A buddy of mine got a camaro many years ago with evey intention of restoring it...he never did. it sat for years in his backyard. He towed it to me the other day and asked me to get it running. It's got a carbed 305, I don't think it's original. I pulled the intake off cleaned it up and put it back on doing away with the EGR and all the rest of the smog equipment on the car. Replaced the rochester carb with an edelbrock 750 cfm with a 1" spacer to fit it on the factory intake. Kept the same HEI distributor but changed the cap, coil, and ignition chip. I got the timing set before firing it up. It surprisingly fired just a few seconds after turning the key. It ran smooth, but at around 3500 rpm, for about 15 seconds and then died...and that's all I can get out of her...I tried adjusting the distributor while she's running to get the rpms down but no matter which way I turn it she dies right away.

 

sounds like it could be a bad vacuum leak if it is idling so high

 

I was thinking it could be a vaccum leak, but I can't find one. I'm gonna get a little deeper I guess and spray the engine down with soapy water.

 

Not soapy water, that's for pressure leaks. Spray it down with brake cleaner/carb cleaner, and listen for changes in RPM. I've got my vote on vacuum leak too. Maybe you chipped a gasket when you were putting everything back?