do you mean by trans slot? Is streetport similar to the stress caused by turboing?

It's an aftermarket pump, though it's similar to the psi as the stock.
Haha, not planning to rev it past 8k yet. I want to treat my engine a little nicer than that. (for now)


I know you're automatically not going to believe me, because I'm going to tell you things you don't want to hear.

But I don't care too much about speed, it's a street car.
Pretty sure streetport is made specifically for the street, otherwise like your thoughts are trailing, I would want to get a 13B bridge port, EFI with turbo.

Primarily I'm looking to go a bit cheap, otherwise I'd probably fully swap to EFI and open up to the possibility of turbo'ing. Everyone tells me turbo on a carburated engine is unrealistic.

Thanks a lot for your advise though, even if it might be directed towards drag-chat. I'm just a daily driver man.

To clarify: by track, I meant autocross track.

I think you helped me a lot with my nikki 4 months ago, I thank you a ton for that. I had a lot of stupid hiccoughs from that. My nikki is good, emission free (woo florida) but not sterling good yet. Plus the guy that ported my engine told me nikki would never be good enough for a 12a streetport. so heavily thinking on a holley (due to cheapness) versus webber, since webbers you can't repair parts, you have to replace the whole carb.

Arcolithe, I'm installing my Holley kit today so I'll let you know how it runs.

What I said about float level control will only be worse for autocross. Thats why the Holley gets a bad rep. Its a "street" carb as delivered from RB with a ton of mods and its not really good at drag/autocross as a race carb.

Like I said, even driving through town and regular cornering caused huge rich/lean conditions and medium to heavy braking caused flooding. I tried everything to make one as drivable or as reliable as a stock nikki, and I wasted thousands chasing it. End the end, I had a pretty nice carb that ran very well. But at what cost? 14 MPG, short life of gaskets (frequent carb rebuilds) very cold blooded, poor low end, very rich idle, needle and seats sticking often, and it just didnt excel anywhere. If I went to the dragstrip I would lean out rotor 1 beating it down the track, and taking it to the local autox meant having the engine practically shut off in hard left corners. And very lean in hard right corners. It was only good for street driving, and it could never hold a candle to a proper nikki in that respect.

I wasnt suggesting EFI, Turbo, or any of that crap. I like carbs, and I love 4bbls. You want cheap? Try http://www.summitracing.com/parts/edl-18049/overview/
Overall better design than the holley, and its cheaper too. With better fuel control.

Also, a "street port" doesnt mean its only for the street. Most track cars run it so they dont have to run the extra weight thats required for a bridgeport.

So if this is a mostly track car, youre heavily hindering real track performance by going holley. Even the Edelbrock I linked wont be great there, but at least youll be able to put up with it on a day to day basis.

Or you could waste countless hours of your own time and all of the thousands to go with it to come to the very same conclusion! If you want a track only car, youre going to need a track only carb. AKA huge 2bbl (with proper float bowl design) optimized for high rpm signal and not much else.

Its your project so good luck and do post your results.

I need to post some videos.
I seem to be the only one who knows how to modify the holleys to work on rotary.
I average 17-18mpgs have econo driven 20.4. I pass delaware emissions so with a cat I'm under 200HC idle and hi idle. My car start and idles smoothly takes hard turns and drives like a normal car.

If you want real help pm me your number. If you live near delaware you can hire me. Some day I'll do a full build write up so everyone understands what I'm doing, how I did it and why it works.

And yes my carbs are far better than racing beat carbs.

Well, I installed the racing beat exhaust and RB holley today and It turns out my my street ported motor is not ported at all. We went ahead and installed the holley anyways and drove her home. The car is running a bit rich cause the RB was tuned for a SP 12a, but it's running pretty good anyways. I guess now, I'll just have port my spare motor and it should run perfect.

lets see some sexy pics. I always love seeing new car parts on a relic

I live in Miami beach, but would love to see some videos man.

Well, I was planning to make it both street and track, hoping that I can just switch out the jets for going track versus going street.

Holley float adjustment.

You need jet extensions and nytrophil floats.
Use a drill press to notch the floats for the extentions but don't drill all the way through the float.
Seal the float with permatex, I use Honda bond hi temp.

Set ur float level so low it won't trickle out of the sight hole.

The higher your float level the higher the chance of it flooding your motor in a turn. If its too low you risk a lean condition but that's not normally the case.

What makes you think it's not ported ?

Just for starters buy a pink pump cam and bolt it to the white cam using the #3 hole. Shave off the pink cam until it is the same max hight of the white cam. Use a #28 long nose shooter. The white cam waste a huge amount of fuel and you lose throttle response. The pink cam #3 hole is perfect low end but is too many CCs over all , that's why you have to shave it down. Use a bench grinder and a steady hand.

You should PM me your number.

Your idle circuit controls the first 3000rpm. Your primaries don't take effect until more air is passing through at higher rpm. Your trans slot on any motor has to be visable under the throttle blade at idle. If you holley is new off the shelf and you adjust idle for 1600rpm or less tgis slot will be covered resulting in a very lean condition as you increase throttle.

After you extend the trans slot the the idle air bleeds need to be tuned. A smaller air bleed will cause you car to get richer as rpms increase. A larger air bleed leaner. A proper sized air bleed will maintain constant a/f ratio.

