Can anybody tell me why people pull the choke and choke plate off a ford 2 barrel carb? Is it for any certain reason and what good or harm does it do?? Friend has one on his truck , its cold natured when first started but after it warms up no problems. Just want to know...Jim
a choke makes it easy to start a cold motor. it runs rich till the choke is open. the choke plate on top of the carb is slightly restrictive to air flow. people remove them to get more air or easyer air flow into the carb wich should result in more power.
Test it on the engine dyno and you will find that you lose a couple of HP with the choke removed. That plate when completely open helps direct air into the venturiis. The choke eliminates cold start and cold running problems when they are adjusted correctly. Some people really mess up the air flow by cutting the air horn off completely.
I've never done it on a 2 barrel carb But I had a holley 4 barrel that the choke horn and everything was milled off and machined and looked "factory" without it there and it ran great. lots better than the otherwise identical one i had that still had the entire choke
Andysutt, I have heard lots of stories like yours but I have never seen a carb with a milled choke housing make more HP on a dyno than one with the choke and housing in place. There is a lot of things that can be modified to assist in making up for the missing choke housing but air flow is always lower than with the housing in place. Its the same when you run without an air filter in place.
I believe you, but I do know my truck ran better w/ the air cleaner on and w/ the carb w/ no choke horn. I don't know why, but it did. The jets, metering blocks, bowls and floats, etc were all the same. Actually the same ones swapped onto each carb. Guess it's just one of the weird things that happens occasionally.
In this case, I think it is likely that someone didn't understand how a choke operates and did not know how to fix a problem with it. Thus their solution was to remove it completely.
Not trying to argue at all, but curious as to why they make the "Holley" carbs these days w/ no horn from the factory, if you are indeed correct.
In my boy's case it was a manual choke that closed during a run. He thought that there was some serious problem until we got it figured out. We removed it soon after that and life is good. Of course I live in Arizona and the cars are warmed up without even starting them here!