Hey all.
Just found this forum. Bought my jade green '71 right around new year's and am in the process of saving this poor, neglected car/truck. I actually bought the thing (that's an affectionate term) to use as a daily driver/parts hauler for my '70 Torino project car, but the Elky's starting to grow on me and needs less work than the Torino, so I thought I'd start making it a little nicer. It's got a lot of potential. And so it begins :)
Anywho, I just bought a Holley 600 carb and Edelbrock intake to replace the clapped out stock pieces. I'm not sure if they included all necessary brackets and whatnot... I bought the "intake combo" from Summit... if anyone has installed this stuff on their elco, I'd really appreciate any pointers (i.e. will i need to go get a bracket or any special carb linkage stuff). The new carb is manual choke, but as far as I know, the stocker is electronic, will I need to do anything special to hook up the choke? Does the choke even need to be hooked up? I thought I read in Car Craft that in warmer climes, the choke isn't all that necessary, but I could be wrong. Sorry for the stupid question, I had gotten pretty immersed in the Supra life (had a 91 turbo) for the last few years and forgot a lot about how to work on a real car. Now I just need to forget all of that stuff about electronic engine management and forced induction and relearn carbs and drum brakes :)
BTW, it feels so good to be driving an older car again. Hard to describe, but I'm sure a few of you know what I mean.

Car details:
'71 El Camino (possibly an El Camino Custom model)
(mostly) Jade Green with silver lower body
Green interior, bench seat (yeah baby)
350 w/ 2bbl carb (not for long)
350TH
crappy 2.76 rear end, at least it's posi...
Minor body damage to front fenders, hood, pass. door, rear bumper and back-left corner of the bed... nothing that a few hundred bucks at GM restoration parts and a body shop can't fix.

later,
Dean

Hey Dean,

I have the same setup on my Sprint, Edelbrock carb (600) & Wiend Intake
I'm just wondering is that's enough carb. I even have a crappier rear end then you do, 2.56 open. But I still love driving it. I live in TN and I have no choke on it. I bought it off my cousin about 3 years ago and when I asked him why no choke he told me steet rodders don't need no choke.

I think I need a new trans pan, I've put 2 new gaskets on it and the last one was rubber and it still leaks (pan looks a little beat up) getting back to your question I believe everything should bolt right up, I'm no expert on it
but nowadays all you need is right there in the box. But I could be wrong and maybe somebody will clarify this. Post your vin# and somebody will tell you if it's a standard or custom.


Brian

Hey 71Sprint,

heh, strange coincidence... the intake combo was supposed to include an air cleaner, but they sent me a chrome trans pan instead. I'd be more than happy to sell it to you for, oh, idunno, does 20 bucks shipping included sound fair? It lists at $24 or so in the summit catalog. Shoot me an e-mail at bdean1@ti.com if you want it. I don't really need it right now, and I don't want to spend the time under the car replacing a perfectly good pan with a prettier one for no good reason...

Well, I put the carb and intake on today and fiddled with the choke lever a bit until it ran ok... I might just leave it the way it is... if it gets cold, I'll just have to pop the hood and mess with it until it starts (can you say "free theft deterrent"?, that's right, I knew you could :)), or rig up some kind of cable so I can adjust it from the cab... no big deal. Problem is that the throttle cable and trans kick-down don't exactly match up to the linkage on the holley... probably should call summit tomorrow and see if there's something i can get that will fit better, and i need to go back and set the timing right anyways, I pretty much threw it together just to get it running, as i left my timing light at home.

I'm fairly sure that the 600 will be enough carb (for now, at least)... should've ponied up the extra 25 bux for the 750, but i guess i didn't think about it at the time. I'm not planning to race my Elky (affectionately referred to as "the Ill-co" because of the green color and various rust spots and stuff), so I'm thinking the 600 will do me ok until I get a new long block (i suspect that either the rings or the valve seals are going, the car's got almost 160K on it... haven't had a chance to do a compression or leakdown test just yet).

Well, I spent a good day and a half wrenching on the beast this weekend and got the carb and intake installed, but the throttle cable didn't have the right kind of connector and the tranny kick-down didn't fit right, so I've got to call Summit (or possibly Holley tech support) to get the right parts before next weekend's wrench-fest.

VIN is 136801K226054
I assume it's a custom because of the trim and two tone paint (green upper, silver lower, with a rotted out vynil roof - no longer on the car). I bought it for 1100. It had a horribly rusted out factory-installed camper on it and no back glass, so I had to rip off the camper and spend 100 more to get the back glass put in... luckily, the guy I got it from had a good piece of glass and most of the trim, and he just threw it in with the car. not a bad deal, if i do say so myself...

Anyways, let me know if you want this trans pan that I have. It's for a 350TH, chrome, brand new in the box, summit part no. SUM-G3885.

Oh yeah, if anyone knows where I could get some body parts (aside from Goodmark or YearOne) for a decent price, I need the following:
both front fenders
SS style hood
front grille
front blinker lenses (trim too)
probably lots of other random crap, but the car's 30 miles away right now so I can't think of all that i need...

Later,

Dean