[Sirrotica]

Choices are, run with no functioning choke, or fashion a custom hot air pipe for the olds carb, or run an electric choke conversion cap, which you've said you're not even thinking about.

In summer months you could get by with no choke fairly easily. There are hundreds of street cars without chokes that get driven in mostly fair weather during the summer months. I've done it even in the winter, but in the winter it's a real pain to get one started and keep it running. Also not engine friendly to be dumping a lot of raw fuel into the upper cylinders during warm ups by pumping the accelerator pump repeatedly. Much less raw fuel needed during the summer than winter.

If I were to fabricate a custom pipe I would use Nicopp (nickel copper) tubing as it's much more malleable that steel tubing, and easier to work with. Speaking from experience I have used steel tubing to make hot air tubes, and getting the tight bends required usually flattens steel tubing out and kinks it. Bending the Nicopp tubing around a dowel, etc. is much easier than trying to bend steel tubing.

If you're going to need to connect a chevy style tube to the choke housing there is a silicone rubber based hose that doesn't melt under the high heat, I have never tried to source any of that silicone based hose, so I have no idea of where to buy it.

Truthfully it would be less labor intensive to wire an electric choke up than make a custom heat tube. As I've said I've done the custom pipes myself, and it's no picnic to fabricate them. You also need a way to downsize/crimp the tubing where it connects to the manifold. In the past I've successfully used a undersized double flare fixture squeezed in a vise to crimp the tubing down enough to get it to slip into the manifold heat tube.

Your car, and your choice.