Hey Guys,

I've got a 84 Camaro that my buddy and I have been fixing up and the carb on it is just the stock 2bbl carb that has a slew of vacuum lines. The kid that owned the car before just butchered the lines and we can't make heads or tails of it.

What I want to know is there a Holley 2bbl carb I can put on that 2.8l that will bolt to the stock intake and not be computer controlled?

Thanks
Disjaukifa

 

Not really. I know that's not what you wanted to hear, but there it is.

Your carb, I think, is an inline 2bbl. It says Rochester Vari-Jet on it I believe? Anyway, they are really expensive and not really that good!

Now, if I were you, here is the route I would take. First, hit the wrecking yard and look for the S-10 trucks and Isuzu Rodeos in the yards. I would be looking for the aluminum 2bbl TBI intake manifold from the 2.8 or 3.1 available V6 engines. It will bolt to your engine just fine. The 4.3 V6 intake will NOT fit.

Next, take your 2bbl Holley carb, and get yourself the proper gasket from the auto parts store. Now, lay that gasket on your junkyard intake and see how close it is to the factory TBI mount pattern. It should be close enough for you to modify it to fit.

Take a sharpie marker, and color in the four bolt holes and the two butterfly holes onto the intake top. Remove the gasket and then drill and tap the holes for your bolts and grind out the butterfly holes to match.

When I did it, I did not use a holley 2bbl. I used a Rochester Dual-Jet carb, from a 3.8 Buick V6 from about 1979 or so. It worked fine in the S-10 hahahaah!

Anyway, you should be able to make nearly any 2bbl carb work on your junkyard intake. Its cheaper than buying an aftermarket 4bbl intake, and if you mess it up, you can either weld it, or scrap it.

Good luck!

 

I actually have the Edelbrock intake for this 2.8L engine, won it on eBay last week for basically nothing, just didn't want to have to get a Holley 8007 390cfm carb from the get go and also it wouldn't fit under my hood . . . at least that is what I read somewhere.

I know a junkyard where I can get intakes on the cheap, so what model Holley and what cfm rating would you recommend running on a 2.8l?

Thanks
Disjaukifa

 

I personally wouldn't recommend a Holley; in carburetor world I stick with GM stuff mostly. If you cruise the wrecking yards hard enough, you can find the old two barrels from the V6 engines of the late 70's and early 80's, and usually find something close. Since I don't do Holley, I couldn't really recommend a model.

As far as cfm goes, 400-ish should be fine. It doesn't really matter, because you can get yourself a jet kit and start tuning it to your engine once you have it running. You can pretty well bet that you'll be jetting down no matter what carb you buy or find.

 

any idea if that will improve power? the new intake ur talking about...

 

It seems to me that either that Edelbrock OR that GM TBI intake from the S10 will be better than the original carb intake. The ports certainly look better on the TBI intake than the old, early 80's carb intake.

You should probably gasket match it to the intake gaskets too.

 

Thanks for the tips. I have the old carbed intake and an old rochester vari-jet carb non computer and it does not want to run good. It has been rebuilt twice. I never thought of drilling and tapping new holes for a carb on a tbi intake.

 

I may not be the original poster but if my next attempt to get the bird running right does not help then I will try this. It can't hurt as I have all but the tbi intake.

 

I think you will be pleasantly surprised if you get that swap done. The last carb I used was a Dual Jet that looks like a Quadrajet with no secondaries. You may even be able to get one cheap off of ebay.

The reason I use the OEM GM stuff is that the linkage seems to have most of the hookups in a proper manner to bolt on. Not too much cusomizing needed.

Good luck!

 

I have put feelers out for an intake. I am not ready to go to the salvage yard yet because I have other things I am doing for the car at the moment. But it will not be to long and I will be ready to go to the salvage yard if need be. If I do I will post pics and results.
I have been thinking about the dual jet carb for just the reason you mentioned. I am debating between this and a holley 2 barrel as I am much more familiar with holley's. The dual jet carb is probably the easier to find and hook up and I have had some training on rebuilding a quadrajet. Most of that knowledge would cross over to the dual jet.

 

There were a couple of early 80's holley 2-brl feedback carbs: 6510 and 6520. Apparently used on Chevettes and Omnis/Horizons.

 

So what happened? I'm going to try this, except I'm using a 2 jet on the TBI intake. I'm concerned about hood clearance issues.

 

This hood clearance will not be too bad.

Use a tape measure and go from the bottom of your factory intake where it seals to the block and then up to the top of the upper plenum.

Then, just do the same measurement on the bench with your TBI intake while the carb is just sitting on top and your air cleaner sitting on top of that.

