I need some help! I have a 71 mustang with a 302. The engine starts fine and I can rev it up when it's in park but when I put it in gear and give it some gas it dies. I just bought it last weekend so I haven't done much tinkering around with it yet. It's got a Torker intake, headers, 750 cfm Edelbrock carb (1407). I read it could be the accelerator pump so I checked that tonight and it seems to be squirting gas just fine. I'm not a genius when it comes to engines, especially carbs, but I know a little. I would appreciate any tips or ideas on what I can do to get my ride drivable.

 

If it stalls when you put it in gear, maybe the idle is too low. Do you have a tach? What RPM is it at idle?

 

that's a very very odd combination:
a 302 with torker intake and a 750cfm carb. was that for mild drag racing or something? single plenum intake with massively oversized carb will not make for good strretability. any info about the rest of the engine? camshaft?

how did you bring it home when you bought it?
anyway, tx65coupe is right if it dies when you put it into gear it just could be the idle too low, however it sounds like you can put it into gear, just when you drive off it dies.
a) would it hobble forward when you just realease the brakes?
b) accellerator pump: switch engine off, remove airfilter, open the top choke butterflies (primary side of carb, towards front of engine) if you need to (in case the engine is cold and they are closed), then agitate the thottle linkage. do you see petrol spraying in the front of the carb? both sides?
c) is the issue any different warm/cold
d) have you adjusted the timing in the car? do you have a timing gun?
e) is the choke butterfly fully open when warm

 

I agree that intake and carb setup is not a good combination for drivability.

 

Does it still have a points/condensor setup in it?

I had a car once that would start and idle just fine, but when you droped in into Drive, or tried feeding it the gas in Drive, it would die.

Turned out it had a bad condensor in the distributor. It would work fine for the light spark load of idling, but when you put any load on it, the spark would just stop.

Took a while to track that one down.

 

Yes, the carb and intake will be changed in the future. The guy I bought it from bought from a widow whose husband owned the car and she didn't know much about the car. The guy I bought it from didn't do much to it and had to sell it due to health issues. Wish I knew more about the history of it.

No tach but it idles pretty high in park. Checked the timing tonight and seemed fine.

It's a manual choke, accelerator pump seems to be working fine.

I had to trailer it to get it home.

Stanger53, sounds just like my problem. I'll have to check that too.

 

It idles high but stalls when put in gear?? Sounds like a vacuum leak

 

On second thought the timing might be off. I need to do some more checking.

 

not sure if it dies in gear on in gear when accellerating. but yes. worth checking out. especially if you can't get it to idle low

 

Yes, it dies in gear when accelerating.