General summary of all that is still wrong: After timing and carb adjustments, I still can't get it to run right. The idle remains rough and intense, exhaust either gurgles on the decel or gives a single pop under light throttle let offs, bogs when accelerating but no longer stutters as it did when the HEI module was suspected.
On the carb side of things, with both a vacuum gauge on manifold vacuum and an exterior RPM analyzer, there is no change in either instrument as I play with the a/f mixture screws, it runs the same whether the screws are 3 turns out or 5 (concerning). The idle also walks significantly from 700-1000 rpm randomly, making adjusting the carb rather difficult (bad mechanical advance springs?) Even when holding a constant throttle while driving, rpm will fluctuate over a 300 rpm some odd interval. I was at some point able to hold 20+ on the vacuum gauge so I don't think there is a vacuum leak.
On the timing side of things, I noticed that when I disconnect my vacuum advance there is no change in rpm or roughness, bad canister? I was able to disable the ESC by jumping the black and green wires but at idle the timing on the balancer was still some 60+ BTDC. I could retard the timing by increasing the idle up until about 14 degrees BTDC. But at that point the motor was really struggling and loud metal taps/clicks really concerned me. Before this I roughly checked where TDC was without a dial indicator and was ~16-20 degrees more retarded than the cut groove. Being that the balancer is a 3-bolt, maybe when it wasn't installed correctly which would put it 60 degrees off. Really don't know how to approach this, might just have to take it in but any help is appreciated. Thanks
