I have a Q-650 DP on a 350 with a SY-1 intake. Been having a surge problem since I replaced my old intake and Q-jet. Went through the ignition and checked for vac leaks. No joy.
Read a thread on the QF having alignment problems since they are made with different parts. Proform main body, QF metering plates and I think a QF base plate. Long story short, I took the carb apart and found the base plate and main body have no dowels to align the two pieces.
I guess I will make my own dowls and see how it runs. I aligned as good as I could and it improved the surge/miss as I think the power valve passage/port was misaligned and not getting vacume.
So I will work this out and also call QF on Monday and see if they have dowls so I can be more sure of the alignment and I will also take it apart and put greasebetween the base and main to see how all the passages line up.
Hope somebody else can use this info as well.
If anybody has other comments or advice please post.

I don't recall Holleys having dowels from base plate to main body either. What is the SY-1 intake? The cross ram one?

No dowl pins! That seems very odd as I could move the base plate around quite a bit. I could have made the butterflies hit the plate if I had pushed it to an extreme. I eye balled it as best I could and lined up the main venturies with the base plate holes.
There seemed to be some unused holes in both the base and main body. I will continue to research and figure out how to align these two parts and keep them alligned.
The SY1 is an edelbrock intake designed by Smokey Yunich. It is a single 4 barrel crossram made for trans am racing back in the 70s and was reported to make great mid range power. I wanted to try it on the street. I think I can do it and have made improvements on the drivability. It is a great looking intake and is quite the conversation piece. The latest engine masters magazine has one in an article. They only show how to repair it and get back in good condition. I have already e-mailed them to use this intake on an engine in an upcoming issue.

Looked up a few magazine articles and also talked to Quick fuel.
I am going to put locating pins on the side holes of the base plate. They were in a picture in a magazine article. I think they are necessary to locate the gasket and the main body to the base plate. It justs makes sense.
Although the proform main body can be mounted in either direction, I am going to put the proform name/logo on the pass side as it would have come from the Quick fuel or as the instructions said in one article I read. Mine is the other way round. I will transfer everything over that is on the main body. Everything else will stay in the same location relative to the engine.
So for a deal I got on this Q-650 DP, It was tore apart, put together with different jets(not a problem) main body on backwards(shouldn't be a problem) and base plate and main body not aligned very well. Hopefully this will take care of my surging problems.

You need to get one of Smokey's books on tuning for the "Smokey Ram".

It likes real big carbs, big accellerator pump shots, and stagger jetting according to one article I have that was written by Smokey.

He recommends an 850 double pumper for a 355ci small block, with dual 50cc accelerator pumps.

My SY-1 has the mixture distribution fixes in it. Some say they are needed others say no.
I can see the design wanting a large accel shot but I don't see a reason for the 830 CFM. It wont use all that CFM from idle to say 5k rpm.
I have the edelbrock instructions and schematics for the mixture mods.
There is a small paragraph stating that a 650 can be made to work for a street application, but that is about all. I am thinking the 650 will have a better signal for better low rpm operation. It also says to use a 30cc pump on the primary side and a 50 cc pump on the sec side, so I think my 30cc pump with the black cam is adequate for my application.
I'll keep working on it and post any break throughs.
Thanks for the comments.

Well. Took the carb apart and got some alignment pins for it. Cleaned and blew it out really good.
Ok. main body could only go on one way(the way it was) because the power valve vacume passage is only on one side and the blow out protecter is also on one side. I did switch the metering blocks. So now that surge was almost eliminated but it is still barely there.
I put on new metering to main body gaskets and a new main to base plate gasket. Everything matched up and after I put it back together and started it it idled from the get go and idled good. I suspect something is wrong with the metering blocks. One is worse than the other. Now I know why it was for sell.
SO I have heard of problems with Quick fuel blocks and I think I have a pair. Now it is up to quick fuel. I will see if quick fuel will take a look at it and see if they can fix the problems.
If not I am glad I kept all of my Q-jet parts and my 800 cfm Q-jet.

Unless you find something obviously wrong with the carb, I'd swap off that intake for something modern and workable. Ebay the hell out of it and you can probably get a good dual, single and a tunnel ram from the proceeds.

If you're doing this for the sake conquering, well, good luck.

Well the last thing I could try was to put my old Qjet back on. WOW. It runs great. I had modified and tuned my qjet with my last intake and had it running really well. I took the qjet apart cleaned it and put new gaskets and an accel pump on it. After it got fuel and fired up, it immediatly idled and responded to throttle input. A small idle speed adjustment and adjusting the idle screws and that was it.
That manifold (SY1) is very streetable. It is easy to take off from a light and is very responsive to throttle input. I will spend a little more time fine tuning and reading plugs but it is great as is.
Don't know why the quick fuel Q-650 wouldn't work. Guess I will sell it along with al the jets and accel cams, power valves, fuel line and the throttle bracket I bought for it.
Maybe a real Holley would work but for now,
ALL HALE THE QUADRAJET.