Carburator prob.

I have a 1976 Landau LTD series and it has a 460 V-8 engine on it. The car originaly had all four ports open to have a four barrel carburator on top but sometime ago two of the ports were closed.When a new carburator is installed we still have to get a four barrel but it doesn't run on full.When the car starts it smells heavy with gas fumes and it leaked out of the intake line and it started a fire not to long ago.Now it had an adjustment made to it that hid the real problem of it starting at all as a temp fix.I'm thinking is the two ports that were closed off by the previous owner causing the problem? Or does it not affect that at all and only reduces the amount of gas it uses?

Sounds like the float wasn't set right, or is sunk in the new carb. The ports you're talking about being closed, are they on top? The flap on the front is for the choke, and it should close and open automatically, the flap on the rear is for air intake when the secondaries are opened during wide open throttle.