Here is copy of a letter sent to Holley from a customer (not mine ) who had a fire after installing his Avenger. Who's fault do you think it is on this one?
My truck caught fire My letter to Holley
06/14/03 11:24 AM Edit Reply
I have a Holley truck avenger that is installed on a suburban with a 388 stroker dart heads 230 solid roller cam.With an edelbrock carb this truck through the turbo 400 and transfer case and the big 14 bolt rear put out 365 hp 350 tq to the wheels.That was with jetting it in my Driveway and making a small timing change on the dyno.Unfortanittly that carb would not run on hills.
Well the truck avenger has been a chore.Mind you I understand a carb needs to be tuned to each individuall engine.And I dont mind doing that.It took me one day to get the mixture screw responsive.Basiccly rich but carb on and off numerous times to check primarys not open to far,and adjust secondaries to compensate.
Secondary needle and seat pluged up from the factory.I had to take it apart and reasemmble it for fuel to flow though it.
Main jetting was not bad but to get the main jetting correct and have a smoothe pull through the power valve was time consumming to say the least.Probablly 10 small jet/powervalve changes to make that work the way I wanted
The secondary spring setup is another pain.They either open to quick But if you slow them down they dont open enough.I planed on fabbing up an adjustable arm betwwen the primary and secondary.(Does Holley offer such a piece)But Figured I should check the secondery jetting First.
So I started on that today.Pulled it apart 3 times.
Well the last time aparentlly one of the CHEAP rubber gaskets for the tube between the primary and secondarie bowls must not of seated proberlly.I gave them a quick look and seemed to be in thier normal position.I guess I did not look close enough.So I fired it up
You guessed it Correct.Fuel pissed out everywhere.. Fire .I am not happy.The Hood was open I shut it right down ran to the garage and was able to put it out on the 3rd bucket of water.
I am glad this is an old truck and not one of my firebirds.
Basic fire damage:Wires ,Cap all the wiring on the firewall , dist, ect.all the vacumm lines,Of course their is melted plastic all over the carb.That needs to come totally apart.It could have been much worse If I was going down the road the truck would be gone,Not to mention my sons quad in the back.How do you explain that to a 10 year old that thier is no money in these tough economic times to replace it.
My [censored] with your product is that with all the fine tuning required with this carb .And the amount of times it needs to come apart to do that you would use quality parts.Mind you this carb cost 389 dollars.All it is is a 4150 with some sort of metering block change and a cross over vent.
The fuel cross over bettween the primary and secondaries is a pain to work with gets stuck the gasket slid over the end of the tube to easily.Basic Junk
I will be changing the float bowls to ones that except a n fittings and running my own line
It sure would be nice if you were to supply those bowls with a fuel line for me.
I would be happy to send you a picture of the mess I have
It seems to me that this carb is very unresponsive to jetting changes.Nothing like my old 4150.
Again it seems to me that this carb is an overpriced 4150 that I can not recomend to anyone unless it proves itself offroad and will run while the truck is standing straight up and down.
I will be posting this letter on Several internet sights I frequent

[ June 14, 2003, 01:44 PM: Message edited by: Hotcrusader76 ]