Hi all. if you viewed my story in "holden garage", you would recall me saying that to save time n money, to rectify my problem with my 186 blowing copious amounts of blue smoke i was going to change my motor for another similarly modded 186. This was the easiest way out cause i had this other motor ready without having to spend,build etc. I'll try to cut along story short here-. i changed my existing inlet manifold to a Cain with a 350 holley to replace the single barrel strommy. after changing it{remember the motor was a chain smoker}, i neglected{forgot} to reconnect the vacuum line from the trimatic vacuum modulator. another point here is i intended to change to a powerglide auto when i swapped the donk. and i only wanted to ensure the holley was worthy of installing on the replacement motor cause it was of unknown quality to me. well....after tuning the holley and running it as well as i could{car is unreg} i noticed the exhaust smoke decreasing slowly and surely to a point where it wasnt noticable at all,even with revving it to 5300,{reckon it has a few more revs but this was no load revving and i dont thrash my cars,often}. yeah, i was totally baffled by this. it was magic,like crossing your fingers and hoping that that 8th pot would magically start firing again!! anyway, after all this i noticed that there was this SPARE hose hanging freely behind the rocker cover.WOT THE?????. im not the sharpest tool, mechanically wise, in the shed i will admit, so i had a look in my SOMETIMES usefull Gregory's manual for placement of this hose.in the manual is states various symptons of problems with a F@@### vacuum modulator,and u guessed it, A SMOKING EXHAUST is one of the signs!, so i changed the modulator for a new one a mate happened to have ,and no more smoke!!!!. now the problem could have been with my strommy all along,but i seriously doubt it.looking on the bright side-all i have to do now is change the TRAUMATIC auto to the powerglide and be happy.Anyone able to blow this theory out of the water? surely this is the cause?! So from what i have experienced here is that this COULD possibly be a saviour from a re-ring job,certainly worth a look first.

One idea I use and is ideal for the novice or forgetfull is when I do an engine swap I put a strip of masking tape around some of the wires and small hoses with what they are written on them before disconnecting them , this has saved me a few times when w

Cloudy-good advice specially if changing ancillaries that differ,so ive discovered.cheers for the common sense wake up call!
Byron-i take it that the pressure from auto sends fluid through a s#@# modulator into inlet manifold where its burnt or unburnt,

Rab,

A 350 Holley is not the best carby for a Holden 6....However, about 58 or 59 main jets are usually fine in a 350 for a 186. The Power Valve depends on your cam...match the number to the vacuum you have.

Make sure you have the float level set ri

Hi Rab,

Not at all mate...as I said at the beginning of the post, a 350 Holley is not a good carb for a Holden 6.

One other thing that I forgot was to check your accelerator pump linkage. With the motor off, you should be able to JUST move the throt

Hi Fellas, Bolted the ww2 on today-wouldnt run,tipping fuel into carb top would let it start and promptly die,{thought it was slow in picking up the fuel from the line} discovered no stream of fuel from the squirters-took the fuel pump arm out of the midd