1974 318 choke question

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dan brooks

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I recently installed a 1974 318 from a scamp into my 65 coronet. It was a drop in instillation and went wonderful, motor runs great.
Here's my question, the 74 motor has what looks to be an electric choke, at least there's a rod that drops into the intake right next to the carb, it has a small electric attachment box next to it. this little box has a battery wiring attachment to it. I attached a hot lead right to this and nothing happens so I'm assuming there's something wrong with the choke.
It's a two barrel carb, and I want to keep it that way. Once it's warm it runs great but it wont come off the fast idle cam even when it's hot. I've turned the fast idle screw out so that when it starts it runs at the normal rpm but never fast idles when cold.
Can you let me know what I should do? a picture would be great too. Not sure if I should leave that hot lead on there or if it should go through the switch.
Thanks, Dan.
 
whitepunkonnitro said:
You should probably just use the earlier, non electronic choke.
Click to expand...

This might sound dumb but can you point me in the direction where i might buy a standard choke without electric for this motor? and possibly a picture. You have to understand I got this as a project so i am not sure what to look for. Will the earlier choke fit into the 74 318 manifold where the current electric one is???
Here's another question, when I got this motor it had just a carb gasket on the motor that was about I'd say 1/4 inch thick, no carb just the gasket came with the motor, do i have to put that thick gasket back in there to make choke work right or was that something whoever had the motor last just rigged in there? It seems to work fine without it. Thanks for everything, Dan.
 
First off, that little ceramic box never was weather tight. Inside are bimetal contact thingys much like the mechanical instrument voltage limiter, but times 2. Lets assume all that is really crap today.
It never limited choke travel anyway. Its purpose was make the choke heat and drop out up faster to satisfy EPA. I suspect the choke not coming fully off is result of a thicker base gasket installed under the carb. I simply carefully altered the bends in that linkage to get it to work right.
You really can't have a too thick gasket under the carb with todays "easy percolate" fuel. Thickest gasket you can buy, adjust choke link accordingly.
toss the electric assist controller in the nearest dump.
 
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I call that device a choke timer. But in reality the Choke used with that timer is a fast acting type. So if you bypass the timer, the choke will come off normally, assuming the heater element is working.
What that timer really does is open the choke circuit, after about 3 minutes, depending on the ambient temp. Thus if the engine should stall, the choke will not drain your battery.So that's kindof nice. It also makes the alternators life easier.
Because the choke is disconnected so early, the rest of the warm-up system will need to be correctly functioning, or else drive-away will be adversely affected.
If your timer is stuck open, then the heater element in the choke-well will not receive any electrical power, and so the choke will be very slow to come off. Now the choke element has to wait for manifold heat to do the job, and that will be agonizingly slow.I've seen that take 10 minutes!
If you continue to drive this way you will carbon everything up, including the chambers, the plugs and the cross-over and into the exhaust. Your oil will become diluted with gas, and you could loose rod-bearings. You need to take care of this ASAP.
 
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If the cross over in the intake is plugged up ur choke will never come off unless u pull the intake and clean it out as well as the head ports. Or use the electric assist choke and the resistor. Kim
 
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