Hello everyone. I recently acquired a 1979 Corvette. This is my first vette and she needs a little work. First thing is the carb. It definately needs to be replaced. The guy I got the car from put on a Edelbrock intake manifold, but left the original carb. What kind of carburetor do I need and will any mount straight up? I bought a Edelbrock carb from Autozone and it mounts nicely to the intake manifold, but the cables and other stuff will not hook up and the fuel line doesnt hook up the same. This car will not be for racing, street only. I did a little searching and there are manual and electric chokes? How do I know if my vette is manual or electric? On the passenger side of the carb thats on it now, it seems there are some things actually unhooked? idk. These questions might sound lame to most of you guys, but I'm used to working on new vehicles with fuel injection and all the electronic stuff. It seems like I may have gotten in over my head with this one. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

http://www.barrygrant.com/demon/default.aspx?page=8

 

If this car came with the original carburetor on it that would be a Rochester Quadrajet. This is simply the finest street carburetor EVER made. When rebuilt and tuned properly it will give better gas mileage and performance than anything else. The carburetor you put on there is a poor substitute.

BigBlockk

Later.....

 

 

 

If it's the correct original carb, it certainly does not need to be replaced. It just needs to be rebuilt and set up right.

Nothing wrong with that. The original Q-Jet mounts up fine to the EDL manifold.

The only carb that will bolt straight up with no modification to your fuel lines and linkage is the original Q-Jet. Any other carb will require custom fabrication and/or custom parts.

No C3 Vettes use manual chokes. Your choke system on your '79 is a hot air automatic choke. Only the 1980 and 81 used electric chokes. All the parts needed for your hot air choke are available from the Corvette restoration parts places. Edelbrock makes a manifold adapter that allows use of the hot air tubes.

 

 

with eveyone above on the original Qjet being a fantastic carb. However, if bubba has gotten too much into yours then that might be a different story. IMO a decent alternative might be for you to consider a Holley 670 Street Avenger. It has an electric choke that's easy to hook up. However, I don't remember if they're available in spread bore.

 

If you don't want to rebuild that carberator, Summit Racing has a direct replacement with little to no modifications.

Here is the link:

http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku

 

Can anyone tell me if the carb in the link above is the correct one for my '79? It says it's for a '80 vette. It looks the same but I want to make sure before i drop $300 for it. Also, I was looking into the stock quadrajet thats on my vette now, and it looks as if on the passenger side (thats where the choke is, right?) the choke has actually been removed. There is nothing going to the linkage at all. I was told that this is actually supposed to be a hot air choke and that it hooked up the original exhaust manifold? The previous owner, we'll call him bubba, installed stainless headers. O.K., i figured out, by reading some of your replies, that this IS not a manual choke. Now, should I take my new baby to a shop and have them mess with her and charge me ALOT of money, or can you guys point me in the right direction and help me fix this problem myself. Also, my power locks don't work. Any suggestions? One more thing. When I turn off the radio, and the antenna tries to go down, I have to actually push it most of the way down before it goes by itself. I know the motor is running cause it's pretty loud. Anybody know what this is? Thanks guys for all your help!

 

OK, several things here.
With the carb issue, LARS is the carb God in here, get to know and rever him and follow all his sage advice. Take and post some pics of your carb and we will figure out what you need to do.
Door Locks, there 20 amp fuse labeled CTSY that powers the locks. It supplies power to the lock switches at all times. In a lot of cars the connector on the switch has come off the bottom of the switch in the console. The switches also get a lot of crap in them because of how it is mounted. Take the side panel off the console to access the switch, this may be easier to do with the seat removed.
Next to the power antenna, it needs to come out, be taken apart, cleaned and possibly repaired.
If you have any aptitude with tools we can help you get all this done.

 

As stated, the best carb for you is definitely the original one. Just get her rebuilt and she'll serve you well. The locks are probably just a little "disconnected" from the switches and that's really an easy fix. The door panels actually come off pretty easily, once you unscrew all of the screws. I've been in my door panels a couple of times now and it's really quite and easy task to get em off, now. So honestly the door locks are really easy to fix.

The antenna isn't that hard, but the mufflers are in the way. Probably just needs to be cleaned up a bit and it'll work fine.

 

Thanks for all the advice. I will post pics of the carb tomorrow when I have some daylight. One other thing. I was messing around with it a little today and I was just wondering about the 2 butterflys on top of the carb. I read somewhere that if you dont have a choke, then you need to actually keep them open. Is this right? I've tried that and everything else and nothing seems to help. When I get it where it sounds good running, as soon as I put the car in gear, it stalls out. And if I turn it way up to where it wont stall out, then my brakes wont actually hold the car when I try to stop and the rpms rev all the way up to 30-35 when in P. Hopefully someone will be able to help me out more after I post some pics. Thanks.

 

The butterfly on the front two barrels is the choke and should be wide open if the choke is not functioning. The butterfly on the back two barrels is the secondary air valve and should be closed unless the secondaries are open and the engine in under load (actually moving). God bless, Sensei

 

This sounds like a fairly major vacuum leak.

BigBlockk

Later.....

 

Post the carb pics so we can see what if anything is missing. Sounds to me like you just have the thing hosed up a bit, not gaffing you, but thats what it sounds like.
Be glad to help

 

Here are some pics of the carb. Don't mind the rubber fuel hose on the fuel line. The fuel line twisted and broke when I was unbolting it from the carb and I needed a temporary fix. Also the bolt you see in a couple of the pics on the choke linkage was being used to hold the butterfly open to see if it helped. Thanks. Any help??

 

OK, to start with your missing the hot air pipe for the choke, thats what heats it up so it will open up. There is also a rod and lever missing off the secondary butterflys. Go to a wrecking yard and snag a junk carb that you can scavenge for parts.
There are several guys in here that have parts too, LARS, Carbsomething...

 

This thing is a mess! You need to get a Rochester carburetor book so you can identify what is missing. At least we know why the choke doesn't work. You need to do some studying.

BigBlockk

Layer.....

 

Thanks guys. I will do some scavenging at the local boneyards and will update with progress. Thanks for the help. It would probably be easier and better just to order a rebuilt one.