Divorced divorced choke?

[neirfin]

Wondering how important the divorced choke is on a 350 crate engine? I found a few pieces of thin bar metal, on top of the intake manifold near the spring below the carburetor... from what I could find the spring is the divorced choke?

Truck seems to run fine, but I don't know if these parts were disconnected previously or fell off over the years before I bought it. I was looking at replacing the intake manifold anyways, and some of the ones I was looking at don't have the spring piece or come with a plate to block it off. Does the divorced choke depend on the carburetor on the truck or is it something that is required for a good running engine? If i bought a new intake manifold, will I just use the plate to block off that spring?

In the pics the closeup are the parts I found on the manifold, the location is in the middle of the other pic, between the valve cover and the carb.