my girl has a 85 firebird with all the smog stuff on it (carb) will the carb operate the same with those sensors on it unplugged?

 

depends on which wires you're talking about. The plug on the top of the carb passenger side and front of the carb driver side should stay plugged in, but you can unplug just about anything else and the car will run. It will even run with those uplugged too, just not very well. You could always swap on a different carb and disable your SES light.

 

Disabling the computer control is plain silly. No way you can get as good a combination of performance and economy out of a mechanical open-loop system. BTW, you need to get a vacuum/mechanical advance distributor as well if you want to go non-CC. If auto tranny, a means of locking up the torque converter clutch.

The performance issues (assuming that's what you're trying to address) are not related to the CC "smog" carb.

 

Yup he's right.

The computer controlled quadrajet is the same as any other carb when the pedal is mashed to the floor. It's ONLY when driving normally that the computer, with input from the TPS and Mixture Control Solenoid and O2 sensor effect the carb. IT makes for better throttle response alot of times, and MUCH better gas mileage across the board.



I grew up racing around an old fart that ran Q-Jets in some form for YEARS and he always used to say this...

" 95 percent of all carb troubles aren't......"


HTH

 

:hail: Can I get an Amen??!! :hail:

Check all of your basics. Tune-up, fuel filter, o2 sensor. Then look at exhaust, is the cat plugged, muffler collapsed, etc.

I thought the same thing on taking stuff out, and I should have listened to five7kid before I made myself a mess. Read the thread with 2 fuel pumps from the factory on LG4 and in great detail I listed the things I did before realizing that it wasn't electronics at all.

 

If you noticed he never said he had a problem, just wanted to know if the car would run with the sensors unplugged. Nor did I say he should unplug the computer and swap carbs, just that he could and it would run.
You guys are right though, most carb problems are not carb problems, most people that come to me with a carb problem it turns out to be ignition related, not carb. Theres a statistic that says like 80% of carb rebuilds aren't really necessary.