Ted- I sent my original q-jet to a very reputable place to have my carb restored. The guy is a very well known 1st generation Camaro appraiser and author of a few definitive Camaro books. He knows the importance of originality, part numbers, date codes, proper finishes, etc. Anyhow, since my q-jet was original to the car, I took many pictures of it for documentation before it was sent out. When I got it back, it looked nice, but a lot of the parts on it (linkage & hardware) were not my parts. They had different part numbers on them. I wanted MY carb restored and what I got back was my body with a bunch of other people's parts. I was told that this was normal practice - they send out a bunch of parts for plating and use whatever they want to put the carb back together. They were able to find some of my original parts, but not all of them. Also, that distinctive green color on the cross-shaft was gone. Even though my shaft was in nice shape, apparently it was stripped & replated (or my nice original green shaft is on a high$$ restored car somewhere). So, I'm stuck with a molested carb. It can be spotted a mile away by any true Camaro aficionado. To make me feel better, I received a letter from this person stating that the work done on my carb would not result in any points deduction if my car were to be shown at a national level. Great - I would rather have my original parts back. I would have been better off leaving it alone.
Sorry for the rant, but people really need to know what they're getting themselves into, even if having "the" man restore their parts.