[02Hawk]

test the reg also....dead heading on a wonky reg will cause pressure drop. Also where is the reg situated...too close to the engine and heat could be adding to the issue. Also in my opinion a Holly Blue is marginal on 500hp when pushing 20 feet from the back...go to a Black or a better pump....check if there are restrictions in the line (kinks) .....for street use you should set up a return line to keep the pump cooler.

[meanone]

Originally Posted by Ventura455

Sounds like your coil mabe taking a dump( over heating then shutting down). What are you running for a coil and distrubitor?

My brothers had an issue just like this with their boat. Ended up being their coil. Cruising around it was fine, but shortly after they raised the rpm it would start sputtering and die.

[Rellimniets]

Ventura455 - I am running an HEI, which model or spec I do not know, I have forgotten. I would have to look it up in my car build worksheets.

02Hawk - It is mounted on the firewall to the left if your looking into the engine bay. I will check into the pump thing when I hit http://www.americanmotorsports.net/ tomorrow morning.

meanone - It does get hot, but I was told they do get real hot. Maybe it is even hottier than it should be still.

Thank you all for the HELP, this is how we all get this crap done.

Brian

[Blued and Painted]

8 out of 10 perceived carb problems are not in the carb.
The tank could be going into a vacuum.
Cant find another thread where an internal screen in the electric pump was clogged.

[screamingchief]

Holley carbs are known to be prone to fuel slosh woes,first thing to do is check to see if that model of carb came with the plastic bowl vent "whistles",and if it did'nt,then you need to add them as SOP.

Also a crutch fix is to tie the front & rear bowl vents together using a piece of rubber vacuum/fuel hose w/a slit cut in the middle as that'll allow the sloshing fuel to move to the rear bowl instead of being dumped down into the manifold flooding it.

Fairly common Holley carb problem,easy fixes for it too.

HTH

Bret P.

[NeighborsComplaint]

Something electrical in all likelihood. I had a holley blue pump that I deadheaded with a regulator and it would overheat. Mine bucked like a bronco just before it died. Let it cool down and it was good again. I really needed a return line. I swapped for a street pump and no regulator and it ran fine after that.

There is a slight possibility of fuel percolation/vapor lock but it would have to 90F out to affect the fuel supply.

[b-man]

Fuel pickup is what size?

Pickup is located in the tank where?

You might find that sumping the tank is needed, and moving the pump behind the tank at the lowest point possible is also needed.

[Rellimniets]

Originally Posted by b-man

Fuel pickup is what size?

Pickup is located in the tank where?

You might find that sumping the tank is needed, and moving the pump behind the tank at the lowest point possible is also needed.

The pump is to the side and behind it, as in away form the rear bumper and it is below it. I welded a bracket to hold it off the frame back there and low enough to be below the tank.
Not sure on the pick up size, I used 1/2" everywhere, from tank to filter to pump to reg up front to the carb.

[ELKHORNAOG7]

I would take shaker 455 up on him testing it for you he, is about the best when it comes to a holley carb. and if it turns out to be a fuel pump problum I would think about going with a ROBBMC mech. fuel pump and get away from the elec. pump he makes them for 550 HP. and 1100 HP.-----BOB

[Rellimniets]

Originally Posted by NeighborsComplaint

Something electrical in all likelihood. I had a holley blue pump that I deadheaded with a regulator and it would overheat. Mine bucked like a bronco just before it died. Let it cool down and it was good again. I really needed a return line. I swapped for a street pump and no regulator and it ran fine after that.

There is a slight possibility of fuel percolation/vapor lock but it would have to 90F out to affect the fuel supply.

I do need a return line, always knew that but never put it in yet. I can see this getting hot enough for that after running it a few miles, due to being in Florida with it atm.

[Rellimniets]

Originally Posted by ELKHORNAOG7

I would take shaker 455 up on him testing it for you he, is about the best when it comes to a holley carb. and if it turns out to be a fuel pump problum I would think about going with a ROBBMC mech. fuel pump and get away from the elec. pump he makes them for 550 HP. and 1100 HP.-----BOB

I am in talks with him now and we are going to long distance trouble shoot some stuff.

