I am having a hell of a time trying to figure out what is going on with my Camaro. It is an 86 with a mild 350 swap. I am having issues with getting it to idle while in gear at a stop sign. It idles fine in park or neutral (and cold in gear), but after it is warmed up and I come to a stop it always wants to die at stop signs. If I up the idle I can make it work (upping idle to ~1.2k) but it then it sounds pretty bad clunking into gear at the high idle. At 700rpm it idles fine in neutral but dies when I put it into gear. I have tried multiple settings in between but it either clunks badly (over 1krpm) or dies. What do I need to be checking? It has a new 650 cfm summit carb on a weiland intake. The trans is a turbo 350. It almost feels like the torque converter won't let the car idle in gear. Thanks for the help!

 

What do you have for a distributor, and what is the timing set at?

 

Distributor/ignition is a Mallory all in one deal. I am not sure what the timing is at, couldn't really read the marks so a buddy set it by sound after we put the dist in. Does it sound like it is too advanced or retarded?

 

You could try retarding the timing a little at a time and see if it improves at all. I know this helped on my classmate's 82 berlinetta. He had a TH350 trans. It would stall whenever he dropped it in gear, unless we set the idle up at 1000rpm.

 

Okay, so I went out and reset the timing, I got it to 6 degrees advanced and it would still do it, tried different setting and couldn't see much of a difference. Then I tried disconnecting the vacuum advance from the distributor, reset the timing to 6 degrees, and it seems to be fixed. Idles much better, starts without having to pump the gas/hold it open. Tried re-plugging it in and symptoms come back. The only residual problem with it dying is if I stop really fast it will stall out. So I guess my questions now are: Is my vacuum advance broken/why did disconnecting it fix the problem? How do I stop it from dying under heavy braking? Thanks for the help!