Don't waste time doing any more tuning or changes until you get the vacuum leak fixed at the carb base! It's futile to waste your time trying things if the carb is leaking. Is it a mismatched spread bore on a square bore intake? Whatever, it needs to get attended to first.

 

YEah! That air leak is letting so much air in you'll be adding fuel to compensate. Gaskets are cheap. Double them up if you got to. But seal it first. Timing second. It may have been pulling 30 with a leak and idling at 1200. If your using one of those funky adapters for the spreadbore to square bore deal, I hope it is open and not four holed. Mine (yes I have used them too) had both in the package and I tried the four hole because it was almost stuck in there. But it sucked. I switched and also did my best to remove the casting flash off the edges.

Then set your idle. If it wont idle you cant set the timing. You will be spinning the dizzy so hard the weights will start to move at 1200 rpm. With 12* you'll need another 24* to get to 36*. With stock heads 34-36* will be the spot I'd shoot for. A recurve kit will change how fast the timing comes in but the total is kind of part of the dizzy its self. The shape of the plate the weights go on determines how much advance it gives. So you'll have to make a compromise between total and initial timing. I had this problem on my pick up. It wanted 36* but with the dizzy it had I had to be at 18* initial and that lead to starting issues. My point is read up on HEI's and you'll see how to modify the plate to get the timing you want.

 

the recurve kit has new weights and springs.
ive also seen people grind the edges of the center piece to give more range



i know the carb not sealing is a problem. but my intake is all kinda of messed up. the last carb i had on there i had to rtv to get it to seal. which im going to repeat. taking care not to get any rtv in any of the holes on the bottom of the carb



i went up about 8 sizes on the squirters to compensate for the air leak.

im going to go out and seal it and start over. i just really wanted to drive it


in other news i got pulled over yesterday.. not while i was hooning around town doing burnouts in the camaro.. but while on my way to get some pie..in my subaru

 

well.

i learned 2 things today.

1 helicoils are awesome.(kinda already knew that)

and my carb is actually leaking from the throttle linkage.


I took the carb off drilled and helicoiled all the holes and then epoxied the studs into said holes.

spread some rtv thinly over the gasket and bolted everything back together.

it still wont idle below 1100.


then i noticed the throttle shafts looked wet with gas and im guessing the carb itself is leaking.


i know its not the intake manifold because with the other carb i could get it to idle where i wanted.


so a carb rebuild kit is on my list.



now the car does something a bit odd. if i just barely touch the throttle it bogs out and almost stalls but if i press it more it picks back up and goes. also at cruising it surges a little which im guessing is jets.

 

A rebuild kit wont solve a sloppy throttle shaft! You're wasting time and money to put one in a carb that's worn that badly. Only way to save that carb is to remove the throttle shaft and have the base bored and bushed, and by the time you get all that done you're better off starting with a better carb, or a new carb!
Check on Ebay and you'll find Holleyperformance sells factory refurbished carbs for about half the new price. These are NOT rebuilt carbs, but carbs that came back on warranty and were found to have nothing wrong. They have to be sold as "refurbished", but they are brand neww and warranted. I just bought two 1850's for the cross ram on my 355 for under $200 ea. with free shipping.

 

well i spoke too soon. the throttle ahafts are fine.

the secondary blades wrre not closed causig it to idle high. i backed out the stop screw till they shut and it idles where i want it to.

also all the odd running charactetistics are now gone. it runs fantasticly.

still some fine tuning to do witha good vacuum gauge and somenplug reading but its 100x better

 

Yes, opening the secondary blades will expose the transfer slots and create all sorts of havoc! Glad you found that as you saved yourself a lot of head scratching later! Even the best throttle shafts will leak gas if it's flooding out that badly.

 

yeah now that it will idle and it runs pretty well i can actually start tuning. for sure my primary jets are a little big. after idling for a while or cruising it loads up and if i go to punch it it pops and sputters. then it clears up and goes..

its actually pretty damn fast. ifni had to guess id say it would do low 14s. it kept up with my friends rx8 prett well.. till i ran out of gear.

my car doesnt have 3.08s anymore.. atleast i dont think it does. the speedo will say 65 when im doing 45

 

bought a good vacuum gauge nd in a whilke here im going to go set the timing where i want it and start tuning the idle screws.

but i have a question. when i was messing with them last time it raised and lowered the idle, which way is better? when i leaned them out the idle raised and it smelled kinda different. like lean.. as odd as that sounds. lol


also after doing some math my car has 3.42s.. which is good i guess.

 

Set the idle mixture to highest vacuum. That's the whole reason you got the gauge.