Recently I tried installing my new 123 Disty, and, so far, I haven't had success. I ended up putting my old disty back in, and I've got it running again, but it won't hold idle. I put my sychrometer on each stack and they are all reading around 20, which is way high.

Normally, if I have the carbs dialed in correctly, my air flow meter usually reads somewhere from around 5.5 to 7 or so. I've never seen the synchrometer register any where near that high....much less on both carbs. The car did sit non-running for about 6 weeks, so the only thing that immediately comes to mind is that the jets all need cleaning. I'm gonna address that over the weekend, but wondered if anyone here had any ideas as to what might cause the air flow reading to be so high? I only had the car at about 1500 RPM when I took the readings. The carbs are dual 40's, with 28's, and neither the venturis nor any jet sizes or settings have changed in the last 8 months or so.

Any suggestions in pointing me in the right direction would be appreciated. Thanks.

Did a throttle return spring break, or get disconnected somehow ??

I've got a Tangerine cable/pulley system installed. It seems to be functioning correctly, but I'll disconnect it tomorrow when I clean all the jets, and see how that affects the butterflies. Thanks for the feedback!

Confirm your throttle butterfly plates are fully closed and open 1/2 turn so the transition slots are not exposed. By-pass screws are closed at this time too. Tune as needed. Start your mixture screw at about 1- to 1/2 turns. Check you idea jets for debris if the screws are unresponsive.
At 1500 rpm you will be moving more air than 5-7 on the snail flowmeters and possible pulling from the transitions circuit too.

Is the car idling at 1500 or are you opening the throttle to keep it going ? At 1500 your snail is going to show you really pulling.

Also, your snail has a metering valve that may have changed. If the valve is more open, the register will be lower. If the valve is more closed the range will be higher. The base moves and exposes a hole below the hard plastic part of the snail.

Zach

Idle screws are at 1/2 turn in,...mixture screws at 1 turn out.....I haven't really changed those settings much. The 5-7 figure I used was when the car was running correctly at idle. Right now I can't get it to idle.

I am opening it to get it to 1500....can't get it to idle right now. I realize it should be higher than 7 when the butterflies are open, but 20 still seems way high. The carb filters also seem "wet"? for lack of a better term, like the filters might be getting some fuel mist on them. I haven't noticed that before. Hopefully I will get some time today or tomorrow to investigate a little more.

Going back to the beginning. Did it run and idle properly before the dizzy swap?

No. Car ran great with old dizzy, but had a felt rubbing block on the points. That felt piece fell off, which threw off the dwell gap. I installed a new set of points, with a traditional rubbing block and the car ran better, but I could never get it dialed back in 100%. That’s when I tried going to the 123. Now that I put the old one back in, I can’t get the car to idle, but it is running. The dwell is reading 48 which is in the ballpark.

So if it truly wasn’t running 100% I think you are one right track to make sure carbs are 100% clean

The felt wiper seems like a red herring. I’ve never seen an actual rub block made of felt. I have seen lots of felt wipers. The wiper coming off really shouldn’t have affected dwell or anything else either than over a long period of time that would cause a tiny bit more rub block wear.

As stated previously once you come off idle - you can’t judge flow rate by the snail. Flow is non linear as you start to come off idle. This is why EFI running individual throttle bodies is a PiTA to tune. Simple throttle position doesn’t do a great representation of flow just as the throttle begins to open and flow shoots up.

Clean carbs

Focus on basics, fuel, spark, compression, static timing set properly.

New plugs probably in order especially if it wasn’t running right to start. Bad plugs cause confusion.

Don't forget to double-check your valve clearances.

Problems with that will mask other issues...

--DD

Does your ‘snail’ have the base collar with the hole in it? The collar gets turned exposing the hole in the body to reduce the pulsing movement of the needle. When the hole is closed, the needle will read higher.