Should YOU try an Ebay Chinese knockoff Holley carburetor?

If you're a carb guy like us, or even just getting into carburetors, you know you've seen these carbs. They look like Holley 4150 4bbl carburetors. They're marketed (deceptively) under Quickfuel and Holley part numbers, and they're *CHEAP*. Are they the same? What's the difference? Are they good carburetors? What could go wrong?

Part 1 of 2. Tune in and find out!

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We do EFI swaps, carburetors, and all kinds of performance upgrades on domestic cars and trucks. We occasionally offer our opinions on performance parts, and we love to share our cool projects with the world.

We made a video about our dual feel fuel line that fits Holley carbs here. Simplify your carb life!

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[captjim]

I bought 2 of the Chinese 600 vac secondarys and they both worked fine

[gaspuppygarage]

You just told everyone your thoughts based on what you see without even putting the carburetor on an engine and running it. Your use of the term "modern carburetor " is funny! Carburetor's are far from ground breaking tech! Holley patents ran out long ago so is China really stealing the design? From a tinkering standpoint your correct in probably every way. Did they use the swaging process on the screws for the throttle plates instead of locktight?

[x]

It's all yakkety yak until you run an A-B test on a real car at the track. Otherwise, it's bench racing.

[TTNOVASS]

I've tuned several Chinese knock off carbs 4150's and
$150 Quadrajets for customers, they work amazingly well once tuned for the application, they say they're good for 350 ci to 454 ci lol, so calibration/tuning is in order .

[Rick-iu]

I've used the Chinese Weber IDFs both in 40mm and 44mm and they work just fine.

[helieasy]

I bought chinese Weber IDF carbs back when they came out. I wasted untold amounts of time trying to get them to run right. Found similar problems. The worst tho was that I found metal chips and burrs in the passageways. Also found they were not even the same design inside so I suspect most of my problem were the standard jet sizes were not working cause the hole and passage sizes were different. Making air jets work different.I spent weeks on the carbs trying to get them to work. Finally I gave them away and got authentic Italian made ones. Those tuned perfect in 10 minutes and ran perfect for years. I WILL NEVER GO CHEAP ON CARBS AGAIN. NOT WORTH IT!!

[showroomhobbies]

Hmmm glad to see it go onto an engine and tested….

[ford-speed]

Thats some pretty good and sound advice. Thanks.

[loundclear]

Funny LOL I have used these knock off carbs on the engine dyno and I will say between a us carb or holley These knock offs arent too far behind holley.

That being said as far as power production the holley was really easy to tune and get right.

The knock offs are a burden in tunning and wont support more than 500 crank hp we tried it. None of the holley jets will cross to the knock off. But a drill bit and some time will get you close, The holley we used on a cam 6.2 and 630 lift cam, Crank and idled no problem small adujustment on the idle screw and fuel pressure. The knock was hell wouldent hold fuel pressure and leak internal on the back circut.

[frankh]

in South Africa, the term " knock off", is seldom used or even understood. The local term is " fong kong", all races seem to understand that means, cheap quality, pirate knock

[LabsGarage]

I’ve used the Chinese 2 barrel motorcraft knockoff, had great luck with them

[djrowe]

I have been building carbs and V8 engines since 1995 for a marine engine shop in my home town of Cleveland Ohio for Lake Erie great lakes out boarding. I saw the ebay knock offs start up around 2018 and looked at one during covid when getting after market stuff was at a stand still and can say these have a long way to go to be overall suitable for long term use. What I can say is that because the parts are not a match to holley you cannot just put on holley carb parts to fix or upgrade it and would have to buy another complete chinese copy unit for those parts needed. What is even crazier is they started selling at $99 and now are at $300 on average for same carb as 5 years ago. It would be better to just get a holley core to rebuild which is so easy to do even a 10 year old can do it. It is sad Holley and others let china take over production to save money and they have no such thing as "patents" in China's CCP government or businesses and reason chinese knock offs have been a thing since the 1970s in which our government mandated all chinese products have a "made in China" imprint or tag so as not to fool buyers.

[johnsartelle]

I'm looking forward to one of these being brought in on a tilt bed.😂

[ClaremontClassicGarage]

The Land of Almost Fits strikes again.

[OwhyeeVdub]

I have a knockoff 44IDF off Amazon for 70.00 bucks. And I'll put it up against any weber idf or empi hpmx.

[fastchevys]

no one will do a dyno test of Holley vs China 4150 carb - There is a reason for that i guess

[rotaxtwin]

I didnt know there were chinese knockoffs of a standard Holley 4 bbl but i guess i shouldnt be surprised. I knew there were Weber clones and I've heard folks swear by them and folks swear at 'em. Even in the comments here the sentiment is the same.

As you say, for someone learning the ropes these sound like bad news and the appeal will be significant at almost half price.

When you look at all the precision machining and quality control that needs to happen for a carb to work well & consistently... most likely it's just not there.

[JG-kvoi]

Its a "carburetor shaped object"

[PatLong-vg]

Hope that your employer doesn't find a way to outsource your job to China. China cares less about intellectual property laws or dumping products below the cost of production.

[anthonypaules]

I just put one on a vortec 350 with a mid mild cam, working great at wide open, even great at cruise, but i cant get rid of the stumble when i stab it hard. Oh well, they got me, time for a real Holley.