My 71 has a '69 350 boared over and a '69 quadrajet carb on it. All indications are that the motor and carb possibly came out of a Corvette. The carb is leaking a bit and pretty dirty looking. I will be dressing up the engine this coming spring. New paint, valve covers and general wire cleanup. Should I rebuild my carb or buy something different. I can't afford too much but would like to pep up the 350 without going broke and thought a carb would be a good way to go. I need to buy a pair of new exhaust manifolds since mine are rusting and look pretty bad. I am also wanting to possibly put headers on it. What are some suggestions from the group as to what would be nice and affordable. Thanks.
Car can be seen on my profile or at http://www.graphichome.com/camaro

If you want bang for the buck youd be better to keep that carb for a while give it a good performance tune up timing and all, put some money in exaust headers or intake if you just want to bolt on a little performance if you still have some cash maybe a cam? Do you know what heads you have, if factory do you know what casting #? Is the motor in good running condition you plan on keeping this motor a while?
Man thats a beutiful car wish mine looked that good!

I do not know what heads they are. The engine has been rebuild and decked. I assume the heads were replaced at that point but the only way to find out is to tear it apart. It runs very nicely so I don't want to screw with it very much.

Not much disassembly to find out,, pull the rocker cover and the casting number is easily visible. There are casting identifiers on the front of the heads (camel humps, right angle block, etc) but even with that, the casting number is the best identifier of what you have.

The Q-jet is a good carb in the hands of someone who knows WTF they are doing with one. I know of only a handfull of people on the planet who qualify in that term. Our own member 'Damon' probably being the top of that list IMO.

Most 4" bore blocks have been brought to life numerous times since the original configuration. Especially with this one being decked you have lost the engine coding stamped into the block. So what you have for internals could be absolutely anything.

Your first step to generating more power would be to identify (as best you can) what internals you have, more specifically compression. You can fish aournd through a spark plug hole and usually 'feel' if it has flat tops, domes, or dished pistons. Then with the head casting number, an educated guess of how much it was decked, the piston configuration you could come up with an approximate comression. THEN you could select a cam, intake and convertor to wake things up.