Most Holley's have a large (3/8") port in the front, this is for your PCV valve. They also have a hole, with a recessed screwed in plug at the same location, at the rear, for the brake booster line. You have to remove the carb, get a really good large straight flat tip, remove it, and install a 3/8" vacuum port there, for the booster. the headlights ought to come off of a vacuum port where the huge vacuum leaking hole is now, it looks like a screw in "L", common part. the rest go to the carb- dist, charcol canister, etc. start form scratch, and correct it right.

 

I'm finally off work and I will be posting more pics and trying out some of your ideas here shortly. Its currently raining pretty hard and I have no garage immediately available.

If someone has the time I'd like a picture of the PROPER set up. Which leads me to:

RunningMan373
Once it stops raining I'll pull my carb off again and look for what you're talking about. I'm under the impression that I'm one port short. :P That hole in the back is currently holding a small manifold. I'll edit my original post to communicate this more clearly. Thank you for taking the time to respond with some good suggestions.

brngrhd
I'll recheck as requested but I'm fairly confident that I have this correct. It never hurts to look though.

Imo Apita
Thanks for the words of encouragement. We all start somewhere. I just happened to start with a 'vette that was already 180 degrees off. :P I'm in the market for some good books actually. I have the haynes book but I'm looking for one specifically about my engine.

...Roger... & wiseman79
I assure you that the hole is currently holding a small manifold which feeds to my lights, washers, and PCV. I'll get a pic of my crappy set up as soon as I can.

wiseman79
I originally set my timing with the vacuum advance disconnected and plugged but made a minor adjustment when I reconnected it. I'll be working your process of elimination technique as soon as the weather abates. Thanks for the response.

bobs77vet
I'll check the vacuum advance cannister while I'm under the hood today. I didn't even consider that option because the distributor is less than a month old and it worked fine before I switched manifolds. I'm all for eliminating all possibilities though so thank you for your time.

baxsom
You've voiced my suspicions. I'll get to work as soon as I can. Thanks for the response.

Dantana
I like those fuel lines and I will certainly look into them. I did try disconnecting and plugging everything but the PCV last night. It still died upon switching to drive BUT I didn't spend a lot of time investigating the issue. I was blessed with clear skies when I did the manifold but today is a different story. Thanks for your insight.

houstonvett
I'm all for updates. I'd remove the carb and go to EFI right now if not for my towering ignorance. We do have a good hobby shop at my current station but the advice I've received there has been fairly hit-or-miss. I'll be one my way over to Goodfellow right out of San Angelo here soon. I'm hoping they also have a nice auto hobby shop. I'll be researching your suggested updates while I wait for the weather to clear. Thanks for your time.

 

I just ran some carb cleaner around all my seals and didn't notice any increase in RPM. I'll keep working though the rest of the suggestions if it'll ever stop raining!

 

Just for everybodys information... JIC... that Russells Hose stuff is rubber hose covered with a braided stainless protective sleeve.. the line inside is rubber.. not steel. It's nice stuff, but not really a "steel" line per se.

 

I fixed my 'original' problem but now have another? My friend and I reset the timing and it ran like a scalded dog (great) for the whole night. This morning I stopped by 7/11 on my way in to work and it died and wouldn't start again. Thankfully I was near an automotive shop and they offered some good suggestions and fixes however the problem persists. The car will start now but only run for about 10 minutes before shutting itself off. The distributor is only sending sparks (cable & screwdriver trick) when it wants to and thats not often. I replaced the black "thing" (drawing a blank on the name) inside the distributor. It came with thermal paste which I applied. However that was not the solution to my problem. Basically I gave up and got the car running, albeit briefly, and tore a$$ back to my house. Any ideas?

 

when you say you rest the timing... is it that you reset the timing of changed the firing order.

 

I mean we reset the distributor to about 8-10 degrees initial.

 

COIL! get a new coil! I had the same thing. it would run a bit then just shut off.
After throwing a bunch of $$ at it I read on here somewhere that thats a classic sign
of a bad coil.

 

I'll give that a shot! That sounds like a viable source of the problem.

Edit: Christ... I have no idea where that goes....

 

External coil will have a wire similar to a spark plug wire going between it and the top of the distributor. If you have HEI then the coil is screwed to the top of the distributor. I agree that is what it sounds like is the problem. I'd try making sure the coil wire is on tight before buying a new coil, long shot but you could get lucky.

 

Broke this one today while trying to get the car running. Upon closer inspection it was already damaged. Any ideas what its called?

 

This is close. http://www.volvette.com/EN91B.html

 

It's a vacuum tree. You can get the correct part, or if you take that down to advance or autozone and rummage through the brass bins you can cobble something together that'll work.

 

while your at autozone buying a coil you can get a new vacuum tee. just take the old one in with you. I bet they will know what it is.

 

I want to start going to your autozone because I ask for a rag joint a couple weeks ago and they looked at me like I was from Mars. They looked for 15 min in their computer and were determined to turn me away without one and all the time I kept telling them I could see one from where I was standing.

 

where is that T on a tri-power car? mine only has one port and i'm looking to add more

 

If you said that the Tee was damaged before it broke, then that could be a source of a vacuum leak. Where the rubber pushes onto the tee would be good, but where it broke would cause it to leak at that location.

However you then said you reset your timing to 8-10 degrees and it ran good until something else broke. From what you were describing I am thinking it was the rotor inside of the distributor cap. Did you replace that also?

kdf