Here is whats is going on, when i start my motor . it turn over but wilL not keep running on the first few times . i know that because i don't use the choke i have to pump and kinda ride the gas alittle, till the motor warms up.the thing is when it die when its cold it will burb gas threw the carb making it hard to start again, i have to pump it a few times untill it will start , i can feel the headers and not all the pipes are hot at first , if its starting to sound like its hitting on all pistons i will gas it and sometimes it will back fire threw the carb. ok now that its warmed up it will idle but its only showing 5-7 hg on the vac. gage i have the vac gage hooked up to the bottom of the carb base. my hei is hooked up to the vac port on the intake
(EDELBROCK RPM)this is a 454 , i have tryed to look for vac leaks but did not find any at this time. base timming is 16 btdc. this was set with the vac. can. on the hei off . i have a 850 holly that i got used . it was stock as far as i know, my idel scews are out 1 1/2 turns , the motor is used but i haven't had it on the road . i got it from a friend and it did run fine befor
the motor when warmed up will ldel and dose not bog down if i hit the gas it will rev and sound ok
but i was told that it was running rich by friend who came over and said that my tearing eyes were from the motor running rich and at this time i'm running the motor off a 2 gal. tank, because i have the tank off and for safty (fire)this motor will suck down two gal. with in the time i spend getting it to fire up the time i let it sit and idle, start to end time being around 35 mins.i have installed a cam. and had the head worked
on (larger valves)I FEEL THAT I HAVE DONE ALL THAT I CAN DO WITH WHAT I KNOW AND I'M ASKING FOR HELP OF ANYONE , I WILL KEEP TRYING WHAT EVER IT TAKES next step is to pay someone to drop in and let me know whats going on ,seeing that the car is not driveable at this time.i can take it to a shop
:confused:

What is the condition of the carb? Are the jets clean? Floats set too high? I see you are running manifold vacuum to the HEI. Have you tried adjusting the timing to say 10 BTDC with the vacuum line plugged? That is a very low vacuum reading you have. Do you have a performance cam? What do your plugs look like? I guess you don't have a choke which would help your cold starting problems. I know it sucks when it just won't run right.

sounds like a poopy carb!! have never had good luck with used carbs!! are your plugs black and smell of gasoline?? try running the hei vac off of the carb base plate, dose the carb have a choke lever on it?? if not wear a non flamable glove and cover the top throat with your hand (cheap choke) is the hei completely stock or did u try a bigger coil or lighter springs in it?? :confused:

The carb is stock, i the carb part # would help i will get it .i was out in the shop today starting the motor ,one thing i did see was i had the motor runnig and idleing and was tuching the headers tubes and at first there was one on the pass side that was not getting hot so i removed the plug wire and it was getting spark.(i could see it jump) so i cleaned the plug and put itback and it started to get hot , well i let it set started it again and this time one plug on the divers side was not getting hot so i did the same and it got hot, the plugs looked blackened not wet
i do have a bigger cam.the specs are under"VAC READING " i think i posted them in the ENGINE section

also when installing a new carb i set the screws all the way in and back them out 1 full turn and add an additional 1/4 turn till i get the results i want!! if your plugs a black and smelly u r rich if there white u r lean u want a brown look!!or clean newer look!!

I DO HAVE A 50.000 COIL (summit)

also what gas are u using? if its cheap casey`s crap or something u will foul plugs!!! use amaco gold or silver!!! it makes a hell of a differance!!!!!!! :D

Ya the plugs are black ,the thing is that i was told that i should be pmore vac than it is.it jumps in the 5-9hg range but hold steady if i give it gas and bring up the RPMs

those weight kits for the hei`s at autozone help when using bigger cams!! use the middle size a think they aer color coded black is heavy gold is medium and silver is light i think?? it has instructions in kit

well i putting in the low grade stuff,

I think I would pull the front bowl off and see if it has alot of crap in it. Make sure the jets and power valve are clean. Check the floats. You might need to buy a rebuild kit. If you have the paper gaskets, this will be a PITA. Clean and replace with the blue gaskets which comes in a Holley trickit kit. Burn Premium!

try running the idle screw a lil higher till u get a choke or it gets a lil warmer it may help at least in keeping it running!!

cheap gas will screw u every time!!!!! i never run caseys ,shell,or fast stop gas in any of my toys it trashes the plugs and performance!!!! graemlins/angry.gif

that was going to be my next step , i was told to get the timming thing down 1st befor messing with the carb. but i feel that i have done all that i could with the timming.i did get this carb on ebay from a guy who lives a town away.and it looked brand new when i got it but that should make me think .why is he selling ??? oh well

if ur cam isnt to radical try a 750 holley maybe that 850 is to much??? i am the small block guy after all i dont mess with to many bb`s

I got a new carb from my neighbor. It was only on his car for initial break-in so he said. Sat for years, put in on my car and gas poured out the vent tubes. Pulled off both bowls (paper PITA) and found the jets almost completely plugged. PV stuck and floats stuck too. Had to rebuild it.

OH ya i do have a manual choke on the carb, but if i close the choke its hard to start .i have better luck starting it when its open if i gas it with the choke on it burbs gas threw the tunnle and ends up flooding

one more thing robert do you have a good 12 volt supply to the hei??

yes its wired to the battry right now . the car has not seen the road yet so the hoods off and i'm still waiting to get the motor tweeked in
i have the remote starter to work under the hood

Did you set your floats?

