Without bashing Holley I can speak from experience and say that Holleys are better for racing and Edelbrocks are better street carbs. For whatever reason the 390 Holley is harder to deal with than any of the other Holley 4150 or 4160 series carbs.
A 500 Edelbrock is not too big unless you are in the habit of driving around all day with your foot to the floor. It is all in how you feed it to the engine. The primary side of these carbs flows around 175-180 cfm which is not far off what a good sized Roch monojet flows. When set up correctly the secondary side should not cause a bog.
If you are having problems with the 500 Edelbrock take the time to read and understand the manual that comes with the carb. They can be easily set up to run on anything from a stock 230 to a modified 292. I've even run one on a 200 inch V6 Chevy that was all stock and it worked well. I am in the process of putting together a tech article for the 12PN based on dozens of Edlebrock installations over many years.
It picks up where the booklet leaves off and is specific for our inlines.
