Clifford headers: now no choke for BBD. What to do?

I've had four cars over the decades with BBD's on them and they all ran rough until they warmed up. Backfiring through the carb, stalling, etc.
On two of them the choke mechanism was just plain broke. The others, I'm not sure since it was 25+ years ago.
Once warmed up, they all ran like scalded cats - including this little Dart.

I've just about decided BBD's are not worth having.
The carbs themselves may be good, but that choke setup - what a piece of garbage...
On the Jeep/AMC forums, nobody has anything good to say about them.