Total loss of power! Crank/No-Start

[EbidaDragon]

So, my car finally decided to totally slip out on me a night ago. Warmed her up a little like usual in the parking lot at work before I left, pulled out onto the road, and under acceleration there, I got a sudden shudder,and poof, no power to the ground and a total stall-out. Was lucky enough to get it mostly into the safe median of the road, but it was 10PM, I forgot my flashlight and my sockets/tools at home, so I was at a majority loss.

Headlights were more than strong, cranked just fine, fans, radio, windows worked, but..not even an inkling to want to start for the 5 or 6 times I tried that night. I did have a can of carb cleaner with my backup fluids, and sprays of that would bring it to two or three second bout of vibrant life, but then dead all over again.

Got it towed to the shop my parents used to get the van worked on to see what it was(I guessed fuel pump/relay, but didn't have one on hand to try and replace/check myself), and I got a call this morning to say it was choke-related, and is going to cost me a pretty penny for something small and annoying like that. My question is about it being worth it to get that fixed now and having to worry about even -more- carb problems in the future, or biting the bullet now and just getting either a new carb or buying a Weber conversion.

[2oodoor]

I ran my car for months just fine with no choke... In the winter too! On the oem carb I completly removed the choke lnkage and fast idle diaphragm hardware. Put the screws back in that held that then wire tied the choke butterfly wide open. It started fine but on real cold mornings had to nurse it about 2 minutes then it wud idle fine.. With no mystery ghost throttle.

And, I will always recommend the weber conversion, always. Do it yourself though, a shop will double the cost with their silly 100$ an hour rate.

[EbidaDragon]

Well, I think I'm going to let them do this for now and just save for the Weber as well.
Might need help getting out the old and putting in the new, though, since I'm not paying shop costs for that. I'd much rather do it myself and know exactly how it works. The Keihin is just total :dunno:

I never had the ghost throttle or anything, it was just the lengthy times for warm up to proper idle in the winter and in cold weather in general.

My only symptom was the night before when it started to stutter in gear changes and act like it was going to die and not up-shift(lolAuto and all), but some extra throttle kept bringing it back to fine life. And, on Tuesday afternoon on the drive -to- work, it showed absolutely no issues! Was just a bundle of confusion.

[EbidaDragon]

Okay, well..small update.

Turns out I guess I was right in my first diagnosis from last night, as the mechanics just told me. Fuel pump is out, carb wasn't the problem. I guess working on the choke wasn't necessarily a bad idea, and it's done already, I guess, so it's just a new fuel pump and good once again.

Still, it might have been the choke that was carbon-fouling my spark plugs so quick, but I need to do more searching here to find out moreso what that might be. Still, aside from this, it will usually start on the first turn as it is, and I clean the plugs every few hundred miles as it is.