Its taking my car a fair bit to start at times. In the morning I let it idle for about 4 minutes, once I get driving it stalls out. Once it warms up it runs just fine. Today I had it out. Drove it for about 30 minutes. Got gas, got back into the car and it starts great, even better then new cars. Drove it again stopped for about 20 minutes went to go start it and it wouldn't go. Cranked it a number of times and it finally turned over, go to put it in reverse and it stalled out. Drove it home and parked it.
Thanks. Good point. The choke was a little sticky when I had it put on but my mechanic thought it would be ok. He also thinks it could be the fuel line and that I should wrap it in tin foil around it to see if that helps. Strange thing is I can drive it for an hour and shut it off and its fine if I start it within 5 minutes. Anything after it take a while to start.
E10 evaporates very quickly with heat. Anything that heats the intake manifold up makes it worse. The exhaust crossover puts a lot of heat into the manifold under the carburetor. You can block the crossover and the intake will stay cooler. The choke won’t work correctly though.
I think it was blocked. Two holes in the manifold correct? Maybe that's causing the choke to mess up.
Two holes in each HEAD. You block them with small cup plugs. The crossover heats the choke thermostatic coil. When you block that off, the choke will engage but not come off. Just disconnect the choke. Makes the engine cold blooded, but I never needed a choke with my jetted Q-jet.
What engine are we talking about. All would ASSUME you own a '66 Skylark. Would help to know EXACTLY what you have rather than ASSUME. Could be a V-6 (original ??), 300 V-8 (original??) or a "Nail". Or any combination of available variables.
What carb? The original uses a hot air tube (looks like a brake line) to supply hot air to the choke. In your post #3, the guy is talking about vapor lock. That's when the fuel in the fuel line vaporizes. Proper float level is important too. Too low and there isn't enough gas for starting. Too high and it could flood when it's parked.
Edelbrock 1406. I'm going to take it out later today and see how it runs again. Like I said before it doesn't always not start. I noticed it when it sat for about 5 minutes after I had take. It out for a drive.
Took it out. Started just fine. Drove it for about 45 minutes. Got home turned it off and a minute later started it again. It turned right over. Waited 20 minutes after that and it wasn't as bad as yesterday but it still took a couple times of me turning the to get it started. Wife said she saw a bit of black smoke come out as it was finally starting.
Do you have an electric choke on that Edelbrock? Wonder if you are flooding it. When you stop it and park it, look in the carb and see if there's gas coming out. Sometimes the gas perculates from the heat and floods it. Are you pumping the gas pedal when you try to start it? Maybe push it to the floor and crank with pedal to floor= more air, less gas. Since this is a new carb setup for you, maybe you just need to find what it likes. And check your plugs, maybe they are fouled. Makes it difficult to start if they get wet.
Yes it has an electric choke. I wonder if it is flooding itself. As I said before, it cranks over great when it's sat over night and cranks great a few minutes after it's ran. I normally in the morning or when it's sat for a while pump the pedal twice. I'll try it with the pedal to the floor.
That Edelbrock carburetor needs to be tuned just like every aftermarket carburetor sold. It has generic jetting that will work for just about anything you bolt it to, but it is far from perfect. It's probably fat because that is much better than lean.
Tried it again after it sat for about 45. Turned it over hesitated. So I put the pedal to the floor and it fired up pretty quicker. Scared me a bit when it fired up and I think the entire neighbourhood heard it lol.
I've bought an advanced curve kit for it so I will probably have my mechanic install that and tune the carb.
I know blackmagic chokes are supposed to be a convenience but it never seemed to work out that way for me. My "go-to" is a manual choke conversion. But you have to learn how to use it properly. If you do, you'll never go back. (Except of course that all my personal cars are now injected and have no choke, just a cold enrichment function.) In order to work perfectly it has to be set up perfectly. And that means providing the correct enrichment under all conditions. Even then you have to use the right starting procedure or it is for naught. Many people have no idea that includes correct usage of the gas pedal before and during start. For something that looks so simple it is way more complex than you would think. To start with, it seems the temp curve of the choke as often as not does not even come close to matching the engine requirements. Which means you can have it right at one spot and one spot only. Everywhere else it will be either too rich or too lean. Interestingly, the Japanese seem way better at this than we are for some reason. We could learn from them. To properly set one up you really should have a wideband O2 sensor. Maybe one with a tailpipe sniffer. But the problem is the coiled bi-metallic. I don't know if somehow they age and go out of calibration, if they are all different and the first time it is replaced it is forever afterwards hosed, or what, but by the time these cars were a couple years old they were done, and a new part never seemed to help. And the electric units? Please! A one size fits all approach might have worked right on one car at one time. For the rest it's junk. These coils are not rated in any way for a temp vs motion curve so finding the right one is just impossible. Hence the manual choke. You learn how to set it and how to use it and then all you have to worry about is remembering to push it in. I suppose there would be a way to hook up an indicator light to it. Jim
I am with ya on the choke system in the days of points and chokes the choke had to work with out stalling and flooding at the same time. I used to play with that system so it could be as perfect as possible. It had to be spot on when it was 10 degrees out and you still had points, as we know they weren't always set at optimum.
