[shortwide81]

1981 chevy short wide with a 400 small block. i bought the truck and it had been sitting up for a good while with a holley carburetor. so i went ahead and bought a new carb it is a edelbrock 650 manual choke carb it has the break compresser hook up in the back the timing vacuum in the front left, pcv in the fron middle and manifold vacuum on front right.,the truck will crank how i have it but will die soon as it cranks any ideas i need help thanks

[st3gamefarm]

Vacuum leak? Will It run with choke "on"?

[saitek5678]

Plug off all vacuum at the carb, and all other vacuum at the intake, make sure the engine is dry, not flooded, no wet gas anywhere, GOT SPARK? check that, With ckoke full open, gas peddle too the floor, crank if it fires , hold it there untill you clear the flood condition,let off slowly so you don't wreck it. If not put choke to full close, pump the peddle once or twice, make sure the accell pump is working, if it starts open the choke instantly to about an eighth open, engine lurching is too much gas, engine smooth then fade and die is not enough gas. Full choke is Floods all day, Wide open choke is the land of the Dry people. The choke is only operational on cold start, when the engine is warm (operating temp) its always wide open. Hope this helps!

[shortwide81]

yes the truck will only crank with choke on and will stay running with choke on longer than it will if you kill the choke but it will still dies ........ are all of the hook ups on the carb suppose to be in use or do some of them just need to be capped off

[saitek5678]

To get to the problem cap off ALL the vacuum at the carb OK , Now ALL the vacuum at the manifold (intake). All the vacuum lines are for SECONDARY systems and the engine will run without them. Trust me! Before you try to start the engine, get up and look direct into the carb, choke wide open and turn the accelertor or butterflies open, do you see gas spray , like a squirt gun down the ports? if so good, If not the new carb is not filling with gas and suspect a bad fuel pump. or plugged fuel filter.

[shortwide81]

alright i will try that today and i will get back to you and tell you how it goes thanks for the info.

[shortwide81]

i finally got the truck to where it will sit and idle with the choke completly off, but now when you press the gas it will just die

[saitek5678]

Off?, meaning wide open choke? That is what off choke referes to. OK. try putting the choke at just very partial open and see how the engine reacts. It sounds like your not getting enough fuel to the carb, again, check fuel pump and fuel filter. Let me know my freind.

[Roadkill58]

Are you using a stock manifold. eldelbrock suggest (insist) you need an adaptor for the square bore (performer) carburetor. While idling spray some carburetor cleaner around the base of the carb. If idle goes up you have a leak.

[shortwide81]

well went and fooled around with the old truck... seems like i was kinda in the wrong direction turned out that i just had a bad hose running from the tank to the fuel pump causing it to not get enough fuel ha who would have thought