Budget racing the old nuts & bolts

It was making some lifter/rocker noise at first and we pulled the valve covers and turn it over and it seemed okay so we noticed it was starting to quiet down and started it a third time with the covers back on and try to get it tuned in a little bit. It started surprisingly quick I filled the carburetor with some gas which was yet another wild card. So I got a little time to tune it in a bit and figured that the sending unit on the new manifold was not the same as the one on the old manifold so that was showing pretty hot when it wasn't on my heat gun. But eventually it did start wanting to overheat but I could tell when I give it gas the bottom hose was sucking itself closed so that's the obvious place I'm going to start first. The transmission worked flawlessly I almost broke my arm off pating myself on the back and how well that turned out let alone all the people that I thought about right away who helped me right here on the forum, big thank you!
no leaks! Well except the damn oil drain plug witch I'll fix on the first oil change.
took friend for first test drive and seemed good. Let cool off and then give wife ride and opened it up a little - we were pleased. Much more quiet. But absolutely NOT quite. Easy, way to easy- it's it shifts so well I can't even believe it. I got to say the trans I rebuilt has made me the happiest.