I have a 2.8 with the feedback Varajet carb, and wanted to see if anyone had any advice. I'm at my wit's end with this, and if I can't fix it, I'll probably have to send it to the junk yard.

After throwing some inexpensive parts at it, I finally broke down and took it to a reputable shop I've used in the past. After 2 days, the mechanic couldn't figure it out and told me to take it to a GM dealer. He didn't charge me a penny, and warned me though that the dealer would just start throwing parts at it. I have had bad luck in the past when it comes to taking a car this old to a dealership.

I figured since it would be a $100 just to have the dealer open the hood, it might make more sense to just try to throw some cheap parts at it myself.

The car wants to stall at just off idle and sometimes does, if you slowly accelerate from a light, like a bog. It almost has a mild "bucking" feeling when you accelerate from a light. If the car is placed in park while idling (fully warmed up), it will stall out after about a minute. The idle rpm is about 700.

I don't think it's the tranny, because it does this in neutral also. When cruising, the car smooths out considerably, but there is still a mild "tugging and releasing "sensation.

I replaced nearly all the vacuum lines, and the transmission vacuum modulator, and on my vacuum gauge the car pulled around 21 inches at idle, so I don't think there is a vacuum leak.

I have replaced the mechanical fuel pump, fuel filter, PCV valve and EGR valve. The carburetor is a remanufactured unit that only has about 8k miles on it. It has a newer cap rotor, plugs and wires. It also has a new coil. The cat converter is only about 2 years old. I even replaced the battery because it was older and I thought it might be messing with the ECM because of insufficient voltage. About the only thing I have left to check is the distributor module, which I plan to test.

The car is not throwing any codes.

The car is worth very little, it's worth a lot more to me to have a running vehicle than a few hundred dollars from a junk yard.

My only other option is to get a non-feedback carb and distributor from a early 80's Blazer, and bypass all the computer junk. I'm wondering if my problem is with some mixture solenoid or idle sensor on the carb. I think it would be easier and cheaper to just sidestep all of this with a mechanical carburetor that doesn't have all of these sensors. I just don't want to spend a couple hundred bucks doing this, and the car still doesn't run properly.

Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again

 

Your description of the symptoms sounds like a lean mixture problem. The E2SE Varajet had some problems. You may want to look at this thread:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/carb...gging-out.html