Last night a buddy and I took 2 B-bodies to the dragstrip. Both were 383‘s with Edelbrock AVS2 carburetors. One was a stick car and one was an automatic. Both cars are reasonable “street builds“. Nothing too radical, basic cam intake carburetors and the stick car has aluminum heads. 3.91 gears in the auto and 3.23 in the stick; both sure grip. Converter in the auto is a TCI that is supposed to be around 3000 stall. Both of these cars are flawless on the street. They both run super smooth from idle through red line with great power and “light switch“ response off idle. On the strip it is a different story.

Both cars would launch on the green light but then fall flat on their face, even to the point of stalling occasionally. My automatic car almost stalled and I had to feather the throttle and struggle to keep it lit. I ended up launching with it hard up against the converter and then going to about three-quarter throttle and progressively going to for throttle in order to get a semi-decent pass.

Both carbs are at Edelbrock jetting with no change to spring tension.

We are going back in order to try and dial this in and get these things to launch well. One thing I want to look at next time out is the spring tension on the secondary flapper. Any other ideas would be welcome.

-MHZ