Fast idle cam on carb

[sam03v]

I've got a 1980 D-150 w/ a 225 stock motor, manual transmission. All of the emissions control stuff has been removed including the cat. It runs okay , but seems to miss or stumble between 45-55mph. Few questions:

1. The single bbl carb(Holley) is missing the set screw for the fast idle cam adjustment. So the cam is just hanging there, doing nothing. Could this be the problem?

2.When I push the gas pedal to the floor it does not open the throttle all the way. I tried adjusting the cable at the carb and it just made the engine run like crapolla. It took me all day(and one fuel pump and filter later) to realize that making that adjustment was a mistake. I put the cable back to where it was and the engine was running okay again. But...The gas pedal is barely off the floor so I'm wondering if the cable should be replaced with a universal cable or something. I'm surpised the cable adjustment made such a big difference, it seemed like all i did was take the slack out of the pedal travel. Any suggestions?

3. What should the timing be for this engine. The sticker is gone under the hood. When I put the timing light on it was at ~18 BTDC, I set it to about 8 BTDC, but I don't know what it should be.

Thanks for reading

[Speed Dragon]

Try setting the timing to 12 and see how it does. The cable thing is weird, it wasn't holding the throttle blade open after you adjusted it was it? It could be the wrong cable, if it's that much too long. However adjusting that shouldn't have any effect on it running, unless it's holding the throttle open. The fast idle cam doesn't have anything to do w/ it either. My guess would be that you need a carb rebuild and set the timing to proper specs.

[sam03v]

Maybe it is the cable, but wasn't holding the throttle blade open as far as I could tell.

There is another bracket on the engine that looks like it used to be part of an automatic transmission kick down setup. It's not being used for anything, but maybe there used to be an auto trans (now its a 4spd manual) and they used the same throttle cable for the manual transmission when it should have been switched out? Would there be two different cables for different transmissions?

The carb is fairly new so I hope I don't need to do a rebuild, but I'll look into the price of a kit.

thanks.