I am currently building a 350 out of a 98 truck for it but don't quite have the funds to finish it the way I want to. (but just ordered my aluminum heads!) So I thought I may as well get the engine "patched up" to the point I can reliably drive it again. As I have done almost the complete drive line except the engine I knew it was a matter of time. The old Q-Jet was completly warn out and the valve covers were leaking like crazy. I also had allot of small vacuum leaks from the emissions equipment that was half there, half hooked up and half not, nothing to serious wrong mechanically with things just needed some TLC.
I found a used Edelbrock performer intake with a 650cfm performer carb w-electric choke, $100 for the pair. The guy that wanted to get rid of them didn't like how they looked on his truck "cuz they were dirty" hmmm was he lying? I thought why not, lets roll the dice, visibly they looked ok. He had them all wrapped up and in the original boxes, I thought that is a good sign that he takes care of things at least. I might end up having to rebuild the carb but compared to the Q-jet that was on there it should be pretty easy to be an improvement regardless. the old Q-Jet's pivoting pins for the butterflies were so warn they would open maybe 10% of the time.