Holley Issues

cphase wrote: You can check your needle/seat by inverting the bowl, covering the fuel transfer tube hole(on the primary bowl this is the tube that allows fuel to get to the secondary bowl) and blow into the fuel inlet fitting. It should not let any air through. Do the same for the secondary bowl except blow into the fuel transfer tube opening. Make sense? What is the list number for the carb?

Yep I tried that, moving the floats towards the top of both bowls and they stopped allowing air through, completely.

Not sure about the number, guess its stamped on the carb?

I'm having the same problem, even after rebuild, gas was everywhere. Had to cut down the gasket between the carb body and throttle plate body due to it bowing (bought the expensive kit from Nautique dealer). Then I adjusted the floats, which took care of the dripping gas after cut off. However; I leaned the secondaries too much and couldn't get WOT of 4400 rpm on my 260 hp 351. After re-adjusting the secondaries it ran great for a couple of times. Also checked all ignition connections and cleaned them, put di-electric grease on them, changed plug wires....everything worked better. Today, went out-I skied my buddy, thought I felt a slight miss at speed, but everything was fine. I skied, not problems. We rested a few minutes, he went again, gave it gas to pull him out and it almost died. Let it recover and gave gas again and pulled him out. About a quarter mile down river I felt it missing ever so often, but it pulled him fine. I began to ski, went through 1 pass and he called for cutting the engine. He said it was missing really bad. Later, called my buddy at the Nautique dealer and he's going to talk to his mechanics and see what they say. I'm guessing either the secondaries weren't opening (would only go to 3000 rpm which indicates a secondary problem), or I'm still too lean on the secondaries-and maybe primaries. I didn't use anything to measure with except by sight comparing gaps before and after. From this forum and PN it seems that a lot of carbs are having problems this year.

Just got through talking to the Nautique service tech who is the specialist on fuel systems. He told me they set the primary floats level with the bowl when inverted. The secondaries are higher. The other thing to check is the blue foam bowl gaskets especially on the secondary side where the plate is with the funny looking silver screws. The foam gaskets compress, so you tighten the screws. Wait a couple of minutes, tighten again. Do this about 3 times. Same when you torque the bowls back on...although I haven't had issues with mine leaking.

This should solve your leaking problems. I had to call holley with the carb number in order to make sure I got the right carb kit. Mine is a 79005-2. Summit sold me two wrong kits, one was my fault. Now I know the correct re-build kit for it.

Tech also told me that normally the idle mixture screws are run out to 1 3/4 turns to 2 turns. Every once in a while, they might go 2.5 turns.

I had the same thing with my power valve having two gaskets stuck together. That was when gas was coming out of the carb everywhere. Put one back on, torqued the valve to 3.5ft lbs (which is like 40 inch lbs, shaved the gasket sides (the one you referred to as being the wrong gasket), and it hasn't leaked like that since.

cphase wrote: gR@HaM wrote: Not sure about the number, guess its stamped on the carb? Should be on the air horn.

Thanks Jeff, here it is:

..and yes I need yet another bowl gasket!!!

So the plan is to have a go at bending the float down and reassemble with replacement o-rings on the connecting tube

According to what the Nautique tech told me, your primary looks right.

Ok thanks, that could come in useful.. altough mine has no choke!

I made some real progress today
Decided to leave the float position as it is for the time being, but I noticed that the main air bleeds on both primaries were completely blocked!
Managed to clean them out, fitted new o-rings on that pipe in the metering block and put it back together. After plenty of cranking it fired up and now idles without flooding the engine from the boosters!! Also no more dripping once the engine has been shut off

What would be the recommended idle for my engine?
Adjusting the idle speed screw (leaving primary throttle plates very slightly open) the lowest I can get it to idle at is 1000rpm that seems a bit high to me??

And your going to need to do it in the water in gear Graham

Gary S wrote: And your going to need to do it in the water in gear Graham

Hi Gary, does it really need to be under load to set the idle?
I really was hoping to be able to do this before eventually getting it out on the water.
I currently have no prop shaft so can put it in gear on trailer without load..

Graham,
Singingskier is right.
The dripping is stopped so you now you can fine tune everything.
Check your timing and see where it's at. If It's too high, you might not be able to get the idle any lower. Adjust your idle mixture screws and the idle setting. All three adjustments work together and all three may need some tweaking to get right.
Go ahead and set them up on the trailer unloaded to get the general idea on how to set them and how all three adjustments work together. Then take it to the lake and reset everything again in gear, idling on the water.

I read on another post that a guy used a vacuum gauge to set up his idle mixture. So, I used the PCV tube going into the starboard valve cover as my vacuum source. I started by tightening each idle mixture screw until it was lightly seated, then backed each one out 1.5 turns. Started the engine, let it warm up and adjusted each screw until I had the highest vacuum. Idles like a dream.

What SNobsessed said is right and is what I was trying to communicate. The vacuum hose coming out of the carb base port to the valve cover. My vacuum hose terminates with the PCV valve at the valve cover.

Oops pretty sure I meant to type 10 but shall double check if it stops raining tomorrow.
I bought a new balancer and engraved the marking to match that of the original one as the replacement is a lefty