80-Z28-350 Stalling When Hot
 

Just bought a project car - fixxer upper - father/son project. Took it out for our first ride, and it ran great for about 20 minutes, then it stalled. Parked in traffic at slow idle and it died. Restarted after cooling down for 10 mins, then died again. I repeated the run, stall, wait, restart process about 5 times to limp it home.

It has a newly rebuilt 350 (1980), Edelbrock Carb with electric choke, headers, new coil, distributor, wires, plugs, fuel pump, fuel filter, etc.

Definitley seems to be heat related - cuts out about 210 degrees, and when down to 190 it starts and runs fine till it creeps back up to 210.

I am not sure if the temp gauge is accurate. Is there a hi-temp cut-off? It doesn't seem to be a hard cut-off, but more like a stall - seems like a fuel supply problem.

Any ideas how to troubleshoot? Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

Re: 80-Z28-350 Stalling When Hot
 

No, it should keep running until it boils over.

First thing I'd do is make sure the idle mixture screws and idle speed are properly adjusted WHEN THE ENGINE IS FULLY WARMED UP. No use setting them on a cold engine- it won't be right once it warms up.

Then I'd put a phenolic spacer under the carb (thick gasket that prevents heat transfer). If you just have a thin paper gasket currently you can sometimes totally cure these types of problems with this type of gasket and nothing else.

Make sure your fuel line is not running close to the header tubes. Heat from the headers can cause the fuel to literally boil in the lines. Fuel pumps are not designed to pump vapor- only liquid fuel.

Beyond that I'd look at the ignition system. Coils and ignition modules can sometimes get "flaky" and it's often temperature related. Hit a certain temp and they jsut go bye-bye until things cool down again.

Re: 80-Z28-350 Stalling When Hot
 

Thanks for the info. I'll start with the list and work through it. I have heard several times now that fuel lines close to the headers can cause problems, and I have only a few inches gap on the feed to the fuel pump. I think I'll start there.

Thanks for the inso.