Mine do not need a choke. Two or three pumps cold and it fires up.
Some "tuners" change the accellerator pump check valve for a smaller orifice.
I remember during my initial "tuning" I had them reduced down to a .5. I ran out of time and light that day and put the car away for the night. The next day when I went to start it cold, it wouldn't fire. It seems that I had reduced the pump shot down too much.
The pumps are "heavy" as supplied new. I think they are stock with either 2.0 or 1.5's? If you leave them stock, you don't need a choke to cold start the engine.
Lots of these details had to be learned by me the hard way. NO ONE knew these details OR just wouldn't share them in '77 or '78 when I was crazy enough to do this on my own. I did have the help of Jim Inglese though. He "leant" me all the fuel jets and air jets I needed with the understanding that when I got the tune right I would only share the information with him.
It seems that the Clevelands are from a different "Universe" then the 289's and 427's are and I was the test mule. There were some like Kleinpeter that had the information but to most back then that was all proprietary information and kept under lock and key in a safe.