78 ramcharger and it's starting hard for my step father. We had the edelbrock 600 carb all rebuilt, added new high torque starter, all new plugs, wires, and it's still starting hard. It has a manual choke on it and you have to let the truck crank over quite a few time before it will start. Any ideas what causeing the hard starting. It runs great once it's started.
Thanks for any help

Here are a few things to check.

1. make sure you have a minimum 4-5 psi of fuel pressure.
2. when the carb was rebuilt, do you know if they installed a new excellerator pump in the carb as well as a new pump spring? This will cause serious issues with hard starting. This not only brings fuel into the carb it helps maintain it in the bowl. If the pump is wore out, or if the diagphram is bad, it will leak down causing a hard starting condition.

I hope this helps.

That's great help, I'll go out and get a fuel pressure qauge for it tonight and make sure. I'll call the guy that rebuilt the carb and ask if he changed those out when he rebuilt it.
Thanks

What's the timing set at?

I'd check the fuel line and filter too. Leaky/weepy fuel lines have caused me all sorts of problems.

My totally restored '73 was hard starting, and it continued to get worse until one day at the barber shop, it wouldn't start. It turned over normally, but wouldn't fire.

A guy in a diesel Ram with dual batteries gave me a jump, but it took a whole lot of cranking before it finally fired. Though the rebuilt one on the truck was nearly new, I decided to try changing starters. I installed a new mini-starter from a Dakota and it fired immediately. A year later, it fires the first time, and every time I touch the starter. The best $120 investment I ever made.

Your results may vary.......

is the fel boiling in the carb when it shuts off and evaporates...then yo have to fill the bowl then it will start...used to happen on my eddie 750 all the time...so I bought a holley and its fixed...

Never did care for the manual choke carbs very much. They start when it's warm, but not so easily when it's cold and you actually need it.

Make sure the choke air door is not fully closed. It needs to be open about the thickness of a paper clip.

I agree with the possible boiling...when u go to start it, before u do,look down the carb and give it few pumps with the lever and see if fuel is going in or it just pumps a little and goes dry...u have to start there...if it is, add a spacer to lift it off the mani...to stop the heat from boiling the fuel bowl...

next time you go to start it 1st take off the air cleaner, hold the choke where it is & pump the throttle several times and see what you have for AP shot (amt/duration) then let go of the choke & see where it closes at. A ballpark figure on auto choke setting, it should be lightly closed @70F.

The AFB's on my Hemi dry out in no time. That's my guess as to whats happening here.

Sheldon

All too common problem with Edelbrock carbs. Best fix is buy a Holley.

Very common with an eddy or a carter. Bowls evaporate or dry out after sitting for a while.

I was having major problems with a 318 and hard starting. Nitrous suggested carbon buildup on the intake manifold. Removed cleaned and fixed. I have a thermoquad on it.

I spent all kinds of money on carb rebuild, choke repairs, timing, coil etc. The carbon build up was not allowing the exhaust to flow properly.

I'm wondering how the carbon buildup was causing it to start hard? I could see it causing poor warmup if the head crossover is plugged. My heat riser passages are plugged (stock dd 318) which is killing my gas mileage but it does start flawlessly (eddie 1406 600). The more info the better as I'm lost on this particular prob & if it wasn't so cold I'd ride my bike, it's that bad .

first thing is to trouble shoot the problem and determine if the hard starting is caused by no spark, weak spark, no fuel, or to much fuel.