[BobEhud]

Okay this is not your everyday Burban.It's a 91' with a 98/99 454 but its been converted to carb.Now the guy had spent some money on the engine and then slapped a leaky,shot Q-jet on it .I replaced that with a Barry Grant Street demon 750cfm Vac sec..even though the carb looks new i still went thru it and he had the jets all wrong so prior to installed i set it up.Adjusted the electric choke,one pump on s cold start and bang she fires right had ti fiddle with the fast idle speed a bit but now when warm you can reach in and turn the key and it starts.

Now all the above wasn't bragging it was to show im an old dude that has played with alot of carbs and never ran into this.When you are accelerating hard and the secondary's come open you can feel the truck pick up speed but once or twice when they opened i felt as much as heard a pop..now BG's from the factory are like 74's in the front and 83's in the back which is a big set of jets.

I checked for vacuum leaks and ended up replacing 90% of the hoses under the hood.

Any feedback,suggestions,thoughts to steer me in right direction would be great.

 

[phoebeisis]

It has been a long time since I fooled with carbs, but.
Maybe the secondarys have a temporarily lean situation when the butterflies open in the secondaries.
I used to have some Yamaha 500's(4 cyl 4 stroke singles).
The stock carbs had a whole separate antibackfire circuit- when the throttle was suddenly opened- without the circuit the air would temporarily "beat" the fuel and it would be too lean to fire in the cylinder- but once the too lean mixture made it to the exhaust- it would ignite and you would get a slight backfire pop.

Well- it was a long time ago- but that is how I remember it.
I would try to do something to richen up the midrange!
How is the midrange adjusted on that carb? My memory of car carbs-late 70's dual feed dual pump Holley 650 on a 71-Cuda 383 is my last car carb memory(came with a Holley vacuum secondaries and actually worked better/faster with the stock carb- but I was young and thought I could make it faster)

Yeah maybe you have a temporary lean situation-take a while for the fuel to catch up with the air.
Charlie

Accelerator pumps take care of this on some carbs- but only when you really hit the throttle- not with normal vigorous less than full throttle acceleration.

 

[BobEhud]

Yeap...i was afraid someone was going to say that im glad in sprung for the blue gaskets,you reuse them a few times..secondary fuel circuit on the BG mimic's the Holley so i will move to 85's and have a set of 86's as well..funny thing is it doesn't happen every-time but i have been dealing with cars since i worked at Western Auto..ok guys under 30 wont get it but guys about my age will..lol

 

[phoebeisis]

Are there still Western Autos?
When I was a kid living in Gramercy,LA( South Louisiana-40 miles upriver of NOLA- FROM 1958-1970)- there was a Western Auto on Main Street.
It was a general hardware store auto parts store.
I would buy 22 bullets there-still remember it was 39 cents for shorts about 50 cents for Long Rifles.
My Winchester 190 would take shorts(21 or so) Longs(about 19) and Long Rifles(about 17) so I always bought the cheaper shorts.( I bought the winchester mail order in about 1963 for $42.50 delivered-think I must have lied about my age(I was 12) or had my parents fill out the mail order form)

Memory LANE-Western Auto also sold guns- seem to remember tham occasionally selling surplus Mausers(7.92??)-the rifle-Argentine usually-really cheap.

I would try bigger jets-see what happens.
Carbs are easier to fool with than EFI-but I love EFI.
There just wasn't any way- other than seat of pants and ears-to tell if you had the jetting correct.EFI does all that automatically.
If was fun playing with carbs points distributors but the more modern stuff just works sooooo well.

What is the stock HP rating of that 454 -with EFI-maybe 300 hp 450 lb ft ?? It should make about as much peak power with the carb, but it will be thirstier-not that anyone who buys a 454 is much concerned with mpg??
It should be a beast once dialed in.
The PO spent $$ rebuilding it, but then cheaped out(ran out of $$ maybe) and installed a worn out carb.
It should run hard once you dial it in.
It must have originally had a throttle body FI- maybe it had a mass air sensor in the air box snorkle ?
Did it originally have some sort of O2 sensors in the exhaust-something that reported back to the COMPUTER-ECU- TO ALLOW IT TO DIAL IN THE FUEL??
Guess it would be tricky costly to try to revert to FI??
I LOVE THE WAY MY 98 5.7 RUNS-still runs great despite 217,000 miles-22000 of them are mine.
I wouldn't object to having 454 power torque- but the gas cost would dent my pocket book!!
No one who buys a
Your truck LOOKS GOOD in the pictures- is it slightly lifted or is that stock 3/4 ton 4x4 setup??
Body looks good-it must not have been a mid west NE truck- or it had a very careful owner.
Where are you and where did it come from??
Suburban are real bargains now-gas goes up in price-Suburban become cheap to buy.They are the best bargain you can get--you get full sized utility for maybe $2500-$5000- in a easy to repair vehicle-get parts anywhere and parts are generally inexpensive.

Charlie

 

[Chris Miller]

There are a couple of Western Autos in Texas, and a few in California, I believe. I remember the days when you could go in, and they'd have all sorts of things like washers and dryers, guns, bicycles...anyway, I digress.
First thing I would do is try bigger jets on the secondaries, like he said, and double-check the timing. Do you have the EFI distributor in there, or did the last guy put the older style distributor in?

 

[phoebeisis]

Chris- so there are still a few left. They used to be in every small town-and city- all across the south.I think the mayor owned that Western Auto in Gramercy.Can't remember if they did repairs/maintenance on cars but I think some did-had floor jacks-etc
Like you say-they sold everything but groceries-car stuff, appliances , hardware, tools, guns.
Amazing the variety of stuff they would have in a relatively small store
I mainly bought 22's-the ammo- there.
Don't remember any problem buying ammo-despite being 12 or 13 when I would have bought bullets for my High Standard pistol or the Whinchester 190 rifle.
Charlie

 

[BobEhud]

Western Auto was always owned by Sears and Sears one day just pulled the plug on them they then were turned into PartsAmerica,which was just a RedWhite and Blue AZ..then Advanced did a hostile take over and all of what was Western Auto just Vanished.We had catalogs under the counter and if while you were waiting on your car you need a Couch or a Frig we would just order it and it would come in on the next stock order which was every Thursday.

Okay enough memory lane i raised to float level just a tad,really about an 1/8 of a turn and it seems to have cleared it up.Thanks for the complamints on the Burban.Wife named it Chubs',just kinda fits.

No lift kit all 1 ton running gear.Full floater 14 bolt in the back with Auburn locker and a 4 bolt Dana 60 in the front. 454 with a HD 400-205 TC-it truly is a monster.I have that BG dialed in im going to double check the timing and drive it.Barry Grant did a good carb sucks they shut the doors earlier this year.

OH yeah it pulls like a bear once it gets rolling on any open stretch and no traffic i ran for about a mile at 85...lol..had to check the balance on those new tires..lol..but i know better when there is other cars around you arent going to haul that train down in to big a hurry.