as of two days ago my bestfriend bought an 87 trans am. car was originally a tpi, but is now switched to a carb. the guy we bought it from didnt have a clue what he was talking about with the engine... he claims fuel pressure needs to be tuned in. car is hard to start, then when it finally starts its a really low idle. you gotta have it slightly revved to keep running. in order to drive it, you have to feather into the throttle, yet sometimes it still kills itself. any ideas?

 

Okay, severely lacking in details here.

What carb?

What distributor?

What is there to control fuel pressure?

 

i figured that would be the case lol. well we bought it tuesday night so i havent really looked into it. pretty sure it has a edelbrock 2104 intake, i dont think the distributor is anything fancy i thinks just a stock gm carbed distributor, and the car has a new holley carb.... not sure of model or numbers. i was told by my buddies dad who owns a shop, to just ditch the holley and get an edelbrock. also under rev it is backfiring through the intake like there is a stuck or burnt valve ore something. and oh, the regualtor is just a crappy block with an adjusting screw and no gauge or anything

 

Holley or edelbrock it does not really matter as long as it is tuned right. If the fuel pressure is wrong then it will not run right. Sounds like you guys need to do a ton of research on the car.

The timing is probably way off causing backfiring and it most likely blew out the holey power valve.

 

Along with the timing and everything else, check the distributer cap for cracks and the plug wires to make sure you have the proper firing order. That could be a cause of the backfiring.

 

Also make sure they actually replaced the electronic distributor with a vacuum advance HEI model. Without doing this the car will never run right.