I did remove the sight plugs and the gas looked to be up to the hole but was when i first got it.its was backin Oct.

You might want to check it again while it is idleing. Easy to do after you go get some better gas. I would still inspect the carb seeing how you got it used. If it sat for a while you can have problems. Just curious, where are you in IL?

my cam has .549/.558 lift @.050 its a LUNATI. I HAVE 781 HEADS 1.190/1.880 VALVES my C:R is low its what stock is on a 78 454 motor i think it was 8.5, now one thing i did see is there is no incress in RPMs when i turn the idle srews. but if i close them dowm the motor will die , they are at 1 1/2 turns out now

I'm in AURORA IL. west of CHICAGO (35 miles)

Well at least the idle circuit must be doing something however you should set them for the highest vacuum reading.

how is this done?? and the hight vac reading i get is 5-9hg .it stay there untill the screwis allthe way in then it dies??

I know what you mean. You should have a higher vacuum reading and it should be somewhat stable. You said you think the carb is stock. Have you confirmed this? You can check Holley.com for the original jet, power valve and shooter sizes for your carb.

I will go out back and get the carb info. and i will go to HOLLY WEB SITE AND SEE WHAT THEY SAY I SHOULD HAVE now that i think about it. he never did say it was stock i just figured that it was graemlins/clonk.gif .I do feel that its something to do with the carb , i kinda had the same thing last time when i was doing a 78 malibu , but i had a
edelbrock carb that was dumping gas and it got me thinking today on how that carb and this holly where going thew gas , so i went out and got a new 850 holly and the motor ran fine and the gas use went down big time

Cool. I finally read some of your previous posts. Regarding your timing. Make sure you adjust your distributor for about 16 BTDC initial timing with the vacuum line to the HEI plugged at your intake. You can check your total timing later but I would definately not set the timing at 2000 RPM's. You want TOTAL timing to be about 35-38 BTDC in by 3000 RPM's. Also, make sure you have no vacuum leaks. Plug off any other vacuum lines e.g. brake booster, trans modulator, etc. temporarily and see if your vacuum raises.

Right now i'm dealing with a base timming of 16 btdc. the vac line that are not being used are block off..i used a can of carb cleaner the othere
day and sprayed around the base of the carb. and alone the intake and no incress in RPMs,i will run this teat again and make sure i didn't miss anything

I run a 288/296F10 cam it doesn't like anything under 18* initial and 38* total car has no choke horn and it doesn't idle till the temp guage shows 180* and the temp guage is plugged into the heads so it is not actual engine temp just head temp.If you have a nice size cam it is going to idle rich but your vac shouldn't jump around once the engine is warm it should be pretty consistent.When you say it's rich does the exhaust look clean out of the pipes or is there any smoke,blue smoke could mean you have a vacuum leak on the intake to the lifter valley.Good luck! graemlins/waving.gif

Just scrolling through a lot of this for the first time...

Sounds to me like you have to open up the carb and make certain it is to factory specs first. Your car should run at that point, but you'll have a good baseline to start from.

My concern is the power valves in the carb - if you are only pulling 5-7hg of vacuum, you may be below the level of the power valves in the carb, which is what ultimately floods out your car. You could play it safe and get a low rated PV to put in the carb until you get it running well.

Sounds like a carb rebuild is in order to me, particularly to verify/correct the jetting and Power valves.

I'd also put some fresh oil in that motor, given the amount of gas you've indicated has been used.

Worst case, I'm not that far away from you....

OK hear is the deal today, i have two good friends that have carbs thare going to let me bolt them on my one is a new holley 650 they othere is a good running edelbrock. i will stop off and get new plugs first try that then i will try the holley then the edelbrock i should know something tonight,i had already changed the oil last week, YES it did need to be changed it looked like sh@t,wish me luck ;)

Well, good luck then!! graemlins/thumbsup.gif

OK HERE IS THE LOW DOWN, the first thing i did was to change the plugs , kept the 850 holley of mine on . MAN WITH ONE PUMP AND A HIT THE STARTER IT FIRED RIGHT UP!!! AND KEEPED ON RUNNING AND IT WAS COLD graemlins/hurray.gif and it wasn't shaking as bad
i don't no if the cam adds a little wiggle to the motor not crazy shaking but a little , i checked the vac and it was still around 5-7hg, so i put on my buddies 650 holley , and it seamed to want to die at first (vac leak port ) i fixed that
and it ran ok , i felt that it ran better with my 850 so i put back . this time i played with the idle scews on the carb. well this is where i get
:confused: confused.I GOT IT TO PULL 10 HG OF VAC STEADY!!no bouncing from number to number(5-7hg)but the scews are only turned out 1/2 to 3/4
turn out is this ok?? i feel that the carb is still running rich seeing that my eyes were still burning , but i'm working with the door open in a
garge maybe this why???i took out one of the plugs after the test run(about 15mins) and it starting to get dark again i have pics of the plug if anyone would like to see the plug color and put in there two cents
graemlins/thumbsup.gif

You said the motor only has 8.5 comp so if your cam has alot of duration it's going to idle rich even with the garage doors open.You might want to try a little more initial timing just make sure it doesn't raise your total to much.Sounds like your engine needs a little more air with the fuel that's being supplied at idle you might also try opening the secondaries a little a small turn on the screw can add up to alot so don't get carried away,glad you got it running better! graemlins/waving.gif