The 350 in the 51 has trouble idling in drive when at a stop. Ive had mixed responses from people here ( in Reno ) that Ive asked. Its got a pretty lumpy cam, and the stall on the t.c. is 1800. So a couple people said bigger stall. But most said its a vacuum issue. Is the cam robbing the engine of vacuum? Or do I most likely have a leak? All the vacuum lines on the carb seem to be good. They're all new. How do I check to see if the intake is leaking? At the moment I'm popping it in nuetral as I'm rolling to a stop. At first I just turned up the idle, but now when I put it in park or nuetral, it idles too high. What do I do?
Easy test for leaking manifold is to spray all the vacuum lines and exposed gasket surfaces with starting fluid. If there is a leak the Idle will jump up, repeat to confirm. NOTE: have a fire extinguisher handy! you just may find some bad plug wires doing this test.
Thanks guys, wont be driving it today as we got over a foot of snow here in Reno, but I'll definitely check it out.
jrblack30 filled you in on the air leak check. I had a similar issue with a small block ford that turned out to be condensation in the cap. At lights/idle it would miss something awful and occasionally sputter and die but if I threw it in neutral and gave it some rpm this miss would go away. Ran down the road fine. A complete tune up and I could see the moisture. Didn't do it after that.
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