OK.. so when my neighbor came over to help me the other day, he noticed that the rubber ring on the harmonic balancer was bulged a little bit in one spot.. he thinks the outer ring may have slipped a bit.. which would make trying to set the timing almost impossible. So today, I rotated the crank until the TDC mark lined up with the timing cover mark for '0'.. and pulled the #1 plug. I put a dowel in the plug hole, and slowly rotated the crank by hand to see if the TDC indicator on the balancer was "true" .. it seems off by about 5 degrees. So I put some timing tape on the balancer, at the "new" TDC mark. I also got that Edelbrock plate that was referenced above, and put that in between the carb and intake (with new gaskets). I also got a vacuum gauge to help me try to set my idle mixtures....
It seems like I should be able to get the engine to idle at around 800-900 rpms, right? I can't get it to idle (and stay running) at less than 1100 or close to 1200... there's gotta be something else going on.. I just have no $#@#$%@%^%$^"ing idea what.
