lsturbo89

Okay so I bought this 1985 trans am with a carburetor 305 that was entirely stock but not a lot of maintenance had been done. Like at all.. the sway bar links had no bushings and in order to put this car on the road I had to rebuild the top end completely due to excessive sludge. I used the old kerosene soak (figured engine was likely trash anyway) on the bottom and afterwards found normal oil pressure. So now I'm in salvagemode. The entire egr system was removed, new intake new 600cfm carburetor by Holley and I set the valves using the companion cylinder method using half a turn of preload for increased torque. Upon driving I found the car in drive would not exceed 3k rpm at any time unless I used the b&m megashifter to downshift. I had an overheating issue that i promptly resolved but i am still having an issue with with stalling at low rpm range.. when this occurs the vehicle will not start for a few hours I replaced the plugs and wires and set the carburetor to 1.5 turns each side and tried to set idle screw.. no matter what it still floods. Any ideas?

lsturbo89

I can't seem to find the part that I found laying on top of my exhaust pipes near the passenger side manifold but it looks like a vacuum controlled linkage that hooks to the exhaust manifold. Kind of resembles a mini brake booster or something. Pardon my lack of pics, the car is sitting on the side of the road atm

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Describe "floods" in more detail.

What is the fuel system? How much fuel pressure does it have? Have you rebuilt the carb?

The exhaust thing you ask about sounds like the EFE valve. Goes between the RH exh man and the Y-pipe. Best left alone at this time, not a contributing factor to the rest of what you describe.

lsturbo89

Sorry I haven't had a chance to take a look. I have a regulator on the car and I'm leaning toward that being faulty. Its definitely a fuel issue. When I set the idle screws all the way in it still floods. Very frustrating as it is a new carb. I'm not sure what the stock fuel pump is supposed to put out pressure wise but I'm thinking fuel pump is bad and broke regulator then went right down the line and messed up the carb to where I have to rebuild it

lsturbo89

As for the part I found, it isn't necessary, true, but it bugs me so I'm going to be replacing both sides with headers to complement the emissions delete. Does anyone know a good set that utilizes the stock pipes? I would rather not redo everything lol

Jorlain

iTrader: (4)

What was on it before you installed the Holley? If it was anything but a Quadrajet, your fuel pressure might be too high. Have you tried hooking up a fuel pressure gauge and measuring your fuel pressure?

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

There are no headers that retain the stock Y-pipe.

Many headers however, retain the stock cat & I-pipe.

I'd step back and take acoupla deep breaths before "replace" because "it bugs me". It's not the cause of the symptom you describe, unless it's stuck shut. Best to leave it alone and concentrate your mental effort on THE PROBLEM, and not get distracted by ... "it bugs me". People with that little self-discipline usually turn their cars into cinder-block-mounted lawn ornaments. Don't be one of .... them.

lsturbo89

Lol, lawn ornaments are great. No I'm focusing on the problem atm. The weather has been awful in my area so I haven't been doing much just yet other than research. I'm currently replacing the fuel pump after a pressure check with a regulator set to 4 psi came up to 6psi just cranking the motor. The regulator was brand new, so that shouldn't have happened. I noticed that this pump has a feed and return which is not what I'm used to but it leads me to believe that the return line might have a restriction causing excessive pressure. I pulled apart the Holley carb (aftermarket) which is a 600 cfm street warrior model and checked for damage on the needles and floats in both primary and secondary and found nothing so I reassembled and reinstalled on the car. I bought an electric fuel pump rated for 4 to 7 psi from Holley (just an inline pump with 2 wires) and am about to install. The old quadrajet ran when I had it but it had a very similar problem. Also the choke was broken and given that I was deleting the emission system I just couldn't see reusing it given the miles and the amount of sludge this engine had. I scrapped the entire intake due to sheer laziness. Lol went with an edelbrock performer series that was cheap and effective. Now I have almost no hood clearance. F body is good for that. >.>

lsturbo89

So just a quick update. I goofed. I cut the feed line and put in the new fuel pump using a relay box from a parts truck I have that doesn't have a title. (So yes, a lawn ornament.. lol but given the circumstances it's all it could hope for.) Gave it a crank and she flooded even worse.. I was scratching my head like why? Then it dawned on me. I forgot to remove the return line from the old pump that I just left on the block... oops. So I did that and put in new needle and seats and rebuilt the carb. Tried it again and nothing. Checked and checked for flooding, nothing really to indicate flooding other than what you could expect from a long crank. So back to the drawing board, fuel air spark compression. Knew compression was good so went with spark. Sure enough, hei not putting out spark now. I checked this before like 6 times due to mild OCD. I never trust parts off the internet and yet I keep buying them.. put another cap on and she fired right up. Seems okay so far. Thanks for the help guys. Now the fun begins