I see I missed some replies over the last week or so I figured I’d update this a bit for those that were trying to help.
I walked away from this for a while to install my shaker hood and do the bodywork but tonight I decided to tinker a little more. For those wondering, There has never been any vacuum hoses connected and my initial timing was at 15 so I bumped it to 18 and overall it ran super really... except for the one idle screw that was still not functioning. My secondary’s at 1 turn out were rich enough that closing the primary idle screw would not kill it so I decided that I better have another look at the center carb and close up the secondaries a bit. I closed up the secondaries to 1/2 a turn out but there just wasn’t quite enough fuel to sustain a idle and the center carb didn’t provide enough fuel with the one operational idle screw so off it came again. The first thing I looked at was how much idle transfer slot was showing and it is literally picture perfect- until i opened the blades more and saw the one slot is not really a slot at the top, it almost looks like the side of the slot is broken out in a triangle shaped break. I don’t know if it’s a casting flaw or not but it gradually opens up to AT LEAST twice it’s normal width. This is on the side the idle screw does not function, so given that this problem exists and that the throttles blades weren’t even centered on the shaft, not allowing them to close initially, I think it’s time to give Holley a call and see if there is warranty on it. This carb appears to be a reject in quality control.
We’ll see how this goes...