I have a feeling that you may have been "fiddling" with the carb without understanding what you were doing. The good thing about Holleys is they are easy to tune. The bad thing about Holleys is everyone thinks they can tune one. If you take it one step at a time, they are extremely simple, but they do require that you know what you're doing. That goes for ANY carb I've ever worked on, from Holleys to Carters to Edelbrocks to Mikunis to Keheins. Carbs are carbs, and some guys are better off leaving the tools in the box.
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I can tell you what I hate about Holley's. Metering blocks are cast out of pot metal and if you happen to get one with some porosity you can tune on them all day long and never get them right. Nothing worse than following procedures by the book and getting unpredictable results. My favorite is a Demon carb. Billet metering blocks and use Holley replacement parts so the best of both worlds in my opinion. I was able to get rid of the anti dieseling solenoid on my 351C simply by switching to the Demon.
While this post has strayed a bit (Ok, a LOT) I honestly believe that ANY carb in good working order can be adjusted to do pretty much whatever you need it to do. For instance, your claim that you don't know anyone who has a streetable Holley is far too general a statement. What part of the RPM range was the problem in? You as the tuner need to be able to identify the problem area and adjust it accordingly. For instance, is the car lazy or bogging off idle? Then you need to adjust the accel pump parts. The accel pump cam can be adjusted or replaced with one that fits your needs. The accel pump arm linkage can be adjusted for either abit more of a shot, or a bit less. The accel pump housing itself can be replaced with a larger one. Then there are squirter nozzles which have more choices than you can imagine, all to tailor the accel pump quantity and length to do what you need to do. Next is the main jet, again more sizes here than you can swap out in a year of trying. Float height and in some carbs, adjustable air bleeds can all be tuned to do exactly what you want on a Holley, and if that's not enough there are aftermarket parts and all this stuff is available at any decent parts house or from online or phone suppliers like Summit. This is not intended as a judgement, but I get the feeling that you are kind of fumbling with the carb more than you are actually tuning it. I've tuned everything from sand drag quads with nitrous to blown street motors to sport bikes to circle trackers to motocrossers and one thing is for sure, once you understand what the motor is telling you, it's easy. Otherwise your just swapping parts on a poke and a hope. But all this is irrelavent really, because for mild street motors I have never done anything other than bolt the carb on out of the box, set the idle mixture screws and close the hood. Holleys simply haven't needed anything more for excellent street driveablity.Well I can somewhat agree with what your saying. A carb is a carb. We did follow the directions for the Holley and got unsatisfactory results. My Dad who has worked on cars for about 40 years or so doesn't like Holley either. I know a lot of guys that don't care for them. Its all about preference some like certain brands and some dont.
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