Mechanical secondaries on a rotary is fun to drive and will use 1 primary pump cam ground to a small size. No need for 2nd pump cam. Rotaries need very little assistance from the accel pump at low rpm to compensate low volosity.

Well, the intake and exhaust ports where stock. that's for sure. The reason I bought a RB carb, was so that I wouldn't have to mess with it. I think once I port the motor, it will run just fine. Runs pretty decent now.

Do you sell Ghost modified Holleys?

Not yet. I haven't been sure of the market so I haven't invested into it.

I'm working on a bridge port carb for a guy right now. Just waiting on his fuel sytem so we can start tuning.
This is my first bridge port tune so I can see how different the carb setup is. I don't think it will change much.

Lol. Well let the messing begin, because I went through the same shit twice each a decade apart. And if its NOT a sp motor, put an 8.5 PV in the fucker and a 49 main jet like RB woulda sold it to you like and be done with it. Its the only difference.

Also, to this self proclaimed holley pro here has absolutely no idea what kind of experience hes doubting. Ive been toying with these things longer than you have even been able to walk. Further, I've been modifying these and selling them commercially since before you even created your account, so don't sit here and offer "real help" to anyone like you just are the authority that gives out properitary knowledge from tuners away.

Either you want to SOUND like you know what youre talking about or you are flat stupid for giving away what people are willing to pay $$$ for.

Either way, if someone in here is going to claim that a modded holley or even non modded holley will be an ideal carb or "cheap" for the autocross youre flat full of shit and need your damned head examined. Or better yet, go try to re-invent the wheel like everyone else seems to and ignore the advice of those who really have the experience and fail at it. Then take it to some tuner and pay them to fix it! Thats 90% of my income, so keep it coming.

Have fun with your "cheap" holley 4bbl auto-x car that gets lapped by stock rx7's.:egrin:

You cant simply change jets and fix the terrible fuel bowl design to give you a consistent fuel level in driving. The bowls face the fenders so even light cornering can uncover the jets and make it stall or sputter. The fix for this isnt cheap at all, as it requires very special float bowls designed just for these types of configurations. And no, im not talking about center hung bowls. Im talking about dual needle bowls made for road racing with oversized seats and anti slosh foam and baffles in place. They cost hundreds just for the parts to make the swap....

Street strip requires two different carbs. If its a serious strip

Vids please!
 

Please do post some vid's and a bit of additional info, even short of a full write-up. I'm rather curious, as I have a RB Holley sitting in my parts bin waiting to be put on my stock-ish DD '83 GSL. I picked it up from a chap on the board here, used, but haven't tossed it onto my baby just as of yet, as my Rx7 is my most reliable car. Other projects tend not to start all the time, but a guy has to get to work more days than not to keep a few cents coming his way in order to afford the toys, afterall.

what's a street strip?
like de-emission or?

at that point it's cheaper to go EFI, you would say?

Well I did build an entire EFI system for my DD 12a stockport using a wrecked GSLSE. Cost me like 320$ total invested including the NEW Rb lower sidedraft mani required to do the swap. I also bought 2 45 DHLA dells for 300 bucks, rebuilt 1 and put it on the track car. Still have the other and will probably get all my money back selling it. Both cheaper than buying ANY damn holley and way better at pretty much anything. MPG, Torque, hp, fuel stability, and ease of tuning.

Not to mention a nice stripped nikki cost 200$ tops and would actually be decent on a roadcourse...

You can not road race a holley 4bbl if it is mounted sideways like the RB manifold requires. If mounted correctly like holley intended, the fuel control would be much better, and the floats would actually lean as designed.

The only holleys ever designed to be run sideways in high g load situations are $$$ and built by "tuning" companies for die hard dual 4bbl guys in vintage race cars like the one I work for. If you think you can afford to have AED make your holley a road race carb, you might as well buy EFI.

Or go to china and give Quick Fuel a call, if you refuse my advice. They build stuff cheaper than we or holley, but its also milled in china and they use "universal" tunes. Meaning your oddball sidemount 4150 flange wouldnt be covered.

Want vids of an AED on a 12a? On a roadcourse? Compared to a friggin holley? Or even RB-modified holleys? It would be obvious right away which is suited for the job. I know technical data and real experience mean nothing to you, so maybe if I put it in the form of a youtube link youll understand...

You really do have no idea what youre talking about here. The "pink" cam was designed to deliver a short burst of a shot for a low vac multi-carb app. Its uncommon to use even for us. Further, it still uses the entire 30cc acc pump at full stroke. In another thread you told a member he needed a 50cc acc pump. Whats the deal here? Now youre saying 30cc is too much?

So you think for someone not too comprehensive with carburated systems, that I should stick with the RE-EGI from the GSLE?

If it really only costs $320, and I'm guessing $50-70 for someone to tune it to a streetport 12A, that would be perfect for me. I don't think I can eyeball problems with a carburater by how it bogs down, or jutters. It's bad enough that I have no idea what the Lean/Rich mixture does (just reading up on guides, I turn it clockwise until it chokes, then half a screw backwards so it breathes nice)

but I can tell the streetport on my nikki is gasping for air. (no top)