Trouble

RamAirGAGT · September 22, 2004

I just found this forum, and I'm sure everyone will be nice and helpful. Here it goes. To be more exact, my 78 Chevy has been stalling or dying when I goose the gas in gear. If I do it in park, it revs up and comes back down fine, but if in gear, it revs up then dies sometimes. If it doesn't die, then it will stumble and come back to normal. I have tried new advance weights/springs, new advance can, richer metering rods, new plugs, messing with idle fuel mixture, new cap/rotor, and I still can't seem to fix the problem. The only other thing I could think of would be the float level being too high/low (it's an Edelbrock #1406 600cfm Performer). The carb is only about 4 months old, but due to Edelbrock changing its warranty from 1 yr to 90 days on these carbs (BOO!) , I will have to rebuild it myself. Any other suggestions on what else it could be? Thanks in advance.

2500HD4X · September 22, 2004

What motor/transmission combo do you have? What distributor are you running (HEI or points)? Is it an auto (TH350?)?

My old blazer used to do about the same thing, you would goose it in gear and it would crap out on ya.... It had a Holley 600 that I had put on it. I just turned up the idle a little bit and actually leaned it out some, it wasn't taking the fuel under a sudden load and bogging the motor out (Stumble, stumble, red lights on dash.....) Real inconvienient in traffic situations. I messed with the timing and all that stuff and that is what I did to finally got it going, it was just getting too much go-go juice when it was suddenly jumped on under load...It would rev to the moon just fine in park or neutral before I leaned it but if you slammed on the gas in the driveway or powerbraked it and it would bog out everytime.... Don't know if this helps at all, I don't know anything about the Edelbrock carbs. Don't even get me started on Quadrajets! I had the opposite problem on my new truck (1976). It would run like a scalded dog, but would not idle at all....Stuck float in the quadrajet....Good Luck!

RamAirGAGT · September 23, 2004

It's a 350 engine and trans with HEI. Yeah your problem sounded EXACTLY like mine. I first noticed it when I pulled her into the driveway and tried to give a quick shot of gas to get me in there then it died. I leaned out the calibration screws all the way, and I still had problems. Edelbrock sent me leaner metering rods-they didn't help. When I replaced the vaccum advance can, I checked the old one and noticed it wasn't working correctly. I got excited and thought I fixed the problem.... nope. So, I guess the only alternative is to rebuild the carb and check the float levels. Quadrajets aren't that bad . That problem with the float getting soaked with gas over the years and flooding the carb is quite common. I would have kept mine (Those secondaries are huge!), but I wanted the Edelbrock for fuel efficiency and to go with my Permastar intake . Thanks for the input!

Torque Junkie · September 27, 2004

You mentioned changing the weights and springs, but what do you have the static timing set at?

My previous 79 always had a timing problem, but when it had a problem similar to that, I just added a few degrees of static advance and it went from "bog" to "raped ape" when stomped in gear. Just make sure you don't have pinging when you do so.

I also noticed that when I changed the very sloppy timing chain on the old '79 that there was a much crisper throttle response. I went from (sloppy chain and not enough static advance) bog, almost stall from a dead stop stomp, to (new chain and more static advance) breaking the 33x12.50 tires loose from a dead stop stomp.

Good luck, and let us know what you find if anything

-Mike