vacuum gauge to solve idle issue

With the butterfly valves on the top of the secondaries on the Carter/Edelbrock carbs, you cannot over carb - they will draw only what they need, no more - they act like vacuum secondaries...

Have you looked closely at the transfer slots??? If it happens with the choke on, then smooths out when it kicks down, you may be into the transfer slots... Check them and spray and blow them out with cleaner and compressed air...

Also make sure that the air bleeds are not blocked...


When you sprayed the WD-40 on the idle screws and the idle smoothed out, reminds me of the days when they changed the head gasket on the 2.0 L engine from composite to MLS....

The composite gasket was more tolerant of tool marks on the head face of the block and head. When they changed to the multi layered steel gasket, if the tool marks would get too rough, they would fill the long block air test loop with rejects and back up the line. So they would soak the head gaskets with oil to fill the gaps on the mating face(s) and they would pass the air test and get the line running again. Meanwhile they could go the block or head line to adjust the head face mill cutter for a better finish and get the improved parts into the system...