Well the Cuda is now running good. Why???? Not exactly sure. After work I bought another fuel filter that was 20 micron. I removed my old filter and cut that in half. It showed no signs of any issues. No dirt nothing. Looked new. I went ahead and installed my new filter and tried cranking the car. At initial trials without starting it backfired thru the carb once and rammed the horn plate closed on the Demon. I opened that back up and with a few cranks started the car. Let it warm and reset the air fuel mixture screws. It now runs great.
I would like to think that it just had some dirt in the carb, from were I don't know, and running the carb dry of fuel then repriming freed the dirt plug. or....... I have a minor vacuum leak and it is now sealed, for now. I did tighten the carb mounting bolts a bit last night but saw no change at that time. Tightening when the car was at temp.
Drove the car for an hour or so. Runs like it should now.
I'll bet the lean backfire did it. Happy motoring!