Thread: bone stock 350 upgrade questions

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I don't know whether it's bad kharma or what, but I have never had an electric choke that worked the way it was supposed to and I guess I was never smart enough to make it work properly.

Every carbureted vehicle I have owned for the past 40 years or so has had a manual choke on it. If it didn't have one when I bought the vehicle, it had one shortly after.

Universal choke cables and brackets are available at most any auto parts store. Just remove the electric gizmos and install the cable onto the choke lever. You can usually find a hole in the firewall to run the cable back to the dash. If not, half a minute with a drill motor will fix it. Be careful and check to see if there is a heater core or some other valuable item that you are about to drill through. A couple of times, I have gotten real fancy and installed a microswitch operated by the choke arm that lights a yellow or red light that I mount on the dash somewhere to remind me that the choke is applied. If you want to get real fancy, you can rig in a flasher that flashes the light while the choke is on, but that gets a little tiresome. The 12v microswitch, light and flasher are available either at the auto parts store or Radio Shack.

The part I like best about a manual choke is that it's up to you. You can have no choke, a little choke, more choke or max choke any time you want it, unlike an electric choke that only works on whether the actuating coil is warm or cold.

One last thought about your quest for a livelier truck. I forgot to mention that an aftermarket torque converter would be a nice addition. Anything up to about 2500 stall will be very streetable and you will really notice a difference in accelleration. Even the first stage 2000 stall converter will increase your grin factor. Fuel mileage will suffer and you'll want to install a good quality transmission cooler in front of the radiator, but you'll like the results.