As the title states, have a 4 bbl manifold for my 1950 olds 303, just lacking the carb. I’ve heard things about aftermarket carbs and the linkage for the hydramatic, so if anyone has pointers or suggestions I’m open to them! Thanks!
Stock. Carter or Rochester. I use 2 1953 Oldsmobile Carters and have Rochesters as backup off 1953 Cadillac’s. I bought and use them because the cubic inch and compression ratio is really close to my engine.
What manifold did you get? IIRC, I don’t believe that a 4 bbl was offered until 1951. The early intake manifolds (‘51-53?) take the carbs with the square bolt pattern like the carbs Jimmy Six posted, but a little later they went to a rectangular bolt pattern. My 1954 324 has the rectangular base Rochester 4 Jet. There are square pattern carbs available from Carter (the WCFB) and also from Rochester (the 4GC or 4 jet). Those same companies also made them with the rectangular bolt pattern. There are adapters available to use the rectangular pattern carb on the square pattern manifold if that’s the one you have. Pictures would help.
My 1953 303 inch Olds square pattern Carter WCFB’s are 2080S. The fuel enters at the front. There is one company on the internet showing 4 different Carter numbers for 52-3 Oldsmobiles. They state they all inter change. The 1953 331 Cadillac Rochesters or Carters fuel enters at the rear. The Cadillac and Olds have the same side linkage. I have read Rochesters were replacement for the Carters on Cadillacs but I have had better luck with the Carters. My Carters have a bracket screwed on to work on my Ford Y-block linkage.
As others have stated, we need to know which manifold you have, and its carburetor mounting footprint. This link might help: https://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Four_barrel_mounting_flanges.htm Here is a list of original carburetors for Oldsmobile in that period: https://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Koldsmobile2.htm And unless you have significantly modified the engine, one of the stock carbs would be best. Once correctly calibrated (if you do have mods) and rebuilt, there is no functional difference in the Rochester or Carter for the same year. If you have no mods, stock should work fine. 60 years ago, when the Carter Competition Department was functioning, it was easier to recalibrate the Carters, because Carter had a lot of calibration parts, and an engineer you could call. Now, Carter WCFB or Rochester 4-GC calibration parts are pretty much mail order only. The grumpy old hillbilly in Missouri might be able to help. Jon
The stock carbs are pretty good on a Olds, to be honest. I wanted to run something a bit more modern with some more aftermarket support and parts availability due to how much I drive, and I had a pretty new Holley sitting on my shelf, so I wound up using that. It's a basic Holley 600 cfm vacuum secondary single inlet. I had to get a little creative to make it work with the transmission and the mouse-trap throttle linkage, but it wasn't too bad. I'm running a Jetaway but I'm sure the early Hydramatic is very similar, especially since they used both in 56. Obviously you'll need an adapter from square bore to spread bore, and then you'll need to find a place to mount the TV linkage and bell crank. I did a write-up on here with how I attacked the problem. I have over 10,000 miles on this setup without any issues. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/tech-holley-with-a-jetaway-hydramatic.1199718/
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