If the numbers are close, you should have a winner.

Let us know the results.

Good luck!

 

I'll keep you posted, but it may be a week or two before I get started as I working on replacing the frontend right now. I got tired of sawing the wheel! The TBI intake is very tall. It's a good 1/2" or more taller than the performer intake.

 

I'm betting that you can cut down the mount flange on that intake pretty far if you want to. Since you have to re-drill the mount flange for your carb anyway, it shouldn't be a big deal. I bet a machine shop wouldn't charge too much to just mill it down.

 

Yes but you would need to relocate the heater hose bib, and theres the egr at the rear as well.

 

I grabbed a carburetor off an '84 S10 - it's a direct swap onto the '82-84 V6 F-Bodies. And it's not computer controlled! I also grabbed the distributor so I can pull the whole computer harness out.

 

That's a great tip!

 

If you have an auto tranny, you'll also need to provide some means of locking up the torque converter clutch.

If you're in an emissions inspection area, CC is your only legal choice (actually, it's you're only legal choice if you live in the 50 United States).

 

In NY any car over 26 years old is exempt from all emissions tests, both "sniffer", and visual inspections. I'm unsure about other states. Better check your local DMV laws to be sure.

As to the torque converter clutch, I forgot as I am installing a 5-speed. You could simply use a toggle switch located on the dash (or anywhere) to engage it.

 

So if I understand this correctly, the feedback carb is needed for locking up the torque converter clutch. My tranny friend said something about not being able to using a toggle switch on my tranny due to it being a 92' model?

 

You could use a toggle switch if you wanted to.

 

If you are still running the original ECM, it will run the lock up torque converter based on RPM, gear selection, and other factors. The feedback part of the carb shouldn't affect what the ECM does with the lockup, unless there is a throttle position sensor on your old carb, which I don't think there is.

Anyway, there are neat little kits for running a 700R4 lockup with a toggle switch available from most speed shops, like Jeg's or Summit. I think B&M made the one I saw. It won't be hard to do yourself, but you need the wiring schematic for the 92 Camaro that the trans came from so that you know what to plug into what wire. I believe of the wires going to the transmission, you have one that controls the lockup converter, one that tells the ECM if the trans is in 3rd gear and one that tells the ECM if the trans is in 4th gear. Obviously if the converter is controlled with a toggle switch, you won't care if the ECM sees a gear at all.

Your friend probably thinks you can't do it because the old, early 80's transmission just had the one wire going to the lockup converter by itself and the plug in your trans has 4 wires.

 

That's test & inspection. Doesn't change the legality.

 

Well since the 200C is a lock up tranny as well, I would think that it might have a similar plug.

 

Not to try and create aan argument here but ive7kid is right. In my state even though much is not actually checked the actual laws say that all emmissions must be working and have a catalytic converter if originally equipped. They do not check for this but does not change the laws.
Yes I have swapped to a carb. No it is not legal by the laws but inspection is not a problem.

 

Hey KrisW, when you did the 2bbl on a TBI intake in your S-10, what air clear did you use?






Thanks

David

 

I used the factory GM air cleaner bottom (the dual jet carb has a funky top flange, like the front half of a quadrajet), cut the sides off, and ran the factory black lid with an open element filter.

You may want to modify the factory GM bottom for your carb to use a "drop down" style air filter, or buy the aftermarket drop air cleaner, cut the flange out and just weld in your factory flange.

The S-10 has a lot better underhood clearance than a firebird does. You can stack the factory TBI intake, TBI and a tall air cleaner all under there with room to spare. I don't think the TBI and intake with NO air cleaner will fit under my firebird hood. I'm not sure though...

 

Well, if all goes well, I'll find out soon enough. If I measured right, it will fit, but just barely. I'm using a 2 jet off of a 77 Buick 3.8, it's gonna be fun swapping the throttle brackets from the passenger side to the drivers. I'm wondering if it would be easier just to use S-10 brackets?


David

 

Well, maybe.

I like to use the GM brackets that go with the carb being used. That 2 jet should have had two hookups, one for the throttle and then another for the TV cable on the TH250 or TH350 that was backing it up.

Those brackets would keep your cables at the right relationship to the new/old carburetor. I would hook up the cables to the carb, snapped into the old brackets, then extend the old brackets with some flat stock to an appropriate bolt hole to keep it secured.

On your TBI intake, you probably will need to tag the LH rear mount bolt for the carb and then extend downward to the intake bolt to keep it stable since it will be hanging out in the air.

