Divorced choke
 

Now that I have my engine running decently, I need to put the rebuilt quadrajet back on and install the divorced choke. I will be using the chassis manual, but was wondering if anyone had a link to a good video online showing the process.

Forgot to add that it's a 1968 intake manifold, and the carb is a 1970 quadrajet. I bought the choke stove and rod from our host.

Following.

Story time.

I have a 1971 455 HO with a 1971 455 QuadraJet (not the rare actual HO one but one for a 1971 455 automatic). When I first had the car in 2003 all I ever seemed to read was about how I needed to replace that divorced choke with an electric one. I did that in my first year of ownership but I was always tweaking that thing. Never could get it right somehow. Needed to tighten it up in summer and loosen it in winter. This was in the middle east, too, so not a challenging climate for a choke.

When I got the car back to the UK I could barely start the thing. I still had the old divorced choke in a box but the rod had gone missing. I started to think that even an aftermarket divorced choke most be better than this electric so I ordered a replacement from our hosts. Slapped it on with very low expectations and the bloody car was transformed. It just started. And it didn't matter the temperature. It didn't take long to dial in the right rod length. It was almost immediately almost perfect. In fact the only problem I still really have with it is that the choke cycles to full open a little slower than the speed at which the engine heats up. But I don't think this is the choke's fault. The issue there is that my heads got switched to the Edelbrock ones and those have a much much smaller exhaust crossover passage. So I think it just doesn't get the heat it needs as quickly as the stock heads would heat it.

Weird that the factory system works so well, right? I feel like a moron now for persisting with that silly aftermarket electric choke.

Now if your car came with a factory electric choke for sure I would keep that also. What I'm saying is the factory stuff is really well worked out and the closer you are to it the better things like this work.

I've got a similar setup on my 68 GTO, 68 intake with a 71 QJ, repop divorced choke from Ames. Works great so far. I've got the passenger side exhaust crossover open, drivers side closed, so the choke is adjusted to be very sensitive, still the engine is plenty warm by the time it opens up all the way.

The key to starting a cold motor with any type of choke is that after you tap the throttle once or twice to give it that shot of fuel to start on the choke must then be closed all the way.

Once the motor starts the pull off ( if your carb has one like on a stock carb) should open the choke such that a 1/8” drill bit will fit in the gap.

The issue is with many aftermarket carbs and ones that use a electric choke and or have no choke pull off is that you need to have the choke flap already set 1/8” open.

This makes the motor harder to start as the temps drop more and as that temperature change gets bigger you will need to pump the gas more to get the big big change in the air to fuel ratio needed to start a cold motor,

What computer program was this guy using to run his words together like that?

Gez! I thought it was only in the first paragraph or two, but it was in the whole post!

manual choke makes life so much easier!

"This guy" had unrequested "help" from the website management during a "site upgrade".

The problem has been reported to the website management, and they seem ENTIRELY unwilling to do anything about it.

Which is one of several reasons that "this guy" has limited his time on that web site, and is considering re-hosting the content on his own.

So to update, I got it all sorted out. I just googled a few different videos and now have the whole cycle working perfectly. It's great watching it go through it's paces. Had to adjust the choke rod a little. No big deal. The one I got had a horizontal U shape that made it easy.

Great news!
Now enjoy some drive time.