Clouds of smoke

[Gregtx]

Hooked my PCV back up and no smoke now, although I suspect it's running really lean at this point. In the morning I'll try bringing the float level back up gradually.

[Ranchero50]

Yep.

In the end you should be able to scoop the exhaust and smell it and it will be slightly stronger vs. a newer catted car.

Somewhere along the line you'll need to tune the choke circuit too so it's not too rich once warmed up. Kind of a PITA to get it right but worth the aggravation in the end.

[Gregtx]

Thankfully this carb has the ability to tune all throughout the choke circuit, so that's a definite future priority.

Thank you so much for all the help! The lesson learned here is that the manufacturer recommendations are just that, recommendations and not hard and fast rules. 6psi on the regulator and the floats half way up the sight glass was just too much for my setup despite Holley's insistence that I just had an air bleed problem.

[Gregtx]

Just a quick update on this. I think I finally may have solved the issue. A bad voltage regulator and/or bad voltage regulator connector appeared to have been causing a weak spark condition. I replaced the voltage regulator and cleaned (and tightened) the connector and, viola, the idle screws became FAR more responsive. I then went ahead and reset the carb back to it's factory setting and followed the standard Holley procedure of setting the idle mix with a vacuum gauge and I was FINALLY able to get the idle mix set correctly. Little to no smoking when it's warm and idling! I've got my floats where they should be now and the fuel pressure is steady at 5psi. I'll probably do a bit of further, finer tuning as time goes on, but I'm very pleased that the problem seems to be finally solved.

With the bad regulator in there, I was getting 12.5 volts at the block when running. With the new regulator in there, I'm seeing 14.5v.