[ckpena]

Problem: As my 81' Corvette, warms up, the engine electric choke does not seem to drop the engine into normal idle. The problem is intermittent but happens more frequently.

Background: My 81' vette has the standard Chevy 350 with the "Quadrajet E4ME" Carburetor. The car has about 85K miles on it. The carburetor system has worked fine and I have had no need to ever remove it for service. The car is garaged and I do most of the work on car myself. My biggest problem is I don't drive it enough but it is well cared for. I have zero experience on carb issues and would appreciate help and/or direction.

Actions taken: I've confirmed that I'm getting 12.5 volts to the electronic choke. I've applied liberal amounts of carb cleaner to all exposed parts to ensure that dirt and gum are removed. Once the car reaches normal operating temp and the engine fails to fall below approximately 900-1100 rpm, I'll remove the carb air filter cover and observe that the forward barrel butter fly valves are not fully open. I place my thumb on the barrel operating linkage to push the valves open while, at the same time, goosing the engine. The barrels move a few degrees further to max open and the engine drops to a normal 600 rpm idle. Sometimes this corrects the problem and other times, it doesn't. As soon as I accelerate a bit. the barrels fail to fully open and the engine idle remains higher than normal.

I've read the service manual but this carb stuff gets complicated quick and I am hesitant to approach things and make it worse without direction. You folks are great and I thank you in advance for sharing your knowledge with me.

R/Chris

[oldbogie]

Originally Posted by ckpena

Problem: As my 81' Corvette, warms up, the engine electric choke does not seem to drop the engine into normal idle. The problem is intermittent but happens more frequently.

Background: My 81' vette has the standard Chevy 350 with the "Quadrajet E4ME" Carburetor. The car has about 85K miles on it. The carburetor system has worked fine and I have had no need to ever remove it for service. The car is garaged and I do most of the work on car myself. My biggest problem is I don't drive it enough but it is well cared for. I have zero experience on carb issues and would appreciate help and/or direction.

Actions taken: I've confirmed that I'm getting 12.5 volts to the electronic choke. I've applied liberal amounts of carb cleaner to all exposed parts to ensure that dirt and gum are removed. Once the car reaches normal operating temp and the engine fails to fall below approximately 900-1100 rpm, I'll remove the carb air filter cover and observe that the forward barrel butter fly valves are not fully open. I place my thumb on the barrel operating linkage to push the valves open while, at the same time, goosing the engine. The barrels move a few degrees further to max open and the engine drops to a normal 600 rpm idle. Sometimes this corrects the problem and other times, it doesn't. As soon as I accelerate a bit. the barrels fail to fully open and the engine idle remains higher than normal.

I've read the service manual but this carb stuff gets complicated quick and I am hesitant to approach things and make it worse without direction. You folks are great and I thank you in advance for sharing your knowledge with me.

R/Chris

Sounds like wear in the throttle shaft or its bore that allows the shaft to twist enough to bind in the bores or lets the throttle blades rub on their bores to catch the throttle before it closes against the stop.

Bogie

[carsavvycook]

I checked out a 1980 Corvette today, and the throttle was doing the same thing. Someone had backed the throttle stop screw all the way off, and it felt like the throttle plate was sticking in the bores. The mixture screws were adjusted almost all the way out to compensate for a decent idle.

At first I thought of weak throttle return springs, but after adjustments it came right back down to the proper idle speed.

This might be something else to check.