[Rellimniets]

I wanna believe, I really do. I am on a course at the moment with a fellow forums patron here that will prove or disprove my carb issues, if any exsist.

[jonmachota78]

a fuel pressure guage you can see while driving eliminates alot of confusion

[Tom Vaught]

Originally Posted by screamingchief

Holley carbs are known to be prone to fuel slosh woes,first thing to do is check to see if that model of carb came with the plastic bowl vent "whistles",and if it did'nt,then you need to add them as SOP.

Also a crutch fix is to tie the front & rear bowl vents together using a piece of rubber vacuum/fuel hose w/a slit cut in the middle as that'll allow the sloshing fuel to move to the rear bowl instead of being dumped down into the manifold flooding it.

Fairly common Holley carb problem,easy fixes for it too.

HTH

Bret P.

You can usually get away without the hose on the vent tubes if you remove about 1/3 of the whistle length on the rear bowl and cut a new opening in the top to match the stock upper opening.

Under hard acceleration, the fuel in the rear bowl slams into the back wall, climbs the wall and then enters the stock length vent whistle. The fuel being forced thru the whistle by the acceleration of the fuel making the turn up the back wall can easily exit into the main body area.

The shortened whistle will allow the fuel hitting the back wall and turning to complete the turn and fall back into the bowl vs entering the whistle. A very common mod on good 60 ft time cars.

Tom Vaught

[Rellimniets]

Very interesting.

[Rellimniets]

This is a little past due, but personal business detained me a bit.

Shaker455 took it upon himself to let me know he was willing to help and boy did he help. I learned a ton from him and appreciate every bit of it.

My problems have been squashed and I am happy.

First, he had me call him and we went over the engine specs with my blue prints I had of the setup.

Secondly,he had me taking many many pics of of the items in question and what he thought was the issues. I must have sent him at least 25 pics or so, via email and text.

Thirdly, we did some diagnostics with the hands on approach and in turn I would relay these findings to him via text. After all this was over with we got into some changing of a few things.

1.Carb was removed and was basically set to basic bench setting to get a ground base of control. All blades were set full close and then adjusted out accordingly, electric choke disabled temporarily, bowl floats set to half full once it was back on the carb, idle screw set to "zero" if you will, and he also had me take the screw for the rear blades "which is on the bottom of the carb" out and put it back in from the top for much easier tuning. No more taking the carb off every time you wanna adjust that screw. These were also eventually adjusted accordingly as well.

2.We changed out the jets on the front from 72 to 74 and the rear jets from 80 to 83. This seem to work just fine after we put the carb back on.
At this time, the carb was considered to be under control now. This of course was agreed upon after many more tests and some finer tuning.

3.We moved on to the distributor after discovering there was some issues here as well. -The advanced timing was opening full at idle, hence why it ran like poo, dieseled and would not stay running at anything below 1350 RPM or greater, it was horrible.
The RPM is now a steady 950 and works very well. This is much better than running a previous idle of 1400 RPM.
-Initial timing was coming in at 5-6 degrees, with a total timing off the charts, way off the charts, I can not even remember what it was.
-We changed out the springs in the distributor to a heavy/medium combo, "previously it was a heavy/light combo and got advanced timing to now start to kick in closer to 1800 RPM and ending around 2700 RPM or so. Much better sounding and running even at this point of tuning in.
-Initial timing is now set to 16 degrees and a total timing of 36 degrees.

All of this has also brought down my engine temp by almost 20 degrees. I could not get the engine to run any less than 190 degrees, it now runs around 173ish degrees.

I was also educated in setting timing and how to use a digital timing light with setting your degrees up and down on the gun and learning to use that for setting and finding, initial, total, advance, mapping and so on.

I was instructed after all was said and done to take it for a drive and see what we have going on now. It ran like a champ and I noticed a "huge" increase in performance and HP. I did not even recognize my engine.

