The 9342S already has a ported vacuum fitting for the vacuum advance. As I'd noted, most truck carbs do. There is no trick to rebuilding that carb; it's got just the bowl-vent solenoid which I explained in my post simply needs to be wired to 12V+ key-on. It is not an ELB/ESA carb nor is it an "emissions" or feedback unit. It's from a truck.
Monkeyed said:
I saw a couple of different sources saying that ported vacuum was just an early emissions band-aid, and all it does it make it difficult to get a good idle. not being contrarian, jusst something I saw.
Wherever you got that information,
never refer to it again. If it was a magazine, burn it and don't ever buy it again. If it was a website, delete the bookmark and never return. If it was a friend, don't ever ask him about anything car-related ever again. In fact, don't ride in his car. He may not know enough to recognize a bad ball joint.
Whomever said that doesn't even know how to connect it correctly. Either that, or they had such a poor-running engine that the carb's idle screw was turned in so far that it was no longer operating on the idle circuit. Vacuum advance is critical to good drivability and economy. The reason you don't see it on later vehicles that still used distributors is because the timing was controlled electronically. Rest assured, the computer was putting the spark in the same places a vacuum advance canister would. That can't be accomplished with mechanical advance alone.
It's not hard to be "really good" with ThermoQuads. The big secret is to just rebuild it per the kit instructions and follow one of the manuals I posted to get it in tune. There are baselines for the secondary air door, but for best operation it needs to be done on the car. Rebuilding the TQ is easy. Easy as any other carb except maybe a 4412 Holley, and much simpler than a QuadraJet. Afraid to tackle it? Ship it to me with a kit and floats and I'll do it for $75 + return shipping, including all the fine-tuning adjustments pointed out in the hyperlinks I posted, except setting up the secondary air door. Secondary air-door tension adjustment can only be done on
your engine; I can't help you there. A reman carb will not have any of those adjustments made since they leave that up to the end user. A "reman" is essentially a thrash rebuild with no tuning work done. I've pulled them apart to find the float level wasn't even set--the end user is expected to correct that since it's considered "tuning"--never mind that he has to crack the carb open (and void any warranty) to do it.
$75 to rebuild and tune it is essentially $50/hr for me. I'll take that kind of pay from anyone offering it. I have a carb soak tank and I'm not afraid to use it.
My suggestion is that you try to tackle this yourself. Carburetors are not some form of black magic but people absolutely freak out about ThermoQuads and QuadraJets, which are in my opinion the two best street carbs on the planet (in that order). They require basic hand tools and a little printed guidance, and you're good to go. Set aside a day when you can disassemble it in a set area, soak the components for an hour or two, and reassemble it all in the same day so parts don't get lost and you have the whole process fresh in your mind. Print out one of the tuning guides I posted and follow it to the letter. Bang! You're a ThermoQuad guru with the rest of them. Plus, you have the pride of saying you did it yourself and you saved yourself a ton of money in the process. At the very worst, you're no worse off than you were. Send me the box with all the parts, and a check, and I'll do the rebuild for the same price unless I have to source missing/damaged metering rods, screws, etc. I don't think it would come to that with just a little attention and care taken on your part.