MelWff

You state a new fuel pump from prior owner but did you do a fuel pressure test? Did you check if the fuel filter or filters need replacing, inlet of carburetor and possible inline?

LastBigBlock

Thanks everyone for the input and ideas on my problem.

so...
I spent Thanksgiving weekend rebuilding the Quadrajet.

I did not find anything that was way out of place. The internals were pretty clean.

I replaced a bunch of stuff (accel pump, power piston and rods, idle tubes, plastic cam and secondary rods, secondary spring, needle valve and seat, filter etc, etc..) drilled out some passages, opened up the bypass air holes. Tried to implement the second recipe on page 113 (formula for low vac idle, loping cam) in Cliff's book

Not a whole lot of changes on the secondaries, mostly on the idle side.

I did not install bushings on the primary throttle plate shaft or replace the epoxy on the well plugs. got in too much of a rush.

Results were good. it now screams completely off the line with no hesitation at higher RPMs.

still have a bit of a choke problem and some sticking of the primary throttle, which may be related to not installing the bushings. added a second spring to the throttle cable return which helps with the sticking. still getting stuck occasionally around 1500 rpms because of a slight interference (wont always go down to idle unless I tap the pedal)

anyway, the bottom line is if I can do a carb rebuild successfully, anyone can do it....