After replaceing the valve stem seals with the heads on the car i started putting my Vette back together. I went through alot of while I'm at it stuff. Well thats another story. I have a couple of questions. I started it up last night and after letting it run for a while and shutting it off, my dad came out and said he was sitting in the house(he was with me when we startted the Vette) he smelt of gasaline. So did I. We figured the car was running rich big time. I also put a dual exhaust system with not Cat. There was a post yesterday about someone saying cars without cats smell of gas when they run. Could it be It's not running rich it just smells that way because I took off the Cat? My othe question is In the front of the carb. is a green conector. I don't remember where it goes. I know I am stupid. I looked all over the front of the engin and can't see where it would go. I took the AIR pump off. It had 2 connectors going to it but this is not one of them. The wire is not that long. can anyone with an 81 tell me where this conector goes.

 

I know there is a green wire that goes to the AC solenoid on the side of the carb? There is also a green wire that goes to the coolant temp sensor, on the head, perhaps you forgot to connect them. Just a thought.

 

And if you did leave the temp sender unhooked, the CC carb would think that it is cold and add a lot of gas.

 

Hey Jay,
That green connector is the "check lead" for the mc dwell on your computer controlled carb. These are impossible to adjust correctly without the proper tools. This probably explains the rich mixture too. You'll have to take it to a shop or qualified mechanic for adjustment. Should take less than 1 hour so it won't be too expensive.
Good luck, Greg

 

Jay,
As Greg said. I spent ages looking for that lead, even ripped most of the wiring apart, but somebody had removed it! Setting up the carb, believe it or not, isn't that difficult. You'll need a dwell meter with a 6 cyl scale & also a set of adjusting tools that you can apparently buy quite easily in the US. If you go through the archives there's a lot of verbage on setting up E4ME carbs. Dallanex wrote a particularly good post as I remember, so have a look at his carb posts. Don't be scared of the carb! I've just had mine completely apart & it really isn't that different to a normal Q-jet. Also check the float level. I had to take mine apart to do that, but you can buy a gauge that you stick down the air horn vent to get the level (so I hear, none of these things are available where I am). If Bubba has been at the carb then there's a high chance that the float level could be wrong &/or, as I found, the mixture screw settings were completely different to each other (to try to compensate for the bent solenoid needle!!!). If you want to have a fiddle with the carb just write down the initial setting of anything that you adjust so that you can go back to the starting point if you get problems.
Are the anti tamper plugs still fitted?
BUT.... if it is running rich then I'd expect the Check Engine to flash & the computer to store an error code? With dual pipes on my '81 it does smell of fuel. Sitting behind the car with it idling (for fine tuning the idle mixture, unbalanced duals are great for sussing out which side of the carb needs tweaking) the smell is strong. But I can get over 20mpg when cruising, so it can't be overly rich. One thing I've found over the years is that certain normally aspirated engines seem to idle better with a slightly rich idle mixture. I really don't know if that applies to a SBC, especially with an E4ME stuck on it, but I'd be interested in other peoples opinions :)
Is your purge cannister properly hooked up & working OK? Mine has been Bubba'd & vents to the atmosphere, which really smells bad!
One other thing I've just remembered is the 2 seals on the idle air bleed valve (the big screw right at the top) may need replacing. Mine wasn't running at all well at times & I found that the seals had disintegrated. Changing them made it feel like I'd had a new carb fitted.
:cheers:

 

Yeah...and if this happens and you run it for awile, make sure to change the oil. It'll be contaminated with gas. I know...been there after doing an engine swap in the pick-up.