Question for carb gurus

Im pretty good with jetting, power valves, squirters, air screws, float adj. and my truck runs good with no bogs or hesitation. My question is what causes a car to turn over without firing. It has a Holley 850DP #9380 and all MSD ignition components. It idles and drives great but it wont start up unless you hold the throttle halfway open. My dads truck has alot of the same parts and starts as soon as you touch the key. Not the biggest deal in the world but it be nice if it would fire up without touching the gas or at least quicker.

After the engine sits for awhile,check and see if the squirters are working when you work the accelerator. I'm not a carb guru,just a guess the fuel pump is leaking off.

I'd check to see if the floats are a little too high. After shutdown, a warm engine can heat the fuel in the bowls, causing expansion which can result in a slight flooding of the manifold. A flooded engine needs more air to fire off, so opening the throttle is required. Just one possibility.

I agree with the flooding idea and another area to check is to make sure you don't have a fuel filter that's mounted close to or on top of the engine. This gives you more fuel to boil and or simply expand from engine heat and that forces fuel past the needles, over fills the bowls and floods the engine.

I never thought about fuel boiling in filters and such that are mounted over the engine. Makes me wonder about fuel logs. I have not used a log yet but I will need one on the engine i'm putting together now.

What would be an alternative to a fuel log for feeding a 4500 carb? With the type of mud bogging(not mud racing) I do, heat usually is a problem, thats one reason we mount radiators and oil coolers in the beds.

I'd say that the best plan is to use the SMALLEST hose consistent with the amount of power that the engine is making. Said hose is generally much smaller than most people think would work and this will reduce the amount of fuel that can boil in a hot engine compartment. Split your fuel supply to go to each bowl away from the engine so that very little fuel is above the hot engine when it's running and I think it'll be better.

Somewhere on the internet I found a series of photos of Dick Trickle's old ASA car, race ready and sitting on the starting grid. The under hood shot showed a small fuel line that ran directly to the carburetor and didn't fool around. Back then they were just starting on that whole 9:1 compression engine deal and those run VERY hot with a ton of EGT. Maybe Dick was onto something.....

Can you rotate the engine then turn the ign. on? If you can give it three pumps, wait 5 sec hit the starter then hit the ign. I had a similar issue with E-85 hard to start when cold. Started doing this and it starts right up. Think camshaft has allot of overlap and the starter not fast enough all I know it works.