specialtywoodsjames

I just bought my car last week and here's what I know about it's components:

1979 GS, street ported engine, Racing Beat 465 CFM Holley(built for street port 12a), Racing Beat intake, Racing Beat exhaust. 1981 LSD rear end, sway bar and distributor.

The previous owner ported the engine himself and included a box of slides of the build, which I haven't looked at yet as I still have to find my slide viewer. He never installed the choke, I guess because the copper coil that's supposed to wrap around the exhaust didn't reach or something like that. I still have the butterfly for the choke and I'm planning on installing a manual choke as soon as I can confirm the parts kit that I need. The numbers on the choke tower - 1848-1 and 1916.

The problem I'm having is that the car is not very streetable when warmed up. It runs great when the throttle is open all the way, but when driving in a polite manner throttle response is pretty unpredictable. It seems to be getting about 18MPG, but I haven't had it long enough to know that for certain. I'm thinking that now that I have it in the city, mileage is going to drop - a lot.

I don't believe that the previous owner messed around with the carb build (jets, powervalves, metering blocks, etc.) but I do suspect that he may have set the mixture too rich so as to get it to start without a choke.

Also, when corning mid to hard to the right, there is a big hesitation mid corner and then for the next minute or two you can smell the gas. The float bowls on this carb are side hung and are mounted primary passenger side and secondary driver's side. I have no documentation of this carburetor setup, so I am just assuming that this is correct.

My question is multi-faceted. 1) what part should order for a manual choke kit 2) what order should I approach carb tuning and where do I want my mixture screw set to begin, etc. 3) will I need center-hung bowls? I'm a pretty decent mechanic, but I am inexperienced in the tuning of Holley 4bbl carbs.

Thanks.