In Ouray— need Holley Jets please!

[CincoBravo]

I’m in Ouray, CO on vacation. Have a 302 with Holley 470 truck avenger. It came with 55’s and I brought 51’s but am crapping out before 12k feet. Couldn’t get over the mountains today. No part store can get me jets until Wednesday. Looking for a set of 49’s. Can anyone in the area hook me up with some? I’ll gladly pay. Thanks!!

 

[Silver dollar]

Montrose is 35 miles north , there are auto part stores there. If no luck there, grand junction will be 60 miles further noth.
Use your cell phone and call them.

 

[CincoBravo]

Tried Montrose. All the parts stores said it would be a week. Thank you for the reply, however.

 

[ugly74]

You could always punch a hole in a vacuum line.
I made it up/over/through telluride and ouray with 63s in my mdl 1850

 

[mrdrnac]

Or try switching to a PCV valve that flows more air than yours to lean it down. Paul at Wild Horses had one he has used in the past for the same situation. An early 70's Ford Granada PCV valve instead of your stock one. All I can remember for now. If you blow through them you can get an idea of how much air they let through. You want more air..

 

[langester]

Its a ways off from where you are but I am in Cortez, Colorado. I ripped through all my Holleys and nothing close to what you need.
You might try Accurate Engine Machining, they are located here in Cortez. The owners name is Josh, he is into Hot rods, if he doesn't have a set maybe he can point you in the right direction, or maybe he knows someone closer to where you are. His business number is 970-564-1994. Would probably be tomorrow before you get a hold of him.
Good luck Sir!

 

[1sicbronconut]

Overnight them from Jegs or Summit I just looked and Summit has them in stock.

 

[jckkys]

The choke may be the problem. You need to be sure it's always fully open at altitude. The 470 CFM TA has an automatic choke that can cause lots of problems. In fact I keep an extra 480 CFM 4100 just for 6000 ft. and up that I ended up putting a manual choke on because the automatic choke would close over night making cold starts impossible. Holley makes a manual choke conversion that parts stores carry. The 470 CFM TA is not recommended for even small V8s. Holley says it's for 6s only. The weird piece in the metering block that allows operation at more extreme angles, seems to make normal tuning much harder. They come with a 2.5"Hg rated power valve. That's the lowest vacuum opening value Holley makes. Most 4150/4160s come with 6.5"Hg valves that a 2.5"Hg valve could help. You've already reduced the jet size as much as Holley recommends. The factory primary jets are 57s you went down 6 sizes from OE already. I don't think 49s will fix it. Holley calls for 1 size reduction for every 2000ft. higher altitude. The OE accelerator nozzle size is 35. I'd bet 28s would work. The 570 CFM Street Avenger has 31 nozzles. Grand Junction should have both parts and good advise to fix things. Going south could be difficult especially going in and out of Silverton. There's a fun train ride to Durango from Silverton.

 

[Jfryjfry]

Not what you were asking for but I stayed there once in the Wiesbaden hotel and it was a great little place. Amazing underground hot spring cave. Super cool.

 

[LSharpNM]

The 470 CFM TA is not recommended for even small V8s. Holley says it's for 6s only.

470 CFM should be enough airflow to carry a 302 to just shy of 5,400 RPM at 100% volumetric efficiency (which is way high, and probably more like 6,000RPM+ with a more realistic volumetric efficiency). It is certainly on the small side for a 302, but not way under carbureted as you imply. The factory 2100s are only rated at around 300 CFM by comparison.

I do agree though, he has issues other than jets if he can't get above 12,000' at all with the jets already leaned out considerably. I don't have personal experience running Hollys on offroad rigs, but I have had 2100/2150s on several rigs tuned for 4,000' that have no issue running at 10,000'+ without any tuning changes. My only issue being carbureted at high altitudes has been vapor lock, but quality electric fuel pumps solve that issue easily.

 

[DirtDonk]

I don't think he was saying 470 was too small for a 302 in general. Just that the Truck Avenger specifically is not designed to work with one, and that is per Holley themselves.

As soon as the TA came out several years ago most of us were buying the smaller one, based on decades of learning how to not over-carburet an engine. It took about a year before Holley began shouting from the rooftops to basically ignore everything they've been saying for 50 years and buy the larger 670 Truck Avenger for their mild small V8's instead.
I still don't know why this is, but that is direct from Holley.

I know of just a very few people who have been happy with their 470's, but they were not right out of the box either. Had to fiddle with them a lot, and I bet none of them were playing around at such high altitudes either. Or none that I knew of.

So yeah, even with all that I would still be tempted to get the 470 because I'm a "smaller is better" kind of guy when it comes to carburetors.
Maybe someone else knows why this should not be the case with the Holley Truck Avenger series too.

Paul

 

[nvrstuk]

... "cut"... Grand Junction should have both parts and good advise to fix things. Going south could be difficult especially going in and out of Silverton. There's a fun train ride to Durango from Silverton.

Post steal announcement!!
Wow, this post is bringing back all kinds of memories from a 6,000 mile, 6 week Bronco trip with the kids and small tent trailer... I searched everywhere for jets for my Holley on that trip. Didn't buy them where I live because I thought of COURSE they will have jets for all those guys changing jet sizes in CO! nope... finally found some ...


Other memory same trip is meeting Bobby Unser from Indycar fame who gave us directions for a shortcut over Engineers Pass and then we ended up in Gunnison with ANOTHER Ford axle brg going bad and me putting the hubs in and in 4wd so coming off the mountain I could at least have compression braking with the wife and kids and trailer in tow... no brakes with the brake drum out past the brake shoes... this is why I run FF's today!! lol

Swapped out the brg at the local Napa on a Sat morning and the kid behind the counter got his butt chewed because I correctly told him I've used presses for decades and I'll be fine... the owner showed up, after chewing his butt and chatted with me while I finished pressing the brg on... I thanked him profusely!

Thanks for letting me "relive" this memory... : )

 

[jckkys]

The 2100, 2150, and 4100s are far better than Holleys at dealing with altitude. I had no problem driving to the summit of 14,000+ ft. of MT. Evans in a 2150 equipped Bronco calibrated for the 5000 ft. altitude of Denver.
LSharp only has to go to the Holley home page and read what they say about the 470 CFM Truck Avenger. I believe the weird part in the metering body that in fact makes a Holley a Truck Avenger also makes it intolerant of high velocities in the venturis. In any other carb high velocities are advantageous. They help to atomize the fuel droplets. This allows more complete combustion, more MPGs, and less emissions. The Truck Avengers are not a good choice for fuel economy as a result. The calibrations in Truck Avengers are also odd. That's apparently why the 470 TA has a 2.5" Hg power valve when other Holley universal carbs have 6.5" Hg power valves. The accelerator pump nozzles are 35 thousands when the List 3310 750 CFM carb has only 31 thousands pump nozzles.