Damon

I didn't find much help online when I set about converting my wife's 92 RS from TBI to a 4bbl Holley carbureted intake as far as the throttle/tranny cables go, so I came up with a solution of my own. This is a decent, but not great, solution and I'll be looking for something better AND I WILL FIND IT. Suggestions/input on what I've done so far are requested.

Ground rules:

1. No changing of cables. Dead stock original equipment 1992 TBI throttle/tranny cables that came on the car. I'm cheap, and so are you- admit it!

2. Holley 4bbl carb. 4150/4160 style. Intake manifold in this case doesn't matter as the bracket bolts to the rear corner bolt of the carb.

3. Gotta have full thorttle opening from idle to WOT and the TV cable geometry must be reasonably correct to keep form burning out the trans.

4. I tried every damned bracket (factory and aftermarket) I could lay my hands on so far and none of them even came close. Maybe that's just my car or year of Camaro, but I mean not even CLOSE on any of them.

I won't try to describe this in too much detail, as a pictre is literally worth 1000 words in this case (pistures soon). The highlights are that it's a cheap Spectre $12 adjustable chrome throttle/kickdown cable bracket like has been around for a million years. It bolts the rear corner bolt of any Holley 4150/4160 carb. Yes, I know they're thin pot metal junk, and that's really my only concern about this setup. It will eventually bend and distort if you're heavy on the throttle like I am.

The basic procedure is this: Remove the Spectre throttle cable adjuster from it's normal slider position and put it back on the rear sliders used by the kick-down/TV cable adjuster. You'll have to drill a second hole in the throttle adjuster portion of the bracket so it's got adjustement bolt holes that are side-by-side instead of in a straight line, as they are out of the box. Set it about 1/4 of the way back from the front of the slider slots, as judged by where the bolts go through it. Bolt holes forward, throttle cable attachement point towards the rear.

The supplied Spectre TV/kickdown cable adjuster gets flipped backwards so that the attachement bolt holes are in front of where the bracket actually mates with the TV cable head, similar to the throttle cable adjuster's orientation.

Put the 2 attaching bolts through THE WHOLE ASSEMBLY. From the throttle cable adjuster, through the main support bracket and then through the bolt holes in the TV/kickdown cable adjuster on the bottom. Put the nuts on the bottom side and tighten down. Again, as a rough first adjustement, position the bolts so they are about 1/4 of the way back on the adjustement slots (mine ended up nearly all the way forward in their slots in the end).

You'll have to file off the little "tab" from the stock TV cable head that only allows it to fit in it's bracket one way (the "notch"). You need to turn the TV cable head 1/4 turn from it's normal orientation or the cable head will hit on the Spectre bracket and prevent it's insertion in the bracket. You'll want to pull the "d-button" adjuster on the TV cable head itself all the way or nearly all the way out for proper adjustement once installed.

Last was to check the orientation of the TV cable stud on the throttle arm to make sure it moved the TV cable with proper geometry preserved. Many will tell you that you need to get a special bracket or reposition the kickdown/TV cable stud for proper geometry. This is not true with this setup. The stock Holley kickdown stud location at the bottom of the throttle arm is absolutely perfect and has geometry that is nearly identical to what a factory QJet throttle arm had when used with a factory TV cable (700R-4 application, just like in an 83-86 QJet 4bbl 3rd gen). With this setup you get the correct 1-1/8" travel on the TV cable. I checked this geometry EXTENSIVELY vs. an original QJet that was used on 3rd gen f-body with 700R-4 trans. It's as close to dead-identical as you can get. I spent almost an hour comparing the two against eachother.

FYI- correct location for the throttle cable stud on the Holley carb's throttle arm in this scenario will be the small hole just below and to the rear of the BIG hole at the top of the Holley throttle arm. Now it's all gotta be adjusted correctly.....

That means:

1. The throttle cable has enough extension to allow the throttle to return completely to idle when you let off the pedal. Having a little slack in it (1/4" travel beyond the throttle stud before the throttle cable reaches full extension) is advisable. Check with the carb's throttle arm at dead-idle, obviously. Just make sure the throttle AT THE CARB isn't prevented from returning FULLY to idle when you let up on the pedal.

2. The throttle gets fully WIDE OPEN when you mat the pedal inside the car. Check and see. If it's too loose you won't get full throttle opening. If it gets to wide open too soon you'll spend the rest of the pedal's travel bending the cheap Spectre bracket like salt water taffy. You want it to just be at WOT on the carb with the pedal all the way to the carpet. It's a balancing act, but you'll get the hang of it pretty quick. Adjustement is by loosenign the 2 adjustement bolts on the Spectre bracket and sliding the adjuster forward/backward until conditions # 1 & #2 are correct.

