Gregski:
Sorry I'm so slow with this. You're moving fast and I've been busy.
Two notes on what I saw in my catching up:
1) Hook up a PCV valve on one side and a breather on the other. Two reasons. First reason: with nothing to pull all of the blow-by out of the crankcase, a lot of it sits in there, just a smoky, sooty environment, and when you turn off the engine, it condenses/settles in your crankcase and under your valve covers. This is where a lot of engine sludge comes from. Second reason: when the engine warms up, it pushes air out the breathers, and when it cools down, it pulls air back. Sometimes that air being pulled back in is humid air. Which condenses in your oil. Which puts water where oil wants to be. With PVC, the carb pulls the blow-by out, therefore no sludge, and it also pulls out the condensation the next time the oil warms up and the water evaporates. If you ever rebuilt an engine with 100,000 miles, the difference between whether it had PCV or not is not subtle. One is pretty clean internally, and the other is absolutely filthy. Looks like somebody dumped a couple pounds of crap in there. And with internal rust as well.
2) Looks like you have the vacuum advance hooked to timed vacuum, up on the side of the carb. That's pollution nonsense. I remember when it was introduced in 1968 together with AIR pumps and cats and all. The previous 30 years vac advance was always connected to full manifold vacuum. So hook the vac advance to full manifold vacuum. It's down underneath in the front by the PCV port (see Fig 7 on Page 7 of your carb instructions here:
http://documents.holley.com/199r10331rev2.pdf). This will give you advance at idle (which you should have), and will allow a leaner mix at idle and keep the carb in the idle circuit at idle. You THINK it idles nice now. Move the advance line and you will see how good it can be.
Nice progress. Jeez, I turn around, do a consulting assignment or two, and you are way down the road.