I now there is probably some steps and other useful information I am missing and I am sure Shaer455 will ring in here and throw his opinion around of anything I missed or stated incorrectly.
We still have some more finer tuning to do and what not, but I am extremely happy and grateful for what he has done for me. Now if I could just get his address so I can properly show my appreciation soon.

I will post more myself I too remember anything crucial to this topic for others to use. I now have a better understanding and faith for Holley carbs, timing and other stuff due to this man.

Cheers and thank you Shaker455.

Brian

[kyle_blake]

that's great!!! awesome enjoy!!

[johnsma22]

Originally Posted by Rellimniets

This is a little past due, but personal business detained me a bit.

Shaker455 took it upon himself to let me know he was willing to help and boy did he help. I learned a ton from him and appreciate every bit of it.

My problems have been squashed and I am happy.

First, he had me call him and we went over the engine specs with my blue prints I had of the setup.

Secondly,he had me taking many many pics of of the items in question and what he thought was the issues. I must have sent him at least 25 pics or so, via email and text.

Thirdly, we did some diagnostics with the hands on approach and in turn I would relay these findings to him via text. After all this was over with we got into some changing of a few things.

1.Carb was removed and was basically set to basic bench setting to get a ground base of control. All blades were set full close and then adjusted out accordingly, electric choke disabled temporarily, bowl floats set to half full once it was back on the carb, idle screw set to "zero" if you will, and he also had me take the screw for the rear blades "which is on the bottom of the carb" out and put it back in from the top for much easier tuning. No more taking the carb off every time you wanna adjust that screw. These were also eventually adjusted accordingly as well.

2.We changed out the jets on the front from 72 to 74 and the rear jets from 80 to 83. This seem to work just fine after we put the carb back on.
At this time, the carb was considered to be under control now. This of course was agreed upon after many more tests and some finer tuning.

3.We moved on to the distributor after discovering there was some issues here as well. -The advanced timing was opening full at idle, hence why it ran like poo, dieseled and would not stay running at anything below 1350 RPM or greater, it was horrible.
The RPM is now a steady 950 and works very well. This is much better than running a previous idle of 1400 RPM.
-Initial timing was coming in at 5-6 degrees, with a total timing off the charts, way off the charts, I can not even remember what it was.
-We changed out the springs in the distributor to a heavy/medium combo, "previously it was a heavy/light combo and got advanced timing to now start to kick in closer to 1800 RPM and ending around 2700 RPM or so. Much better sounding and running even at this point of tuning in.
-Initial timing is now set to 16 degrees and a total timing of 36 degrees.

All of this has also brought down my engine temp by almost 20 degrees. I could not get the engine to run any less than 190 degrees, it now runs around 173ish degrees.

I was also educated in setting timing and how to use a digital timing light with setting your degrees up and down on the gun and learning to use that for setting and finding, initial, total, advance, mapping and so on.

I was instructed after all was said and done to take it for a drive and see what we have going on now. It ran like a champ and I noticed a "huge" increase in performance and HP. I did not even recognize my engine.

I now there is probably some steps and other useful information I am missing and I am sure Shaer455 will ring in here and throw his opinion around of anything I missed or stated incorrectly.
We still have some more finer tuning to do and what not, but I am extremely happy and grateful for what he has done for me. Now if I could just get his address so I can properly show my appreciation soon.

I will post more myself I too remember anything crucial to this topic for others to use. I now have a better understanding and faith for Holley carbs, timing and other stuff due to this man.

Cheers and thank you Shaker455.

Brian

I will tell you that after I saw Shaker455 post on the first page of this thread, I knew that your above post would end up being the end result.

There are only two kinds of people on this great forum. Those who Shaker455 has selflessly helped, and those who Shaker455 will eventually selflessly help. He did the same for me, and then some!

[Rellimniets]

I believe it and it was the best.

[HWYSTR455]

Big round of applause to Shaker455!

.