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I already did that, watched a zillion Holley set up videos and went through that dozens of times.

On my last cougar, a 1970, I used an Edelbrock with a small block 302 and had great results. I had to slightly reduced idle speed and increase the accelerator pump stroke, all of 5 to 10 minutes.

While that vehicle proved to be a lost cause, I never had one single problem with the fuel system ever again.

If I warm up the engine and spin in those idle mixture screws, the vehicle idles but can’t accelerate at all unless you floor it and stalls half the time.


The good news is that I got the electric choke installed on the Edelbrock carb.

The choke kit said it wouldn’t work on an AVS2, but by simply drilling out the manual cable hole to 9/64" & bending the choke to shaft linkage rod, the full range of motion can occur. It was part number 1478.

Basically that shaft that doesn’t fit also isn’t needed. I located a circuit under the dash that’ll be perfect for a electric choke.

It turns out I won’t even need to use a relay like I originally planned to do. The voltage is steady and almost exactly 12 volts with the engine running.

Best of all, if I change my mind about the electric choke, I can a quickly pull it off and go with a simple manual choke.

The other factor is that the Holley isn’t necessarily what the serial number says it is. It could even be cannibalized from several different units!!

If I get the Edelbrock to work, I’ll give away the Holley unit simply for the cost of shipping & one lucky person who is a carb guru can figure out what it’s malfunction is.

The AVS2 also has annular boosters & is newer engineering with a throttle response very similar to throttle body injection.

It’s an upgrade even if both actually worked. There are scores of positive reviews of this on a wide variety of V8 engines and very few problems.

I’m going to hook up the Edelbrock carb to a battery charger to fine tune the choke before installing it on the vehicle.

Timing and full range of motion are the name of the game. Spinning the new choke back and forth. gets a beautiful text book result.

Stay tuned. Yes, there will be pictures and video.

Interestingly enough, this fellow had an almost identical problem. He elected to go with the 650 cfm AVS2 instead of the 500cfm one, but the results are dramatic.

[YouTube]https://youtu.be/YA3Q3WhNT54[/YouTube]

What does this mean? “spin in those idle mixture screws” Probably too late to make a difference now anyway. In the past 40 years I have never found a car that didn’t run fine with either the appropriate Holley or Edelbrock carb. Both brands require some tuning. There is nothing functional about the Edelbrock that is even remotely like EFI.

It’s not EFI. What the boosters do is to create much smaller fuel droplets which leads to a cleaner burn then traditional jets. The finer spray makes it feel like EFI more then a traditional carb especially when warmed up.

The Edelbrock works great but only gets 10 miles per gallon on high test. Still, I’m happy with it. I could change out the springs controlling the needle valves if I have to drive it everyday but that is totally unnecessary.

I also removed the OEM air filter and put on the proper one Edelbrock recommends, makes fine tuning easier because I don’t have to pull the air cleaner to turn screws.

The exact fine tuning in the Edelbrock was to increase cold idle speed a lot. A separate adjustment screw exists for this. I spun that in by at least 3 or 4 full turns.

The idle mixture screws ended up being turned clockwise to lean it out a little so it didn’t smell like gasoline when warming up.

I also increased the fast idle until the loopy idle vanished and the power steering functioned normally.

It warms up a lot faster. When I first installed it, the engine would take about 6 or 7 minutes to warm up and smooth out. Now I have it down to 90 to 120 seconds depending on how cold it is outside.

The transmission still shifts a little on the rough side until it’s been running for 6 it 7 minutes but it’s barely noticeable.

The choke takes about 5 minutes to fully open. When warm, the engine can idle at a ridiculously low speed so that even the headlights go dim and it’s super quiet. That’s no fun!!

There is also a lot less unexpected wheel spin and it’s easier to accelerate slowly.

Translation: I increased the fast idle speed just enough for the power steering to work & the headlight doors to open up in a reasonable length of time.

The spark plugs also look a lot better without the mild carbon deposits on them.

I did mail out the Holley carb for free to another lucky member already.

Thanks for everyone’s help on this.

Situation normal on this issue.