Hard starting conundrum

[cadillac_al]

I was going to say if you are going to keep the old PCV system, at least use those pretty old style valve covers. I doubt the PCV is the problem. The problem is that carb is never going to start as reliably as a Qjet carb. It is probable going to have a little personality that you will eventually get used to. If it sits 30 minutes it might take 2 pumps of the gas and fire right up. A lot of vehicles start funny when they are between hot and cold. I little tweaking of the timing is sure to improve things and is worth experimenting with. If you can access the idle mixture screws they may need some tweaking too.