I have had my new manifold on for a couple of weeks now(Edelbrock performer carb manifold). SO far so well...the car hasn't died.....( i really dont trust my mechanic skills) Well after everything has been done I have noticed a few things:

1-When stopped in gear the car can be kind of shaky in idle. it seems to idle a little rough( it doesnt feel like its going to die) almost feels like I have a mild cam. when I look at the tach it is bouncing around from 500-700RPMS. WHen I put the new manifold on I had to take the car to a shop to get the timming done. The owner set the car to 37 Degrees of total timming. He said that this is a little advanced and that it would help out with performance. I trusted his decesion he owns 6 firebirds and had a 3rd gen with slicks and side pipes parked in front of his shop.

Could this be the cause of my minor problem or is it a possible vaccum leak or something to do with the TV detent cable?

2- Gas Pedal has a little slack in it. It still is as stiff as before but since the TBI is mounted farther back on the manifold their is a little play in the pedal. Would this be a problem in achieving WOT or a throttle response issue?

I dont think these are life threatening situations for my car...I hope. I am just curious if this is normal or if I might run into a problem in the future.

Thanks
Jason

 

1- vacuum leak
2- yes...if the cable is slack then the tb wont open all the way and you wont get wot

 

Agreed, possibly a vacuum leak. Especially since a Performer wasn't built to take a TBI setup and the possibilites for a vacuum leak with cobbled-together parts is increased.

As for the timing- they set it wrong. You set timing on these cars with the timing wire disconnected and set the inital timing to spec (I think It's 6* BTDC for your engine) at idle speed. If you don't diconnect the timing wire the ECM is still throwing in advance and you'll never get it set correctly becuase you don't know how much timing the ECM is adding at any given RPM, throttle postion, load, temperature, etc. Gotta set timing per the correct procedure or you'll chase your own tail for weeks.

 

Why is the tbi sitting farther back than stock? You will get the best performance by placing the tbi further towards the front of the manifold.

 

From what I read I thought a little farther back was better... I am probally wrong though.

The edelbrock preformer carb manifold I put on has the TBI sitting a little farther back than stock manifold. I dont think I could have controlled that.