[kwopper07]

im starting to build my 350 and im trying to decide on the carb i have a 162 b&m blower.i know blower and milage dont belong in the same sentence but what carb whould be the best.one thing i was thinking of was 3 duces with progressive linkage it whould look cool plus i think get reasonable milage.or am i dreaming? whould one four barrel be better and heres a argument which one? thanks dave

[hduff]

I have a Weiand 142 ready to bolt on a Chevy 350 when I get around to it. The Weiand website has a some good info on their blowers (B&M is essentially the same as Weiand).

The blower on makes boost when under acceleration, so you can get good gas mileage if you resist the urge to use all that power every time you accelerate. The biggest danger is having the carb run lean, leading to predetonation and the end of your blower and engine.

Weiand recommends a "boost referenced" carb and specs which one should be used with their blower. I believe a good carb shop can get the primary power valves boost-referenced on most any carb you want to use. I just purchased what Weiand recommended.

[F-BIRD'88]

A lot of the popular 4 bbl carbs are very suitable for use on the mini blowers
like the B&M 162 with a few modifications. What carbs do you have laying around in the 650cfm to 850cfm range?
A 750 to 850cfm carb is prefered. Holley 3310's are common, cheap and easy to modify and dial in to work with the 162 blower.

A Tri-power carb set up on top of the 162 blower would be cool but would require a custom made carb adapter. B&M used to sell a dual 4bbl adapter to allow dual quads on that blower but it raised the carb's mounting height up quite a bit.

A properly modified and calibrated QJET probably has the most potential for fuel mileage.
A holley or Edelbrock carb can be dialing in to work very well on that blower including reasonable fuel mileage.
The fuel mileage you get out of any carb has more to do with how detailed you are willing to work at dialing it and the ignition spark curve in on your motor.