Thread: carter carb wont idle

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i have a carter carb that worked fine when i took it off of my camaro but when i put it on my nova i cant get it to idle. i took the needles out of the top of the carb. dont know the actual name of the part but they both have a spring on them and when i put them back on the carb the suction pulls them down and the car dies. any help?

your talking about the needle valves. Turn them both in all the way and then back them out two turns. It should start and idle after that. Then you'll want to adjust them after that . Turn one in about one half turn and then the other. If you have a tach watch to see how your engine runs.

If they came out of the top of the carb, they're the metering rods.

I just dealt with that... There are some real small passages in the boosters that clog in a heartbeat..not too hard to fix though..

Do you have vacuum advance on the Nova?

If you've sourced it to ported vacuum, the advance mechanism won't add advance at idle.

The Camaro may have had the vacuum advance line sourced to manifold vacuum and if so, the carb's idle speed screw would be set for the idle increase due to the vacuum advance on this engine.

Try increasing the idle speed with the idle screw and adjust the mixture screws for the best engine vacuum as read by a vacuum gauge plugged into manifold vacuum.

As your mixture adjustment increases rpm you'll have to back off the idle speed screw to the rpm you want.

Originally Posted by techinspector1

If they came out of the top of the carb, they're the metering rods.

Tech if I read the message right I wouldn't have given him that info. my mistake

thanks for all the great advice and help. the car had a two barrel intake on it and i had put an adapter on it for the 4 barrel. i went out and bought a intake for it last night so i guess i will see how it does when i put it all back together.