MORE PROBLEMS WITH MY NEW HOLLEY SETUP

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

A few things come immediately to mind: First off, do you have a check valve installed in the carb to prevent power valve damage from backfires? If not, I would check for a bad power valve. I would also check for a header leak or a bad AIR system. If you disconnected the AIR injection system, did you plug the openings to the check valves on the exhaust manifolds? If not, it will do what you describe. Also, is your power brake booster leaking vacuum? This can be a big source of vacuum leaks if not working properly. Same thing goes for the whole vacuum tubing and hoses setup leading from the back of the carb's baseplate to the booster. It may be dead rich because you overcompensated for a vacuum leak with the idle mixture screws. Another thing to check would be proper operation of the accelerator pump. take the air filter off and with the engine OFF, look down the throat at the accelerator pump squirter and pump the throttle. It should squirt fuel. If not, you may have a ruptured accelerator pump diaphragm (located below the primary bowl on the driver's side of the carb) or a improperly installed pump arm. It is very easy to put the float bowl on and let the arm fall down so that it does not contact the cam and lever. I would also verify operation of the advance mechanism by grasping the rotor and seeing if it turns and springs back. If not, it may be seized and will cause similar problems.

 

[redneckracer305]

the holley is not on the car at this time. took it off cause i was worried about the power valve and other components being thrashed by the poorly operating engine. one of the first things i checked was the advance and it seems to be working great. the coil helped very mildy.the cap and rotor did not look all to bad but the overall condition of the distributur is unknown as i am unsure of where it came from, i forget where we got, i just found it in the parts stash.im going to go ahead replace the plugs and wires to night with new ones cause they look like hell anyway, yellow accels turned grimy black.as far as vaccum and other assorted stuff its as good as i can make it right now with no leaks.there are no leaks just routed ugly. the whole engine setup goes like this, no smog pump, no egr, long tube headers(no leaks),no cats, 2 1/2 inch pipes into glass packs, and basically its stripped down with very little factory stuff, well very little anything at all it in engine compartment other than the necessaties. i really dont think this is the cause but it came to mind, i dimpled the drivers side pipe a little to clear the crossmember, that wouldnt cause to miuch back pressure would it?

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

I would not worry about the dimple. I had smashed a set of headers almost flat and had no problem like you described. Did you change the intake manifold before the problem started? If so, did you use RTV on the intake ports? If you did, it has probably disintegrated and is causing a massive under manifold vacuum leak. Even if not, did it run well before you swapped the intake manifold? If the problem started immediately following the manifold swap, I would replace the manifold gasket and sand the mating surfaces smooth with a sanding block and 180-220 grit sand paper before installation. Also, don't use the end seals that come with the gasket set. Use a heavy dose of RTV in place of them. This will seal much better as the rubber seals tend to squish out when tightened. It's hard to diagnose this sort of thing without actually seeing the car and knowing what was done immediately before the problem started.

Oh, and one more thing: What kind of distributor is it? HEI? Points?

 

[redneckracer305]

the problem actually started before the intake install. i had a wieand stealth on it, and my first though was vaccum leak at thmanifold,so i figure why not get a brand new manifold a carb, since it was all comin off anyway, but it doesnt seem to be the problem. i used rtv around the ends, and torqued the bolts in the correct sequence to 25psi. going out to do ignition now.

 

[redneckracer305]

alright got her running, found the ignition system to be the culprit, couple wire were burn on th headers, couldnt see it at night though. so now i got a new accel hei distributor, new accel header plugs, and wires, runs like a champ, better than ever. im sure it will run even stronger once the ignition is tuned properly and the holley is actual on there and tuned properly.