I have a '79 F150 Custom with a stock 351M motor and stock 2 barrel carb. I want to put on a new Edelbrock intake manifold and carb. I'm wondering if I can put on a 4 barrel carb and eliminate the EGR valve? I'm very green to this whole thing so please dumb it down as much as possible

 

The simple answer is yes you can delete the EGR. Just be sure that you don't run into any problems with the emissions laws in your state. Some advice on the swap....use the valley pan gasket and a good carb spacer between the manifold and carb.

 

You could ... but the carb isn't the limiting factor on just about any mid-late '70s engine - unless you change the heads and maybe the cam, there's probably no point in changing the intake & carb, as they won't allow much more flow than you could get through the stock carb anyhow.

 

What would you recommend? It runs pretty good but starts hard (maybe a choke problem). It runs pretty rich (white smoke) when its first started in the morning. Also, right after it's started from cold the first time you slow down it will die. Any advice?

 

Always upgrade the exhaust before improving the intake side of the engine.

 

What do you recommend I do on the exhaust? Dual exhaust? Any advise on the hard start? Or the fact that it dies?

 

My personal opinion, is nothing smaller than 2.5inch exhaust, I have dual 3 inch for my 347. 3 inch if it will be crush bends and free flowing mufflers(read- no flowmasters). Coupled with a nice set of headers. If you plan to keep the motor with a re-build in the future then virtually anything you get for it aside from say pushrods can be looked at as collecting parts for the re-build.

 

What's your goal? Just to get it cold-starting better? Proper carb tuning (with a rebuild if necessary) can do that. More power? A carb alone isn't going to buy you much of anything. As HIO says, the exhaust side is more of a restriction, but even with that addressed, the heads are likely to be a choke point that prevents you from taking advantage of a bigger carburetor.

 

Yes, the heads, coupled with super low compression due to pistons being a ways in the hole it wont breath fire.

 

The main goal is to make it a reliable daily driver for now. I'd like to keep doing little things to it as time goes by to make it a rolling work of art while keeping the matching numbers. Right now it's all original with only 61,500 miles. I'll start with the exhaust and a carb rebuild and go from there. Any other suggestions? Basically if one of you guys bought this truck after it had only been driven 400 miles in 7 years what are the things you would do?

 

Check,
fluids
wiring
brakes
tune up, cap rotor, wires and plugs along with carb tune up.

 

Thanks all I appreciate the feedback! Happy 4th of July