low power when hot?

Alright, Had some time to work in the garage today and changed the plugs, and a quick oil change now that I've put a few road miles on it. Here are the old plugs, cylinder #1 is on the bottom of the picture. The heat riser seems to be in operation however, when I was checking it, there was some pretty hot air puffing at my hand (and its a tad loud but I have never heard another slant run in person and my jeep has a few holes in the exhaust so I really don't have a good reference) so I suspect that there's a leak down there that's heating the carb even when the riser is shut. Is there a slightly easier way to tighten things up without taking the intake off and stuff?

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