I'm looking at buying a 600cfm Holley Carb with Electric Choke tomorrow to replace the broken carb I have in my car now, I wanted to know what you other people think of Holley's carbs and how they work on Thirdgen's or, if they do at all. Also, what are some nice Headers I can get for the car? I have a 1984 Camaro Z28 v8 305 Carburated. Just wanted to check with you guys first since I'm sure most of you have alot of high performance goodies on your cars. (Oh, and what type of intake Manifold should I get, and whats a good site to order parts from???)

Adam

 

A few questions first:

Do you now have a stock computer-controlled carb? What do you plan to do with the car? Do you have an automatic transmission? What is the 8th digit of your VIN?

Assuming the answers to the above are "yes", "daily driver", "yes", and "H", you might not want to get that Holley.

The Holley won't mount up to your stock intake manifold, so you'll need an adapter or a new intake - the latter being preferred. You'll also need a vacuum/mechanical advance distributor, because the stock unit needs the info provided by the stock CC carb or it won't work right. Since you're basically making the computer brain dead, you'll need another means to lock up the auto tranny torque converter clutch - either a manual switch or a kit from Summit, Jegs, TCI or the like. Your driveability and economy will not be as good with the Holley, most likely. There is also talk that the Holley throttle linkage is a different length than the stock carb, which means trouble for the tranny throttle valve cable unless verified prior to hitting the road.

Consider fixing your "broke" carb instead. Properly tuned & tweaked, it will get better mileage, drive better, and have more power potential than the Holley. You could even send it to Jet Performance and have them do that fixing & tweaking for less money than converting to a Holley (with new parts, anyway) will cost you.

If your VIN does indeed have that "H", you've got an LG4 which has a terribly restrictive air cleaner. Consider finding a dual snorkel air cleaner (harder to do these days, but still possible). Whichever carb you end up with, the dual snorkel is a better choice than the stock LG4 piece or an open element.

 

Oh, headers. Stay away from anything made to fit the LG4 directly. Hooker, SLP, Edelbrock, & Dynomax all make headers with y-pipe that go to a 3" cat (what you want). With a 3" cat & cat back, your performance improvement will be substantial.

 

I'm not sure if I have a computer controlled carb, though I would imagine so since there are electronics going into it. Yeah, I'm gonna use it as a daily driver, but I'd still like to have a decent amount of fun with it, if you know what I mean..... So, what do I have to do to fix the choke? I mean, what else is there to do aside from getting a new one? I can't rebuild one I don't think (Don't know how) and if the Holley won't fit, then I'm screwed, cause no one down here sells the stock replacements I don't think.... and I need the car like, THE next day. Soooo, what can I do??? The car is my Daily Driver, yes. But If I'm gonna mess with the carb, I'd wanna have the best possible carb on there, and nothing less, and since I don't know what happened to it before I bought it, I dunno what kinda condition the carb would be in in the first place. But its pretty messed up, I can say that for now.... and I don't forsee it getting any better. So, I mean, the Holley carb will cost me $215 and I'd love to have it, but what else will I need to make it work? And how do I block the computer from using it? I got an Automatic which I belive is the Turbo 350 tranny with OD, but, I also have that H as the 8th Digit, and the Air cleaner I have on there IS Dual Snorkel and is pretty nice compared to alot of them I've seen on some other camaros. So, what the hell do I do man?? Thanks.

Adam

 

Also, according to your info, if I have the H in the 8th digit place on my VIN, I have an LG4, which should have that restrictive air cleaner.... I however, MUST have an L69. Several items lead me to belive this, 1) The air cleaner I have on there now is a Duel Snorkel Air Cleaner, which I don't belive the person who had this car before me changed (They didn't bother messing with ANYTHING else, and left it a wreck), 2) I went to buy a new starter the other day, I told the guy at the autoparts store that I have a 1984 Camaro Z28 5.0ltr, 4bbl, 305 V8, and he had asked about engine code, but I didn't know at the time, since the car wasn't running and wasn't with me. So he in turn gave me the one for the H, took it home and it was huge compared to the Starter I had taken out, and mounted a little differently, I then took it back and the guy at the store looked in his manual and the only other stock starter they had was for the High Output/High Performance version of the engine (Making it then a L69), and it was a perfect fit.

So, I MUST have an L69, cause I DOUBT that the previous owner changed the eninge, cause he didn't even bother taking care of the car.

So, I dunno if this changes anything..... but I'd like a response as soon as you can.

Thanks

Adam

 

If the problem is the choke, that is relatively minor. What is the choke doing or not doing?

If you were close enough, I'd give you a ride to show what a CC carb can do. I drove it in the snow this morning, but it'll definately get with the program when it's dry out.

The LG4 vs. L69 isn't a big deal for your issues. The L69 has higher compression and larger exhaust, which gives it more potential, but that really doesn't make that much difference with regard to getting you back on the street. It's likely a previous owner put the dual snorkel on it, but you can also measure the exhaust pipe size at the cat (2" or so = LG4, 2-1/2" or larger - L69).

The $215 Holley doesn't include an electric choke IIRC. The manifold and distributor changes would happen at the same time. Basically, you'd disable the computer when you took out the CC carb and distributor, and that's all you'd have to do. Your tranny is a TH700R4 with overdrive and locking torque converter. A kit to lock the TC automatically without the computer costs about $75 from Summit.

But, I think you could fix your carb if you're willing to learn a little. Start by getting a book on them, the Haynes Rochester Q-jet book is a good enough to get you through choke problems.