Hesitation issues - need help

racerdan80 said
You're on the right track, but the stalling surging and back firing got me curious. I have to wonder if your timing is really where you think it is. If the balancer is starting to slip, your marks are off and can only be verified by a piston stop and knowing where top dead center is. The stalling and surging has me wondering if there isn't crap getting stuck in your float needle and floating around in the bowls. I have heard of the chrome on the inside of carb bowls flaking off and plugging jets. Surging can also happen if the gas tank is not vented. Maybe some of the gurus will chime in with some other suggestions. For what it's worth, I run the same xe268h cam in my 350 and it's initial and total is 18/34.

On the timing issue, that's exactly what I'll be shooting for this weekend, and why I don't think I got it correct the other day. As for the stalling/surging, I did check the float needle the other day before getting into the electrical and it was clean. That said, I had this carb apart a few months ago after my secondary was blowing gas like a geyser and it had the exact issues you described, but pretty much concentrated to the secondary bowl. So I replaced that with a new one. I'm assuming that the primary bowl is going to eventually end up the same way, and would otherwise think it could be causing the problem, but I don't know if that makes sense because once it warms up everything seems to flow well, and the primary bowl had not yet started to flake when I had it apart. I do plan on returning the carb to Holley over the winter when I take the car off the road (there was a manufacturing defect concerning the bowl liners, and they will be sending a new one back).
Thanks for the timing numbers on yours!