[DanEC]

I had thought about chunking the fixed float bowls on these 1850 carbs with their non-external adjustment float bowls but I've gotten enough practice removing these things now and dry adjusting the floats that I don't know if there is anything to be gained from doing so. Interesting to note that the Holley specs for dry adjustment are pretty specific and result in a higher primary bowl than the secondary bowl. The theory being that braking and slight forward tilt of the carb contribute to the secondary bowl flooding the carb under hard braking unless the secondary side is a little lower.

They don't go into this on the wet bowl - external adjustment instructions. They basically call for a float setting that results in a slight trickle when the side plug is removed. Unless the primary and secondary bowls have the side plugs at slightly different levels, the fuel settings would seem to end up being the same by this approach. Of course none of this takes into account our 400 to 600 HP motors in 2600 lb cars that probably accelerate nearly as hard as they stop. I guess that's when you need to turn to the baffle and extension accessories.

And then if you run the Ford dual quad intake on your FE, the carbs are backwards - which is something further to re-think. I finally ended up setting my primary floats about 1/32 lower than Holley's instructions and raised the secondary floats up to match so they are basically equal. This is basically a street car so I'm not concerned with trying to get the last tenth out of it. I'll run it like this unless I start encountering some plug, flooding or fouling issues.

And by the way - don't waste time on Holley's support service. I sent them too questions (how to stop fuel percolation out of the accelerator pump circuit and should I reverse float settings on backwards mounted carbs) and there responses indicated a knowledge of carb theory and practices that's no higher than mine - "don't go lower than the recommended float levels", "if your carburetors are mounted backwards I guess you might try reversing float levels" and "Sounds like your fuel is boiling - you may need to use non-ethanol fuel or insulate your fuel line". They are pretty much a waste of effort.