Just mildly adjusting idle speed and idle mixture screws.. right now I think my idle speed is a tiny bit fast.. but I have the idle mixture screws out fairly far- 2 and a half turns I _think_. I just set them to the minimum turns out that the engine idled smoothly at. Real scientific I know. Any leaner and it seems to get really rough and/or stall out. Of course- I don't want to get too rich for a slow idle..

thats my problem. Any simple ideas?

Throw a few extra degrees of base timing into it, turn the idle down, and reset the idle mixture screws.

What type of carb? If its a holley you can tweak the idle a little bit by giving the secondary throttle screw a 1/4 turn or so. If you have a q-jet or edelbrock performer 2 turns out on the mixture screws is not much at all.

It's an edelbrock performer. Alright- good to hear that then. Guess I'll go play around with the screwdrivers some more.

I cant remember who I got this tip frombut it was fromthis board. He adjusted those carbs using a vacum guage to get the idle mixture set the best. I tried it and was amazed. He tuned for max vacum at idle triming back and forth between the screws Ill look and see if I can find the post with the info it works that well

I've always tuned for max vacuum as well. Have to also have a decent tach (low rpm tach is best) to reset the idle RPM after adjusting the mixture screws.

Really improves response at low throttle this way.

Found that post... here it is...

As far as the mixtrue screws.. I like to set mine right with a gauge.

You'll need a vac gauge. Lightly seat 1 screw, and slowly turn it out.. Your looking for the highest vac. reading. When you get the highest reading on that one, go to next one.. Do it the same way.. Now go back to the 1st one and trim it alittle and see if vac goes up. Then the next one, etc etc. You will need to keep re adjusting idel speed as you do this

Then myself once I get the highest vac reading, I like to trim each one in to get 10-25 rpm drop in idle speed.

I'd LOVE to do all that.. if I had a tach and a vacuum gauge. and no, I can't afford them. I can't even afford gas! I'll have to see if the school shop will let me in.

Yep always tune your IMS with a vac gauge.

You can rough in a non running combo or bad running combo with rounds out to get it to running half way right. Like 2.5 rounds out, but then go back with a vac gauge and slowy turn them in/out till you get max vac.

You can leave them at max vac.. That will be alittle on the rich side for idling though and even on a car that will pass emissions, that setting won't.

That's why I say trim them back looking at a low rpm tach. I use the digital one built into my timing light. Then dail em' back to get a slight drop 10-25 rpm per side. At this sitting you'll pass emissions if you did before, and you'll have the best throttle responce, and much better idle

Thanks again guys- new summer semester started and I managed to work my way into the shop for tuning- Turned out just by feel I had the engine at ~18 vac, 6 deg. timin and 1000 rpm!

So, settled down the idle speed, tuned it up and double checked the timing and away I went, golden.

So.. Much.. Fun to drive!