Check #1 & #2 FIRST then do #3.......

3. Make sure that your TV cable get's within 1/8" of it's maximum travel when the throttle is wide open. That last 1/4" or so of travel in the TV cable is very tight, so make sure you disconnect the cable from the kickdown stud and pull hard against it so you KNOW were it actually runs out of travel. If you need to adjust it, do so with the stock "d-button" adjuster on the TV cable head itself, just like you would in a stock application. You will probably be near the limit of it's adjustement (fully extended) before you get it adjusted correctly.

That's it so far. More info to follow in the next few days along with (hopefully) pictures! I am not really satisfied with this setup completely, but it's functional and dirt-cheap. I also have an original 3rd gen L-69/700R-4 4bbl throttle cable bracket on order from the dealership- I'll let you know if that works any better than this setup when I get it. If anyone's found an easier/better way, I'm all ears!

Pablo

iTrader: (1)

i did something similar, mine is that same cheapo spectre thing that is all bent

i took the little bracket that unbolts and if i recall correctly i took off one of the halfs, turned around the other, and slid it all the way back.. im not sure if im remembering that right. Since i dont worry about TV cables it worked for me but its still very ****ty, the pedal throw is all wrong for the amount of throttle travel on the carb there is more throw than travel and ive been meaning to find a way to mount the cable further out on the throttle arm. As of now I have about an inch or so of play in the gas pedal before I actually am opening the throttle.

and yes, that bracket bends and distorts like its cool. Mine has bent and distorted in such a way that it works perfectly to get to WOT but not overstress the cable so im not too mad about it.

if that L69 kit works out for you let me know..

btw I run an edelbrock carb Im not sure if the distance from the butterfly axis is the same on edelbrock and holley but I would guess they were atleast close

Damon

Yeah, I know what you mean. Having used the Specre bracket before and knowing it's tendency to bend, I make sure that the throttle is just barely at WOT with the pedal all the way to the floor. Any more travel left in the pedal when the carb reaches WOT will just go stright to bending the heck outta the bracket.

Pablo- FYI, check the location of your throttle cable stud on the carb's throttle arm. If you put it where I put mine (described in the post. above), pedal travel will be reasonable, not like throwing an on/off switch when you press down on the gas a little. I know that Eddys are different on the throttle arm but maybe there's a hole that's further from the fulcrum point and will allow the throttle to open more slowly/gradually with pedal application. I'm not at all above drilling additional holes in the throttle arm when I need to! In this case, fortunately, it was not necessary with my Holley- the standard location worked just fine..

MrDude_1

lol. i did the same thing to my 82 camaro. same bracket.

matter of fact, im using the same flipped one on my 91 now.

88IROC350TPI

I've been using Holley's bracket for 3 years now with all the stock cables... Works perfectly fine for me. http://store.summitracing.com/partde...=HLY%2D20%2D95

The ONLY problem is the stock TPI throttle cable is too long and makes the pedal harder to push down (it doesn't bind or anything, gets full throttle, everythings fine). I've been meaning to replace the cable with one out of a carbed f-body one of these days.

Damon

88- you're the second person who has used that bracket successfully that I have heard from.

For whatever reason, it didn't even come close to working with my stock 1992 TBI throttle cable. I couldn't get past 1/2 throttle before the throttle cable ran out of travel. The attachment point was at least an inch too far forward to work with my throttle cable.

br()bert

I have the same cheap bracket, bought it from pepboys. I just got it adjusted so i get wot and the tv cable is correct. Im sure its gonna bend to hell soon though.

xpndbl3

iTrader: (5)

my holley bracket works ok with my 84 Z28 as well.

Damon

Xpndbl- your 84 was originally carbureted. I'm fairly sure the throttle cable was different on carbureted cars than it was on TBI cars. I have no doubt the Holley bracket bolted right on and worked well for you.

The one that's got me scratching my head is that other people who have apparently converted from TBI to carb seem to use that bracket successfully too, where I could not. I wonder if they changed the TBI throttle cable from the early (1987-ish) to the later (1992-ish) models.

Daz

iTrader: (1)

pictures?

Rancid87

I used the holley bracket when I converted my tbi car to carb. IT worked great!

NastyL98_T/A

part # for the holley parts to make it work?