Car wont idle after the choke comes off.

[chgohr]

Hey Cliff, I am new here. I have a 76 Trans Am 400 with a quadrajet. The car runs nice until the choke comes off. I can hold my hand over the air horn and it runs perfect. Major vacuum leak i figure. I changed the base gasket,the carb was a little loose ,de carboned the base plate,checked all the vacuum ports one by one by plugging them,cleaned the egr valve and squirted liquid all around the throttle shaft and base plate. I can  buy a rebuilt carb but hate being a parts changer. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Ian

[Cliff Ruggles]

Did you try to richen up the idle with the mixture screws?

The carb is simply too lean at idle speed, and the engine wants/needs more fuel.

At a minimum, I would completely rebuild the carb with one of our kits, to get it working correctly and up to par for modern fuel....Cliff