That low first gear must really do wonders for helping getting things moving off the line. I bet it's making a lot of difference to your launch with those 3.23's. 3.23's with a 727 1st gear would be pretty weak in comparisin IMO.

For the thermoquad, member DEMONSIZZLER sells a divorced electric choke assy similar to what the newer edelbrock carbs run. It's adjustable and bolts to the carb, not the intake.

I find the thermoquad does deliver good mileage, however I've found it to give interesting results on the wideband o2. With the easily adjustable primary metering rod tree, it's not hard to tweak it to get your a/f's in the range you want them to be.

What kind of idle a/f's are you getting with your thermoquad? I've found mine loves to idle lean when the motor is up to temp.

FWIW I've got a megasquirt system nearly ready to go for mine as well. I really wanted to get it in the car this year, but between having R&R'd my motor for an overhaul and my transmission dying a slow death I just did not have the time to get around to it. I bought my stuff a couple years ago already, but at the time I bought a MS-2 and a prefabbed harness from diyautotune.com I could have made the harness myself, but with the prefabbed one basically you just have to attach your sensor connectors and run the wires to where you want them. Looks like it'll save a lot of time, mess and thinking.