Originally Posted by slowmotion
Thanks for the advice. We'll give it a try. We kinda thought it was lean but like I said the headers and car are black like it's fat. That's what was throwing us off.
One other thing the headers are too big for the car, but that's what came with the car.
You probably have several issues going on at once.
Just because it's lean at idle and when you nail it doesn't mean it's not pig fat when it's on the main venturi.
Tune one part of the carb at a time.
Idle = Good idle quality
Squirters/Pump Shot/Pump Cam = transition from the idle circuit to the main circuit. Too little can cause lean hesitation or in bad situations, backfiring. Too much will cause it to blow black/blue out the pipes when you hit the go peddle.
You can call it being methodical, or just lack of experience... either way, it takes me about 6-8 hours to fine tune a carb if I do it on the street.
I will disconnect the secondary linkages, and concentrate on the primary side. When it's done, hook them back up and start tuning more on the secondaries.
Without isolating and tuning each side of the carb separately, you can chase yourself all day long.
I'm assuming you're footbraking this? Have you ever tried a T-brake and 2-step? Can you ease it up on the two step, then floor it and get a clean 2-step out of it, or does it pop/bang while on the 2-step?