Well, my 1983 G20 has been running a little weird lately (since the head and cam swap) and I finally made time to fix it. It has had some issues that I had not been able to tune out of it. Mainly a hesitation off-idle with the A/C on and a rough, high idle in Park/Neutral with the A/C off. It would also ping off-idle at times. I first removed all the header bolts, 1 at a time, and put in lock washers, tightened the header bolts again, they had loosened slightly allowing O2 into the exhaust stream and was fooling the 02 sensor. I checking the timing, found that it was set at -3* instead of my usual 6*. Still hesitated. I then decided that I had a vacuum leak seeing that my minimum air set screw was all the way out and I was idling with 0 IAC counts. Carb cleaner in hand, I hosed down the manifold and vacuum lines. Bingo, TBI base gasket was leaking between the TBI spacer and TBI unit. Replaced both gaskets, idle dropped immediately. I then set the minimum air screw per GM specs. The idle is now a smooth 500 RPM in Park/Neutral, 550 with the A/C on, and 600 in Drive with the A/C on. The hesitation is gone and hammering the throttle from a dead stop results in good squeal of the tires, instead of a bog.

Here is the cold start this morning, hit the key and it is running. It was taking about 3 cranks to start, prior to this.

YouTube - 350 TBI startup

While I was in there, I cleaned up the harness. Got some 1" wire loom from Napa along with some 1" wiring T's. Some electrical tape and about 1 hr of time cleaned it up nicely.

Before



After



I got un-lazy and made my Accel 300+ race wires and changed to AC Delco Rapidfire plugs from the Champion Truck plugs that I had laying on the shelf when I put the engine in. Champion Truck plugs suck compared to AC Delco Rapidfires.

I also drilled my open element air cleaner base to fit the IAT sensor for the EBL.

Now, about that carpet. Its gotta go

 

glad it was something cheap easy and simple like that.

 

I'm jealous I can't for the life of me get my car to crank right up like that. Could it possibly be the fuel pump? That is the only thing I can think of