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.

[Husker]

Looks like you have an Edelbrock Carb and it has an Electric choke. Just stay with that . If its running Good just leave it. Does it get cold where you are at?
Ron

[neirfin]

Ah ok so the black part with wires coming off it controls the choke...? Yes it gets cold enough to snow but only barely, and only for a few weeks a year. We usually see lows of 35 Fahrenheit on average. Think that's cold enough to make a difference?

Thanks!

[nickp51chevy]

I'd keep the electric choke. There no need to mess with something that works.

[In The Ten Ring]

If it's not broken don't fix it.

My dad's truck didn't start very easily or was slow to warm up. He put a manual choke on it using the cigarette lighter delete. Pull choke, start, and go.

WV gets a wee bit colder than CA though. Tends to snow a bit more and vehicles rust more for some strange reason.

[Mike_The_Grad]

Those small rods are how the thermostatic spring element nestled in the intake manifold actuate the choke plate on factory equipped carbs.
As the others before me have stated, you have an electric choke setup. Which is an improvement over the factory setup. It looks like whoever installed the carb just left the old divorced choke setup in place. Personally I would remove it, just to have around incase you ever had an issue with the electric choke. ( which is very rare.)

I kept my original quadrajet on my '72 C10 with the O.E. Cast iron Intake on my engine. It was a PITA to maintain because of the age of the parts. It had a constant vacuum leak due to the exhaust crossover passage in the factory manifold being erroded away. I scored an Edlebrock Performer Aluminum Intake on Craigslist for $60. Lighter,newer, improved design, and had a spreadbore mounting flange for my factory Quadrajet.

The downside was that the factory divorced choke setup wouldn't crossover to Edlebrock's intake design. So I had to buy a new divorced choke setup and the rod in order to have my choke function correctly. Cost me almost $50 for the right setup from Edlebrock. But it was worth it considering the price I paid for the intake, had I not been able to find a spreadbore intake that cheap, I would have upgraded my carb as well as the intake and gone with an electric choke setup (which is always an option in the future.)

Unless you are set on keeping the factory intake, I highly recommend an aluminum intake. Shaving at least 20 pounds off your engine and frontend is worth it, let alone the potential power gains from an aluminum intake. Having a square bore carb means you have more options as far as choices of manufacturers and performance increases.

It was a no brainer for me.

[mike16]

since you have a choke, an electric choke, and it works; keep it. but if it gives you any problems, go for a manual choke.

ensure that you have good grounds between the intake and the bloke, and the bloke and the frame and also the body

[CCCC]

Seems like I have every possible variation of choke on the Chev/GM engines here and it gets plenty cold at 8,000 ft., so need for them to work well. The OEM divorced setup is fine as long as the linkage is clean/correct that the thermostatic spring has life. If not, I go to a manually operated setup - simplest and best - although I have three trucks that came with electric choke on Edelbrock or Carter AFB and they have been good so far.

[neirfin]

Originally Posted by Mike_The_Grad

Unless you are set on keeping the factory intake, I highly recommend an aluminum intake. Shaving at least 20 pounds off your engine and frontend is worth it, let alone the potential power gains from an aluminum intake. Having a square bore carb means you have more options as far as choices of manufacturers and performance increases.

It was a no brainer for me.

I am definetly wanting to change the intake, but am not sure which one I should get, since it looks like there are differences between them... I guess I have to take the carb off to see what it looks like before choosing? I think I had found someone saying the edelbrock 7101 but I really don't know enough about the differences, or if the fact that I have a 350 targetmaster crate engine will change that.

[neirfin]

Originally Posted by mike16

since you have a choke, an electric choke, and it works; keep it. but if it gives you any problems, go for a manual choke.

ensure that you have good grounds between the intake and the bloke, and the bloke and the frame and also the body

I'm definetly going to clean up the wiring, it looks like they just threw it on, and since they left extra parts just rattling around on top of the engine...

[geezer#99]

Get the 7101.
It has a square bore flange you need for your square bore carb.
A 2101 is a spreadbore intake that requires an adaptor for your carb to work without any vacuum leaks.

[El Dorado Jim]

go to summit's website and get the edelbrock performer airgap aluminum manifold for the square bore carb you have....I am running that intake and the edelbrock carb with electric choke....runs awesome on my new gm crate 350.....says the airgap is not for street use, but no one checks and they perform better than the standard performer intakes....I also run the 1" spacer between the carb and manifold...make sure you follow the instructions on installing the manifold, you use silicone on the ends of the manifold to seal it, not the gaskets that come in the package.and you only torque the bolts to around 20 ft lbs

[neirfin]

Originally Posted by El Dorado Jim

go to summit's website and get the edelbrock performer airgap aluminum manifold for the square bore carb you have....I am running that intake and the edelbrock carb with electric choke....runs awesome on my new gm crate 350.....says the airgap is not for street use, but no one checks and they perform better than the standard performer intakes....I also run the 1" spacer between the carb and manifold...make sure you follow the instructions on installing the manifold, you use silicone on the ends of the manifold to seal it, not the gaskets that come in the package.and you only torque the bolts to around 20 ft lbs

I'll check that out for sure, thanks for the info! I'm not sure but there may already be a spacer between the carb and manifold, not sure if its 1" but I'll check when I take it apart soon.

[geezer#99]

Originally Posted by neirfin

I'll check that out for sure, thanks for the info! I'm not sure but there may already be a spacer between the carb and manifold, not sure if its 1" but I'll check when I take it apart soon.

If there is a spacer it's just a spreadbore to squarebore adaptor. Not usefull for a heat spacer on a square bore intake.
You'll need a better spacer made from wood or phenolic resin.