 

All four mounts are on the pad. It is a small bolt pattern. I did have to twist it a little bit to get it where all four are on the pad, but that's what a die grinder is for! It's the same carb that was used on the early to mid 70's 305's, 350's. I used the brackets on another car. Might just go out and get some more. I know I'll have enough throttle cable, not too sure about the kick-down. Might need to get one for a different app, like the one that the carb came off of. My luck with swaps like these is that they turn into a can of worms with no fishing rod!

 

Remember, the car that the carb came off of used a "kickdown cable" but not your car! Your car needs that TV cable to tell the transmission when to shift. The old 250 and 350 transmissions shifted up with vacuum and "kicked down" with the cable.

Once you get a bracket where you can hook it all up, you need to adjust that TV cable properly. I am sure there are directions in our forums somewhere if you search, and I have also gotten them from the bowtie overdrives site as well. Not having the TV adjusted right will burn up your transmission.

Good work so far!

We need some pictures!

 

Ask and you shall receive! You can see that I had to grind a lot of metal out of the middle to give a smooth transition into the intake. The butterflies are closer together than the throttle body's. I haven't had a chance to clean up the carb yet. I might mount it backwards if it will be easier. Then I would just swap the throttle cable with the TV cable to make it work. We'll see when I get there....

 

Here's a few more...I will have a 63 year old ASE master tech giving me a hand.


Also I've been shown how to adjust those TV cables. After I got a dish, I got much better reception!

 

Well done!

You'll probably need to jet that carb down a bit after you get it running. Or, if you add headers and a good flowing exhaust maybe it will be good to go!

Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks! Being that it came off of a 3.8, I figure it won't be too far off, and yes I'm going to make some exhaust changes as well. After this however the tranny comes next. We're going to start on the swap tomorrow err today rather. I'll keep you posted....

 

I like these low buck swaps! Those old rochester carbs are some of the most reliable carbs ever.

 

That's why I'm going this route. There's not a lot to them, so very little to go bad. Plus it's super fast to change the jets in one. I figure it should run just as well if not better than it does now, just with much better mileage!

 

Maybe not better mileage, but I bet a bit more power anyway...

 

I really believe that the solenoid that controls the fuel mixture (jetting) is stuck wide open in my present carb. I mean come on 10 mpg? If I can use that same type of carb on a 72' Chevy C-10 with a 250 6cyl with 3.72 gears and bring up the mileage to 17 mpg from 12 mpg, I would think that I should be able to bring this up as well. That's the whole reason for doing this swap. My Javelin gets better mileage!

 

KrisW, You were right about adding power! It feels like a completely different car. It runs soo much better that it's not even funny! Before when you tired to accelerate from a stop, it would just make noise and make you want to get out and push. Kind of like when your timing is way retarded (which it wasn't). Now it lifts up the front of the car and goes! I'm still working on what I'm going to do about a air cleaner. I'd show you some pictures, but the weather here has gotten very windy and cold, so it will have to wait for a nicer day.

 

I still think you should buy a CHEAP drop base chrome air cleaner, and then cut the center out of your old air cleaner lid that fits that carb and weld the center in it. Then you'll have a drop base 2bbl air cleaner.

Glad to hear she's running strong! Be careful looking at oil pressure on that car. Those early 2.8 engines had real problems with the oiling. It didn't really get fixed 100% until the 1987 engines came out. When you look up parts for those engines, every year was different from 1980-86 in regards to the crank, bearings and block. By 87 it was good to go and the 87-up engines will easily go over 200k miles.

More power now means more possibility to hurt it hahaahha.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/14-Air-Clean...item2eac3ee013

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AIR-CLEANER-...item1e69a41623

You should be able to run the above parts for the bottom, without welding, and then just use a normal 70's or 80's GM flat lid with a stock element.

 

Thanks Kris for the link. I have a idea in mind and if the weather is good tomorrow I'll give it a try. I'll get some photos as well.


David

 

Noticed someone mentioned the lockup plug in a 3-4spd conversion so incase anyone is interested, I just did a 2.8/th200 to a 3.4/700r4 conversion in my 82 FB using the newer serp setup with the 2.8 intake/carb and all of the 82 wiring. The 82 lockup plug is the same and is only missing the 3rd gear identifier wire for the ECM. It is a direct plug in and does not require any modifications to work with the 82 ECM. Been driving the car for a few weeks now with no issues or differences in drivability. Previously I had the combo in my 88 Camaro that's getting an LS1 swap. Personally I think the 3.4 likes the carb more than the MPFI. With a stage 2 shift, kevlar band, and Corvette servo in the 700 I get 2nd gear rubber in D.
I'd like to try this other intake/carb mod, maybe if I keep the car.