crazy fast idle.....
 

I just finished putting on a new edelbrock perfromer carb and when we fired her up the idle was super-fast with no way to slow it. The idle adj screw is all the way out and I don't have the electric choke hooked up yet. It starts up slow enough but then it kicks wayyyyyy up and won't kick down. Anyone had this problem?

You answered your own question there man. If you don't have it hooked up, the choke thinks that it has not warmed up yet.

What the power wire does is gradually heats a coil inside the little black plastic housing......when it gets warm, the coil expands, thus turning a shaft connected to a lever. The lever makes an adjustment letting the motor idle down.

Hope this helps,

~Joe

Yeah, I figured that was probably it. I got used to not having a choke at all on the Holley that was on the car before. I just looked under the dash and it's a disasterous rat's nest from the previous idiot. I didn't want to deal with hooking it up after that. Gotta face reality.:rolleyes:

thanks Joe

Your welcome. Here is an alternative.......if you are used to no choke at all, you can adjust the electric one to not do anything at all. There are three small bolts on the plastic housing. Loosen them up by about one turn and you can turn the entire housing one way or the other. (cant remember which) Turn it till there is no choke effect....one direction will give more idle, the other way will give less.... go less until it had no effect on the idle.....then your done, or at least until you need the choke. lol

No problem man,

~Joe

I hooked it up to the fuse block. The acc blade was broken so I had to plug it into the bat location which I know will cause a drain but it was the only option. It looks like my real idle problem is that my throttle cable is about 1/8 of an inch too short. I'd like to find a cable that'll snap onto the ball e-brock supplies with the carb kit or I might need to fab something up.

The fuse block is the best way to go on this, but to make it easier, you can splice off of the dist or coil wire. They are one sure wire thats hot with the ign on.

As for the throttle cable, I think Mr.Gasket makes an adjustable cable bracket.....might want to look into that. Summit may have something for ya.

~Joe

Looking at E-brocks site, they have a Pontiac adapter for the throttle bracket. That might be the ticket. I've just been reminded that I really need to re-wire the whole car. It's a disaster under the dash.

the electric choke shouldn't have any effect whatsoever if it's not hooked up. Once you warm the car up with the trottle for a few minutes it should idle fine if set correctly.

Make sure you have all vacuum ports blocked or running to their respective locations, esp. the dist if it's vac. advance. Check your timing first, then set your choke cap correctly (which is most likely the problem).

The only factor where the electric choke comes into play is on startup, not all the time, and can be set with the fast idle cam screw. This should not be the problem as they are usually fine from the factory, unless you have a very radical (290+) cam. I still don't have mine set up and have no problems at all after it warms up for a few minutes. Also, the electric choke hotwire is usually spliced into the dist. hotwire

Your last adjustment - where you started first - is the curb idle.

Ahh! That is the choke!:eek: You must set this to control the amount of air/fuel before setting the electric choke/fast idle on startup. Then set the idle speed

Lokar saved the day........I installed one of their throttle cable kits and it's all good now......the stock cable wasn't quite long enough.