So the snail won the drag race...

Well guys, here's where I'm at. Vacuum advance unit is good. Put a vacuum gauge on it, holds 18in of vacuum without any leakage. With my timing and my light set both to zero, full advancement on the distrubutor's vacuum advance brought the balancer around almost all the way back to zero again. Set the timing to 5* BTDC and set the carb. Now 19" of vacuum at 750rpms in park. Took her out for a drive and already noticed an improvement. And a rather large one at that. I know there's more to be had out of this motor, so now I'll be checking into the rest of the things mentioned.

The heat riser though, is something I'll question. Is it a bi-metallic spring that controls the flapper? Reason I ask is this: When cold, it stays closed both idling and when applying throttle. When warm, it's closed at idle still however it now opens (though kinda sticky) with a blip of the throttle. Normal operation here correct?

Next areas I'll be visiting will be the exhaust, in which the whole system is still pretty much spotless from when it was put on. Since cash is on the tighter side, I may just cut the cat out and replace it with a piece of straight pipe and some clamps.

If I stab the gas from a standing stop, the car has a delayed response. Kind of like it has to catch up with itself. Accelerator pump set to maximum aggressiveness already as well. Again I'll reference the idea of drilling out the idle transfer slots...good idea or not?