I am having a problem very similar to rustywheel68's - got a 390 that sat for a couple of years. I got a new carb, figured an edelbrock will sit nicer on an edelbrock intake so now have a new Edelbrock 750cfm carb.

I drained and cleaned the fluids, including the tank, blasted out fuel lines, added an inline filter, replaced the fuel pump, put on a new set of plugs, wires, coil, battery.

I filled her up with fresh 40 weight oil and attempted to start - no luck. Fiddled with the cat AF screws, checked for fuel flow - good, checked the vacuum lines - good, checked for spark - good.

I am able to get it crank and catch with generous foot on the gas as soon as I let go she chokes and dies. The carb has a manual choke at it is wide open.

Am I looking at something internal or is there a trick to get these 390's to run I am not aware of ?

 

Your carb is too big, and I will guess the timing is off.


John

 

Well, it had a Holley 750 on it before but ran like crap, although it did idle. It has some things done to it, judging by size of the headers. It has a Mallory distributor going to a Blaster 2, is it safe to just take off the cap and turn it CCW ?

 

what fuel pump ? the eddys are sensitive to to much pressure .
if she runs with the throttle open then dies shes flooding out

 

Well that is what Holley was doing with the previous pump, it's a Carquest Part 6523, Mechanical Fuel Pump

 

Is the choke closing, and when you start it, pump the gas pedal 2-3 times, and crank, what does it do?

If it fires right up and then dies, try pumping the gas while cranking and see if it'll start and run...

Make sure the timing is right too, not enough and it will fire, but not really run.

 

Got it to run, the choke pops open with the gas pedal application. The freaking coil got me. Now I got to get to actually drive without stalling as the curb idle is not enough to keep it happy, makes me wonder if my brakes are dragging since it sat for a while.

EDIT: Well, after it sat overnight I cant get it to start again, it catches then stalls as I pump the gas to keep it alive and ends in a fireball ...