Bought a 68 vert red/black int. with NOM BB 3x2 and Hooker side pipes 2.5 years ago. Carbs were leaking, front caliper leaking, several loose ends, didn't run that great but price was good, as was the paint and interior. Got sidetracked by a relocation, other cars, projects, family etc., went back and forth but finally made some headway.

Rebuilt the carbs, created some problems of my own ( bent a float and misaligned power value gasket) Was having a substantial amount of air flow at idle at the outboard carb, even thought the linkage was in the closed position. Chased all these issues for a while and really struggled with the outer carbs. Finally loosened the throttle plate screws, and holding the carb to a strong light, wiggled the throttle plates to minimize the light showing. The throttle plates have opposite bevels on the edges to get a tighter fit. Some of the idle bleed passages in the outer carbs were clogged as well.

I have read many times on the forum that most carb problems are ignition related. I did have carb problems but ignition as well. Replaced wires and plugs, Dist. had a pointless set up and no vacuum advance. When I added the vacuum advance it hit the firewall. I have also read many times a dist. cant be "a notch" off , but in this case I removed the dist, and moved it so the vac. advance was in more stock position, which also gave the tach cable a better bend. The vacuum advance plate wouldn't move because the pointless set up had a long screw that was binding it, so I replaced it with a shorter screw.

Changed the advance weights so I was all in at 2800 RPM's. Had to close up the advance slot because I was getting too much mechanical advance. Set the initial timing to 24 degrees. Am only getting 9 degrees mechanical so I need to open the slot more. Getting 15 degrees vac advance so I will limit that some.

At this point I need to fine tune the timing and work on the the outer carbs deployment.

How did I measure my progress? I was at 2000 RPM in first in the driveway (long one) and gave it a half throttle blip and the rear tires broke loose!

Many many thanks to all on the forum for their help.

 

Progress is good-always.
You stated 24* initial? Does it start OK? Usually 10-14* is plenty with a 36* top at 3000.

 

If your vacuum advance is actually hitting the firewall you need to do some wire relocating and get the vacuum advance pointing at the 2:30 o'clock position where it belongs.

Your initial advance should be 8 degrees with the vacuum advance disconnected but up to 12 degrees is okay. More than 12 degrees of advance will cause hard cranking.