After my engine was rebuilt, this was not hooked back up. I have been looking through the CSM but have not found any reference to it yet. It's located behind the passenger headlights. If I had to guess, I would say that it had something to do with the Carb because there are 2 hoses coming out of it. One is labeled "tank" and the other "carb". The one for the tank is still connected, but the one for carb is just dangling. Since my Quadrajet was toast (fuel intake completely stripped out, and could not be rethreaded), it was not connected back up to the new Edelbrock Performer that he installed. Should I plug the line? Any ideas?

 

It's the evaporative emissions charcoal canister. All it does is recover fuel vapor from carb and fuel tank and allow it to be sucked back into the carb and reburned. Doesn't cost anything to run it and it will only affect performance if the air filter under its bottom plugs or the activated charcoal bed inside it gets packed too solid.

Look in the emissions section of the CSM. Should be a subsection of the engine section.

 

Look in the fuel and exhaust systems chapter, starting on page 8-4 in the 1971 CSM.

 

The fuel intake on your q-jet couldn't be heli-coiled? I had that done to my q-jets and it has worked out nicely.

Randy C.

 

Thanks. I was looking and re-reading through the engine and carb chapters. I never even considered that it might be an emission control device.

Learn something new every day.

 

He said he tried heli-coiling in addition to everything else and nothing was working. He knew I really wanted to keep the Q-jet if possible. Heck, as a last ditch, he even tried epoxy...no joy.

side note...
His supplier had one last rebuilt Q-jet in stock, but by the time UPS got done with it, even the delivery guy said it "looked like someone used this box for a football." Needless to say, the new one was completely bent and broken when he opened the box up. He had a new Edelbrock Performer though, so I had him install that instead. I still kept the old Q-jet. It'll give me something to play with.

I will say that Ido like the electronic choke on the Edelbrock compared to my old carb. I don't have to pump the gas nearly as much on a cold start. One pump sets the choke, and then she starts right up.

 

Which is also how the stock hot air choke works when it's adjusted properly. The choke neither knows nor cares if the heat that moves the bimetallic coil comes from engine heat or an electric heater. The heat source isn't even active when the engine is cold, so hot air or electric has no effect on how quickly the car starts. The heat source only regulates how quickly the choke opens as the engine warms up.