After much soul searching and mental anguish, I finally decided on a carburetor for my Barracuda. In spite of the fact that it's a fairly light car and I'm going to be running a manual transmission, fairly steep gears, and a big engine, I decided on a Holley 3310 carburetor. Yep, with vacuum secondaries and a (gasp) choke. So why not a double pumper?
When I first started thinking about a carburetor for my Barracuda, I immediately thought "double pumper." The only question was do I go with a garden variety 4779 (750 cfm) or a more exotic variant, maybe with down-leg booster venturis or a milled choke housing. I decided to ask Holley. I called their tech support number and was promptly told that I needed to forget about a double pumper. With my application, they said, I would be much better off with the 3310 vacuum secondary carb. Hmphh. Maybe they don't realize I'm building a high performance vehicle here. So I decided to sleep on it, which was difficult because the money was really burning a hole in my pocket.
Sometimes when I can't get to sleep I'll read. I decided to read How to Hot Rod Small-Block Mopar Engines by Larry Shepard, one of the premier Mopar gurus. Guess what, he recommends a vacuum secondary carburetor. To paraphrase, a vacuum secondary carb can work very well with a manual transmission. Well, if it's good enough for Holley and good enough for Larry Shepard, I guess a vacuum secondary carburetor is good enough for my Barracuda. The fact that the 3310 is about $165 cheaper than the 4779 doesn't suck either.