1985 f250 with a 302/c6 combo. Edelbrock performer topend. Efi was converted to holley 670ta. Points distributor swapped to HEI.

Got a few problems on my mind. First off, the electric choke on the carb won't turn off on its own. I can open the choke plate by hand and it will stay, but as soon as you rev the throttle, the choke plate closes and high idle kicks on. This was after running at high idle for about 30 minutes. Engine temp was 190. the carb is brand new and I didn't touch it much out of the box. I gotta check the wiring but is there anything else I should check, like vacuum?

Next is the loss of power under load. It'll rev nice and high when it's in park, but in any gear, it kinda just struggles to turn the tires and it doesn't sound like it wants to rev nice and high. A while ago driving to work, I lost all power and some buddies told me I burnt up the ignition module in the distributor. I'm wondering if that's contributed to the loss of power? I bought a new module, but I'm wondering if I should just go ahead and buy a new distributor. They're prettt fairly priced. My cheap sunpro tach is pretty inaccurate but my buddy has a good timing gun and we set it at about 12 btdc around 800 rpm I think.

Sorry for the long read. I just had back surgery and I'm laid up until March. The truck is sitting in the garage real close to being done and I'm racking my brain over it. I'm getting stir crazy and I wish I could just go work on it. I figure I'll do all my research and reading while I'm stuck in bed. Thanks for the help.

 

1. Sounds like you don't have the electric choke set correctly. The electric choke does not rely on vacuum. It has a coil element in it that when warmed up or cooled down, expands and contracts. There are a few good videos on youtube you can watch to set one up correctly. If you have any problem finding one, let me know and I'll through out a link. There's also a cam type step gear that the choke uses as the coil heats up. That could also need adjusting.

2. Make sure your carb is setup properly. I also have a 302 and using an HEI distributor and haven't had any issues at all. I also have a edelbrock performer RPM intake and Holley 4160 4 barrel 600cfm. Not saying that it couldn't happen, but I'm doubting that's it. Sounds like it's all carb related. If you pretty much have a stock cam, etc. That carb may be too big for the engine..

 

I won't have a problem with the electric choke. I guess I just put a little too much faith in holley's "good out of the box" promise.

The cam in the truck is whatever comes in the edelbrock performer package. It had a 600cfm edelbrock on it when I bought it but I pulled it off to try the holley off road. It feels like it kind of hits a "wall" at a certain rpm and if it were to break past that wall it would be a monster.

 

I know some people have, but I've never received a carb out of the box that didn't need adjusting for the engine it was placed on.

Definitely tune the carb and choke. Once the engine is warmed up, that choke should be completely open always.

 

Would it make any sense to hook the elec choke up to a switch? Right now I just have it hooked up to a 12v key on spot in the fuse box.

 

Not at all. When 12v is applied to the choke, it heats up the coil inside and causes the choke to open. If you put it on a switch, it will never open unless you switch it on.

Just follow this first...
Youtube is your friend!