Backfire out the carb when cold is cause of leaness,wait till it warms up before beating on it grin
I'm no big fan of the Edelbrocks, but they are pretty much a copy of the Carter AFB,which is an ok carb when used on the applications it's designed for..
Q jets are ok too, but they suffer from a rich idle sometimes.The small primaries have ya dipping into the secondaires whenever ya need some power. Guys like the big surge of power that comes from opening the secondaries,but that's just a bog,the power should build smoothly and evenly without any "surge"